Collect call: 2009 Topps Finest football

Posted Nov 7, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Nov 7, 2009 at 06:41 PM

Topps Finest is a smooth-looking product with a simple design. Plus, there are plenty of refractors to keep the chrome collectors happy.

There are six packs to a mini-box, with five cards to a pack. I sampled a “box,” which contained two mini-boxes.
The design shows some nice action photography (which unfortunately, looks better in person than it does when trying to reproduce on a blog — note Sanchez photograph in this entry), and behind the player are hash marks that resemble a football field. It’s subtle, though, and does not clutter up the card front.

Each pack contains a refractor card. There are several refractor variations; the design I liked best was the pigskin version. This particular card looks like someone rolled a football on top of it, revealing a pigskin design. I believe it makes the subject stand out better. The two that were in the mini-boxes were Frank Gore and DeAngelo Williams.

The base set contains 100 cards, and expect to pull around 23 base cards, six refractors and a relic card of some sort per mini-box.

The first mini-box contained an autographed letter card of Rashad Jennings, numbered to 58. The second mini-box had another letterman autograph card, one of Jarrett Dillard numbered to 68. The letterman card is mostly patch, with the player’s autograph on the letter. However, there is a think photograph of the player on the right-hand side of the card.

Six of the 10 “regular” refractors were numbered, either to 429 or 199.

While I did not pull one, one of the key cards in the Finest set will be the autographed rookie patch cards. There are 30 to the set, with four variations — regular, gold, red and white refractors. The whites are 1/1 cards.

The backs of the cards contain eight lines to commemorate each player’s “Finest 2008 Moment.” One team color runs down the left side of the card back, with the other primary color positioned at the top.

Overall, a solid-looking set. A pleasant design with some nice sizzle in the mini-boxes makes this a nice set to collect.