It has been a few years since I have personally busted a box of Finest. For the most part the product has remained the same with some new fun inclusions added in yearly.
Last year Finest introduced Finest Careers that celebrated Derek Jeter. This year it returns again and this time celebrates my main man, KGJr.
So to me looking at this box isn't a bad start to the product:
Just to point this out again, today's break isn't a full hobby box. This is a mini box. 2 mini boxes make up a hobby box. So this is basically half a hobby box.
In every mini box of 2016 Finest baseball, there are 6 packs with 5 cards per pack. There is one autograph per mini box and hobby boxes run about $120. I would assume a mini box will run you about $60-$70.
The base cards have a basic design with a colored line on the left or right with a team logo watermarked at the bottom of the line. There is also a full colored player in the forefront. The featured player's picture also seems to be "zoomed away" before coming to focus in the center of the card. Kind of a cool look.
The cards are printed on a chrome stock. I do miss the days of the peel-away stickers to help with scratching however.
The base set consists of 100 cards that are made up of rookies and MLB vets.
The rookie cards have the same design as the base except they have the rookie logo. I pulled a Maeda in my box.
The base cards also have Sp's. Those make up cards 101-110 (of players not in the first 100 and one of those is Kris Bryant) if you are trying to put together the master base set. Sp's fall 1:5 packs.
Now onto the parallels and inserts.
As with Finest or anything chromed, they come with refractor parallels. These two are the basic ones I pulled in my mini box.
There are also green refractors that fall 1:4 packs and are numbered /99. I found this guy....
You can also find these refractors,
- Prism Refractor
- Purple Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Blue Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Gold Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Orange Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 25.
- Red Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 5.
- SuperFractor Parallel: numbered. 1/1.
- Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.
Finest First inserts fall 1:2 packs. This insert commemorates each MLB Rookie's first appearance in Topps Finest.
There are also much tougher autograph and autograph refractor parallels to be found of Finest First as well.
Refractors to find include:
- Green Refractor: sequentially numbered.
- Gold Refractor: sequentially numbered.
- Orange Refractor: sequentially numbered to 25.
- Red Refractor: sequentially numbered to 5.
- SuperFractor: numbered 1/1.
- Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.
Franchise Finest is a new insert included this year. It Features each team's franchise player on a chrome refractor card.
1996 Finest Intimidators is by far my FAVORITE insert in Finest: Topps dug back in time and recreated the cool looking insert set of 1996 with today's most "intimidating" veterans and retired players.
These look even cooler in person. Would be an interesting set to put together and one I am not intimidated to try.
In case you wondered what a version of this looked like from 1996, here is a Piazza pic (not mine)
Like I stated earlier, Finest is celebrating Ken Griffey Jr.’s great accomplishments in the product and have included an die-cut insert called Finest Careers to do so. There are 10 unique cards to collect with just one of these cards found in every case. They are astronomical odds, but a fun chase for us Griffey collectors.
There are three parallels offered for this insert:
- Orange Refractor (numbered to 25)
- Red Refractor (numbered to 5)
- Superfractor (1-of-1).
Autograph versions of Finest Careers Ken Griffey Jr can be found and are numbered to just five copies each.
Now onto the autographs and other offerings from Finest.
This was my pull from the mini box, not that great but it is on-card. Norris is still a young gun so he could do something big later on in his MLB career, right now he is currently playing for Toledo.
Just like most of the product, the autographs have refractor parallels too. Here are those offerings:
- Blue Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Green Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Gold Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
- Orange Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 25.
- Red Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 5.
- SuperFractor Parallel: numbered 1/1.
- Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.
Some of the other things not found in my box are
- Finest Originals that feature on-card autographs on buybacks from the past 20-plus years.These have gotta be cool!
- Finest Greats Autograph set that showcases elite MLB retired players such as Cal Ripken Jr., Don Mattingly, Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax.
Overall, it was a bit of a tough break I feel. I do like the designs and offerings but cost vs return comes into play here and it's a toughie to look at. Of course it may be because it was just a mini box. It's really hard to judge without seeing the full picture. Who knows, the other mini box could have had a Sandy Koufax autograph which would had made the overall break and my view of it much different. So what I recommend is when buying this, stick strictly to full hobby boxes and see how that goes. I have seen some good stuff already pulled from hobby boxes of the product so I know it is solid.
Now for the moment you have been waiting for,
CONTEST TIME!
Win this!
It's as easy as can be to enter to win the Daniel Norris autograph above. Just read and follow these rules:
- Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to host this/these nice giveaways with. Follow them on all social media sites and visit their site, HERE, as well.
- ***VERY IMPORTANT***MUST BE A U.S. RESIDENT to enter or have a shipping address in the U.S. Shipping costs have gone haywire and I can't afford to ship everywhere.This is always hard to do as I appreciate all readers but I hope you all understand non-U.S. readers.
- Random winner will be chosen after 7 randoms
- Card may be shipped PWE. I like to forewarn on this.
- LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW telling me your thoughts on this product
- EARN AN EXTRA ENTRY FOR SHARING THIS CONTEST ON YOUR BLOG AND/OR ON TWITTER. Make sure to leave your link in comments too so I can count it. If not, I won't be able to give you the credit. Commenting with it is very important or you WILL LOSE OUT an extra entry!
- Sport Card Collectors or it's owner (person who runs the blog), WILL NOT be held responsible for lost, stolen or damaged mail. Sorry had to add this in since someone tried to scam me once about this.
- Contest starts today, ends on Saturday, May 28th 2016. Winner will be announced in a separate post on Sunday May 29th 2016.
- Don't forget to thank the above sponsor of this contest and I won't mind a thank you as well :)
Good luck to all that enter and thanks for reading!
UPDATE!!
IF WE CAN REACH 30 ENTRIES I WILL GIVEAWAY AWAY THE ICHIRO AS WELL!
