If you look back over the last three years of this site, Topps high end and I have never been BFFs. In just about every example, Topps high end products have fallen on their face, mainly because they have never taken the time to do the things that everyone wants in a high end product. They have never attempted to get on card signatures, the designs are usually horrid, and many times, the sets rely on gimmicks instead of legitimate themes and content. In fact, I only have to hint at a mention of Topps Paradigm, and people get that cold shiver down the back of their neck. Yes, it was that bad.
Hopefully, come february of next year, all will be forgiven with the release of the highly anticipated Five Star Football. It is the first super high end release of its kind from Topps since Paradigm, and I do not think we will be getting a repeat performance of past failures based on what has been previewed. In order to generate the well deserved hype this product is getting, Topps has been slowly leaking cards through twitter and facebook so that everyone sees just what Five Star has to offer.
Many have said that the product itself begs a comparison to past Exquisite products, and I don’t think that is accidental on the part of the marketing team. Exquisite is and always will be the top of the product mountain, though this product may come close if it lives up to the high expectations everyone has. Panini continues to promote National Treasures as its final product of the year through their blog, but I don’t think the buzz is half of what it is for Five Star. The reason centers around the content itself, mainly that National Treasures costs the same, but only has a handful of hard signed cards, all rookies and no vets/HOFers.
When you also factor in that last year’s set was one of the worst super high end products in history, Panini’s fan base dwindles even further with each of the previews that Topps posts. Values on 2009 National Treasures tend to favor the lack of competency as well, as its rare to see any of the cards outside of the main patch hits maintain any value. In a discussion last night on Twitter, I mentioned that people are starting to catch on when it comes to the way Panini designs their sets, and the visibility is growing by the day. No one likes cards that look like someone forgot to attach the sticker, and no one likes busy messes that are hard on the eyes. 2009 National Treasures is the epitome of this. To think that NT is the pinnacle of Panini’s release calendar, its shocking that they continue to treat it like they do Rookies and Stars or Gridiron Gear. Upper Deck always spent so much time on Exquisite that it was rare for someone to be disappointed with the final product. Personally, I think Panini’s laziness and lack of effort comes through more now than it ever has, and National Treasures is a casualty.
Here is a little of what I am talking about:
Colossal, but NOT Colossal Jersey Swatch-a-thon
Completely Busy, Over-paralleled Mess-a-thon
Straight Out of Donruss Threads-a-thon
Ridiculous Lines and Shapes-a-thon
Someone Forgot the Sticker-a-thon
2009 Rookies and National Treasures-a-thon
The Five Star cards are so well done, in fact, that I have already received a number of emails talking about people saving up well in advance for the singles. When you see some of the examples that have already been posted, its not hard to see that the product of the year award is Topps’ to lose.
Funny enough, I think the most amazing part of the set that we have seen is the crazy inscriptions that Topps has commissioned. Whether its Favre signing “Iron Man”, Chad Ochocinco signing “Child Please,” or Darrelle Revis signing “Welcome to Revis Island”, its obvious that Topps knew what they were doing. Upper Deck has long done inscriptions in many of their high end sets, but we really havent seen fan favorite ones like this before.
Bottom line, if you havent gotten excited yet, check your pulse. You may be dead. Here is an updated gallery of cards, ill continue to post as Topps makes them available.
Whats the S.R.P on a pack these Adam, and are there redemptions as well?
MSRP is $400 from the releases, and we wont know about redemptions until go live.
Holy crap these looks awesome.
Will their be sticker autos as well?
Five Star is all on card signatures.
I am saving up for these singles as well. This set looks so good and well designed. All on card autos is a winner in my book. Overall, I am looking forward to the single cards on ebay.
What they also got right was getting a lot of players who have strong followings amongst collectors. There are a lot of guys who are just filler for other products, Revis isn’t one of them. Nor is Vincent Jackson, who has an awesome signature now that we actually get to see one…
As a person who has virtually every Darren Woodson card ever produced, I can certainly appreciate when a company takes the time to get some of these star players to put pen to card for the 1st time, possibly ever, in some cases. I think we’re going to see some astronomical bidding wars on some of these between PC player collectors…
Another thing I noticed looking at the checklist for these is that the only rookies in the set appear to just be Rookie Premiere guys. On one hand, this means that when Joe Nobody becomes League MVP in a few years, he’ll be missing a super high-end RC. But on the other hand, it means that someone’s super-duper 1/1 case hit probably won’t be of some John Broussard/Bobby Sippio “never had a chance” type player, the way it can be with National Treasures. So maybe people won’t spend $400 on a box and get a $17 return on the singles they don’t need.
Anyway, I’m just glad that there only appears to be maybe two or three Chicago Bear cards in this set, so I don’t have to be as sad about not being able to afford singles from this.
The simple auto cards are awesome, like the Favre and Eli Manning, but after reading all your posts over the past year I cannot believe you like those ugly-ass 3 circle patch booklets like that Clinton Portis 1/1. I feel like I want to stick my fingers in them and go bowling.