Product Review: 2008 Topps Finest

Right now Topps has a big goose egg when it comes to great products so far. Chrome was okay, if not only because of the price point, TSC and RC Progression were two of the worst sets ever produced, and Finest aint that much better. I would say I am boycotting Topps products, but really they are giving me nothing to WANT to purchase. Funny enough, Finest was so bad last year, that I didnt think it would be produced again. Then after seen what seemed to be a cool sell sheet, they pull a bait and switch (a common thing these days) and give us utter crap.

The Good

I think the Finest Moment autographs arent bad this year. However, I would always want to pull a base auto of my guy than a subset - with few exceptions. Of course, once you see the base autos, you may want these instead.

Normally, I dont like X-fractors because its so tough to look at the card without getting a headache. However, this year, they arent that bad, only because the photo is normal.

Also, the 1/1 gold Xfractors are usually really nice. The Peterson from last year was one of the best looking cards out there. Of course it went for 1500, so yeah, not getting that one.

The Bad

What is with the color schemes for these cards? Its a bunch of pinks and teals and I could not want these cards any less. Everything looks bad with these awful colors and I hope that next year they maybe decide that colored parallels are not the way to go with these cards.

The base RC autos look ridiculous, although they dont have recessed windows from what I can tell. I usually go to the money vacuum on wednesdays to see people break the new stuff, but no one touched this crap. Therefore, I only have scans and pics to go off of. Seriously though, the off centered autos only work when there is not a visible border underneath the sticker, or the border is around the sticker. Both are not true with these, and it looks like someone slapped on the stickers with no regard for human life. Also, I may just boycott Topps until they jump out of 2004 with these foil stickers. Awful.

Lastly, the price point on this product is baffling. Its understood that you will get two no namers and one better auto per master box, so why are they charging like they give you three better ones? Topps products must be priced by the same guy who picks Beckett's prices out of the pricing hat. Fuck that.

The Ugly

Besides 95% of this set being beyond ugly/stupid, there is one set that stands out above the rest. The NFL equipment patch autos from each RC could be worst looking and most poorly conceived cards in history. Topps went out and manufactured their own little NFL patches to put in these cards with an auto. Instead of making them 1/1s and using the event used crap they have laying around, they made their own and numbered each to 15. Are you fucking kidding me? Not only are these cards ugly, but they now contain manufactured patches. Wouldnt it be funny if they just put the patch over the guy's face? Or maybe put the sticker over the patch like they did in Paradigm. Who green lights this shit?

Overall, if you have to make a decision on a product coming up, either buy a box of Absolute, or 3 boxes of chrome instead of this stuff if you must buy a topps product. To those of you who look back, over the finest cards from the years before the meltdown and cry, I feel your pain. These used to be the best in the hobby, now they are one of the worst.

Argh! My Eyes!

I cant...type...brain...exploding.....this card....makes....no sense...arghhssdkfjsdfj.

God, I dont even know where to start. Sweet Shot Baseball Signatures? If anyone can tell me who green lighted cards like this, please, I will go and kick them in the nuts. I guess thats all I have to say about this piece of shit fugly design.

First Look: Donruss Americana II

People loved Americana. LOVED IT. It was one of the first sets to be completely focused on celebrity autos and memorabilia, and it really didnt disappoint. It was structured very much like Absolute, so the price point wasnt bad for four hits.

Well, as you can probably guess, they wanted to do it again. Here comes the sequel, please dont feed it after midnight.

My only suggestion when releasing a sophomore version of a blockbuster set is to NOT MAKE IT THE EXACT GODDAMNED THING!! DLP has forgotten this golden rule and basically released series two of 2007 Americana. What the fuck were they thinking? The cards look exactly the same, down to the same subsets. Go find the sell sheet, you'll see what I mean.

Oh, and one more thing. What is the reason that every fucking set under the sun now includes at least one Boxing or UFC/MMA subset? Im curious why this has become so huge with 2008 products. I mean, last time I checked it was 2008 CoSigners BASEBALL, not 2008 CoSigners CLUSTERFUCK.

First Look: Upper Deck Icons FB

Another snoozer of a product from Upper Deck. Hopefully this replaces Chirography. 1 auto per box, 2 jersey per box, 2 manufactured non-auto letter per box, 1 auto letter per case.

I think that the inclusion of non-auto, non GU letters are fucking ridiculous. What is the freaking point of this crap? Who put the god damned green light on this re-hash of a turd? The idea of SPA By The Letter was cool ONLY because of the auto on the letter. To include NON-AUTOed ones defeats the whole purpose, though its not as bad as topps presidential letters.

Whoever runs UD's product development team needs to start coming up with something freaking cool. How about sweet spot classic football? How about legendary cuts football? Those would sell like crazy and I might consider lifting my ban for a tin of SS Classic.

On to the drudge of a normal week...

Ok, I admit it. I was wrong. For now.

It wasnt Livan Hernandez that had an awful outing his first trip to the mound, it was Boof. Livan, Im sorry. Yet, only striking out one and giving up a buttload of hits to an Angels team that features Garret Anderson in the 4 spot is not exceptional or worthy of that much praise.


Boof tries to pull a good fastball out of his huge noggin

Favorite opening day moment: Torii Hunter looking at Joe Nathan like he is throwing the baseball like Bugs Bunny does. I can guarantee the thought running through his head after swinging through the third strike was something to the tune of, "Holy Crap, I thought low and away Randy Johnson sliders were tough. This is fucking ridiculous!"

ON TO SPORTS CARDS GOINGS ON!

Topps Baseball released their shot at Finest for the year and my one comment after seeing the product live was, "WTF mate?"

While sitting in the Topps conference room and going over the plans for the set, who green lighted this card:



Please wash your eyes out to the left in our burn center.

I think after this, we need to come to the realization that the hobby as we know it is no longer about putting out good products as a whole, but rather a series of gimmicks designed to peek interest. As a result, most of the rest of the stuff suffers.

The rest of the finest set is forgettable, as it was last year in my opinion. The difference? On card autos for most. But, when a product is less than mediocre, who really cares? I remember when Finest was THE set to collect. Now, after switching to mini box format a few years ago (my least favorite way of release), the set has pretty much been removed from my list. I dont know why companies even try to release Rookie based auto sets any more. Chrome is king. It will be until the end of time - or at least until they start including asinine autos. What? Whats that you say? Autos of team scouts this year in the set of sets? Ugh, thanks Topps.

My grade: C-