Hey, I'm just getting into cards, specifically basketball and football, and ya its likely gonna be my new obsession.

Anyways I decided to splurge to get "Up to date" so to speak on trading, so I bought an '05 Topps Finest football Hobby box for like $75 and had to search but I got the '06 hobby box for $140. Don't know if I got ripped off on either of those deals, you tell me.

So yesterday I broke the '05 box only to be slightly disappointed. The lowest numbered cards I got were a black and a green refractor, my rookie autos sucked. But I'll leave that for my post on the Box Breaks board.

Basically my question is am I picking a good brand to buy my boxes from? I love the number of parallels in the Finest series but I'm worried that the '06 box will disappoint because it was twice as much and might also not hit.

Basically my question is: What would be the "best" box to buy that is in the mid 100s to $200 price range? I like the parallels of topps but I'd be willing to give that up for something that would consistently hit more valuable cards.

Thanks for the help and I look forward to posting here.

if you are in to parallels and stuff like that, donruss elite could be good. i would stay away from 05 products and stick to either 06 or 07 stuff. donruss elite offers some very low numbered parallels, valuable numbered rookies, and very nice autos. boxes run about $80 for 07 and around $100 for 06 i think. so maybe take that into consideration. but also, i would reccomend just browsing around www.blowoutcards.com and looking through the 06 and 07 products, reading their descriptions and what each product offers. hope this helps

Thanks for the help. Ya my problem is there is literally a sea of cards out there and for someone who doesn't have any idea where to start its overwhelming.

P.S. I know that its a good idea to stay current, but I just wanted to get some past seasons to try and build a collection.

i know what you are saying, but i was saying stay away from 05 and back is because 05 turned out to be a dud rookie year, and if you go farther than that, most of the good pulls are gone, and also, if you pull a redemption, its most likely already expired. good luck with your decision.

Thanks alot, especially for the help. I'll be posting my breaks at some point so people can see that my '05 pull was truly crap (Mo Clarett and Pac-Man Jones rookies among others ~_~)... but ya I'm just trying to learn as much as I can right now before I get really gung ho about it.

no problem, what you are doing now is very good. please pm me if you need/want to know anything else or have any questions.

I'd give 2006 Threads a shot, if you can find it. A chance at letterman autos is always nice, plus it just seems to be a pretty solid break as a whole. You're likely to spend in the $150ish range, I would think.

Sounds like everyone is pretty high on Donruss. I may give an Elite and a Threads box a shot.

Id try contenders. you can get those for around 150 and have 4 shots at a really nice auto.

Donruss Elite is pretty good.

If you wait till the end of the month Playoff Absolute Memorabilia comes out along with leaf certified materials both strong products.


never a fan of elite.

i really like contenders...the only problem is that it's a HUGE hit-or-miss product. you get 4 autos per box, but a good amount are no-namers. i had 5 in each of my 2 boxes. 1 box sucked as the best was a jason avant and the other had 2 addai autos...as iyou can see, you can get either total crap or something nice. it's more of a risk than MOST boxes (definetly not as big as the high end boxes like ultimate or exquisite)

07 spx is about to come out you can get it for about $175 with preorder prices