Collect call: Topps National Chicle football

Posted Feb 15, 2010 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Feb 15, 2010 at 08:56 PM

National Chicle is patterned after the iconic 1935 football set, which featured a card front that had artist renderings of players. To recapture that realism, Topps employed 10 different artists to design the card fronts.

In many cases, the artistry works. There is some excellent detail and some interesting ideas put forth (Mark Sanchez throwing against a backdrop of the New York skyline, for example, and Michael Vick depicted in leather helmet and 1930s football garb.

And then in some cases, the watercolor efforts look a little … watery.

A hobby box contains 24 packs, with eight cards per pack. Topps promises two autographs and one relic on average, and the box I opened was true to form. Autographs included on-sticker signatures of Giants running back Andre Brown and 49ers quarterback Nate Davis. For this set, an on-card autograph would have worked much better; the stickers are quite a distraction and certainly interfere with the artistic feel Topps was trying to create.
The game-used card was a jersey card of Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall.

The base set contains 200 cards — and that figure includes 25 short prints. Topps advertises a short print (on average) every six packs, but in the box I sampled there were only three SPs. It happens.

Set collectors will like this: the box I sampled contained 142 of the 200 base, or 71 percent. Those short prints are going to be the tough ones, though. And of course, they contain some of the biggest names around, like John Elway, Dan Marino and Barry Sanders from the past, and Chad Ochocinco (and even Bucs quarterback Josh Freeman) from the present.

Each pack contains at least one mini parallel card. In the box I saw, 16 were gold with regular backs, seven were white borders with a drawing of a 1930s era football player on the back, and one was a numbered card (Vick, numbered to 25).

There are five inserts sets to chase. Era Icons features some nice drawings of key people (Franklin D. Roosevelt), locations (Fort Knox, Boulder Dam) and sports (roller derby). A typical hobby box should yield one every three packs.

Youngsters of the Gridiron feature rising stars and are seeded one every four packs. Stars of the Gridiron concentrate on more established players and can be found every six packs.

Greatest Thrills highlights a big moment for a player, like Santonio Holmes’ game-winning catch in Super Bowl XLIII. Expect two per box.

And Greats of the Gridiron pay homage to players like Joe Namath, Elway, Marino, Brett Favre, Jim Brown and Tony Dorsett, not to mention new Hall of Famer Jerry Rice.

Each hobby box contains a cabinet card, and there are 25 different ones to collect. The box I opened contained a card of Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.

Not a bad effort. There is a nice nostalgic feel to the set, and nothing is particularly forced. In some cases, the art could have been better, but hey, I am not Picasso by any means so it is hard to criticize.