2011 Topps Finest Football/Topps Platinum Football
What I pulled--
Finest:
Refractors – Kendall Hunter, Shane Vereen, Knowshon Moreno, Jamie Harper, Larry Fitzgerald
Xfractors – Sidney Rice (#392/399), Ryan Williams (#374/399)
Finest Moments – Jerod Mayo, Adrian Peterson, Thomas Jones
Finest Atomic Rookies – Leonard Hankerson, Jamie Harper
Finest Atomic Rookies Gold Superior – Christian Ponder (#31/50)
Rookie Autograph Patch – Tondon Doss white patch (#339/599)
Rookie Autograph Jumbo Jersey Refractor – Edmond Gates (#11/25)
Platinum:
Emerald Parallels – Tony Romo, Antonio Gates
Ruby Parallel – Sam Bradford
Platinum Die-Cut – Blaine Gabbert
Chrome Rookie Refractors – Blaine Gabbert, Da’Quan Bowers, Mikel Leshoure, Nick Fariley, Randall Cobb, DeMarco Murray,
Ryan Kerrigan, Edmond Gates, Marcell Dareus, Tondon Doss, Alex Green
Chrome Rookie Xfractors – Taiwan Jones, Leonard Hankerson, Jake Locker, Austin Pettis, Shane Vereen
Green Rookie Refractor – Stevan Ridley (#348/499)
Rookie Refractor Autographs – Niles Paul (#993/1450), Terrance Toliver (#493/1000)
Rookie Jumbo Patch Blue Refractor Autograph – Bilal Powell (#35/75)
Review:
Given the similarities between these two products, I am going to combine the reviews into one.
And that is a good thing, I think, because there is a pretty decent sized gulf between them.
Let’s start with the product I like less, Topps Platinum. When I reviewed the baseball version of
Platinum, I found a lot to not like. I thought the Chrome cards, dedicated to rookies, were great. I
thought ht base cards were uninspired and felt cheap. Frankly, this is a carbon copy of that
product. My critique is identical. I love the rookie Chrome cards, hate the veteran base ones. In a
product like this, I’d prefer all of one or the other. With a name like Platinum, make it feel like
something special.
As far as the cards go, I would have like numbering on the die-cut and Xfractors, even if it was a
higher number. The die-cuts, especially, should have a number on them, because they do feel
and look special. The lack of serial number takes away from that.
The hits are nice, but skew heavily towards lesser draft picks (as football has a tendency to do,
given the nature of the game). The one-per-box patch card, however, is gorgeous…even if the guy
I pulled has been inactive for every game so far this season.
The deficiencies in Platinum, though, are in stark contrast to Finest, which is annually one of the products I wait excitedly to
see. This year’s design isn’t as eye-grabbing as some past ones, but still works, nonetheless. At the outset, I had a hard time
figuring out which were regular cards and which were potentially colored refractors, but saw the differences after a while. To
me, these should be easy to determine immediately, but that’s just me.
In this case, as we all know, all of the cards use the Chrome technology, and the cards just feel more special because of it.
The inserts are great, the insert parallels are appropriately numbered. The autos, as with Platinum, skew towards rookies, but
the patches that are part of the auto sets really make the cards feel like a little more than your standard rookie auto, and I’m
happy all of the autos get that treatment.
So, two similar products, two very different outcomes. Given a choice to buy one or the other, to me, it is an easy one to
make........................
Platinum: B-
Finest: A-
What I pulled--
Finest:
Refractors – Kendall Hunter, Shane Vereen, Knowshon Moreno, Jamie Harper, Larry Fitzgerald
Xfractors – Sidney Rice (#392/399), Ryan Williams (#374/399)
Finest Moments – Jerod Mayo, Adrian Peterson, Thomas Jones
Finest Atomic Rookies – Leonard Hankerson, Jamie Harper
Finest Atomic Rookies Gold Superior – Christian Ponder (#31/50)
Rookie Autograph Patch – Tondon Doss white patch (#339/599)
Rookie Autograph Jumbo Jersey Refractor – Edmond Gates (#11/25)
Platinum:
Emerald Parallels – Tony Romo, Antonio Gates
Ruby Parallel – Sam Bradford
Platinum Die-Cut – Blaine Gabbert
Chrome Rookie Refractors – Blaine Gabbert, Da’Quan Bowers, Mikel Leshoure, Nick Fariley, Randall Cobb, DeMarco Murray,
Ryan Kerrigan, Edmond Gates, Marcell Dareus, Tondon Doss, Alex Green
Chrome Rookie Xfractors – Taiwan Jones, Leonard Hankerson, Jake Locker, Austin Pettis, Shane Vereen
Green Rookie Refractor – Stevan Ridley (#348/499)
Rookie Refractor Autographs – Niles Paul (#993/1450), Terrance Toliver (#493/1000)
Rookie Jumbo Patch Blue Refractor Autograph – Bilal Powell (#35/75)
Review:
Given the similarities between these two products, I am going to combine the reviews into one.
And that is a good thing, I think, because there is a pretty decent sized gulf between them.
Let’s start with the product I like less, Topps Platinum. When I reviewed the baseball version of
Platinum, I found a lot to not like. I thought the Chrome cards, dedicated to rookies, were great. I
thought ht base cards were uninspired and felt cheap. Frankly, this is a carbon copy of that
product. My critique is identical. I love the rookie Chrome cards, hate the veteran base ones. In a
product like this, I’d prefer all of one or the other. With a name like Platinum, make it feel like
something special.
As far as the cards go, I would have like numbering on the die-cut and Xfractors, even if it was a
higher number. The die-cuts, especially, should have a number on them, because they do feel
and look special. The lack of serial number takes away from that.
The hits are nice, but skew heavily towards lesser draft picks (as football has a tendency to do,
given the nature of the game). The one-per-box patch card, however, is gorgeous…even if the guy
I pulled has been inactive for every game so far this season.
The deficiencies in Platinum, though, are in stark contrast to Finest, which is annually one of the products I wait excitedly to
see. This year’s design isn’t as eye-grabbing as some past ones, but still works, nonetheless. At the outset, I had a hard time
figuring out which were regular cards and which were potentially colored refractors, but saw the differences after a while. To
me, these should be easy to determine immediately, but that’s just me.
In this case, as we all know, all of the cards use the Chrome technology, and the cards just feel more special because of it.
The inserts are great, the insert parallels are appropriately numbered. The autos, as with Platinum, skew towards rookies, but
the patches that are part of the auto sets really make the cards feel like a little more than your standard rookie auto, and I’m
happy all of the autos get that treatment.
So, two similar products, two very different outcomes. Given a choice to buy one or the other, to me, it is an easy one to
make........................
Platinum: B-
Finest: A-
