In the 2012 Topps Football release, Topps has inserted some alternative photos for some of the veteran cards in the set. The short print variations (SP) are seen on the left in each of the photos below.

Be sure to look for the Rookie Variations also.

We will be updating this list as more SP Veteran Variations are found, so be sure to save this link and check back for more updates.

In the 2012 Topps Football release, Topps has inserted some alternative photos for some of the rookie cards in the set. The short print variations (SP) are seen on the left in each of the photos below.

Be sure to look for the Veteran Variations also.

We will be updating this list as more SP Rookie Variations are found, so be sure to save this link and check back for more updates.

Here is a look at a cumulative look at all of the 2012 Bowman Baseball Rookie and Prospect Autograph sales through the first month of release. There has been 2100+ sales since its release a few weeks back, and I have accumulated each of the sales via eBay and put them together for you to get an idea on which Autographs are selling the best, at product release.

Of the 50 autographs inserted, 23 of them are currently going for under $5 on average. You have roughly a 50% chance that your $150+ (on Jumbos) is going to contain an auto that sells for $5 or less. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 11 of the autographs inserted are currently selling for $20 or more, on average, with Yu Darvish pulling in around $400 per base auto.

You can click the table row headings to sort the data for that row. If a cell has a $0.00 represented in it, it means there was no sales data accumulated for that particular card.

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I have seen a number of debates on various message boards regarding if people preferred the 2012 Bowman Chrome Blue Wave Autos over the Gold Refractor Autos. Both of the cards are numbered to 50, and the Blue Wave Autos have definite appeal over the Gold refractors, but do the consumers like them better? Check out the sales data compiled from eBay over the last couple weeks. The prices seem pretty similar, however with a much smaller Blue Wave sample size, it looks as if the Gold Refractors are edging them out in sales prices.

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Blue Wave Autos

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Gold Refractor Autos

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What started out as a fantastic good will gesture by the Topps Company by offering collectors the opportunity to turn-in their wrappers from 2012 Bowman Baseball in exchange for some pretty neat looking Blue and Red Wave refractors. What an amazing concept and great promotion to help push sales of one of their flagship lines.

After months of hype and anticipation for the product, a number of collectors were able to get the product up to 2-full days ahead of it’s scheduled release. With a limited number of packs (10,000) being available to the public, these collectors who received their orders early obviously had the advantage of getting their wrapper redemption fulfilled.

I have become one of the unlucky ones in the whole situation, as I just learned that my packs will go unfulfilled from Topps. Typically, I Would be fine with this, especially in a first come, first serve situation. However, in today’s fully interconnected world, I am reading stories of people who packs were submitted and received well after mine that have already received packs. There are stories of people who received many more packs than they were originally allotted (I have read upwards to 80 additional packs in some instances).

Topps really had an opportunity to make things right with a lot of collectors out there with this promotion, unfortunately, it really shows they have no value for their customers and it was merely a ploy to sell more inventory. The small time buyers and collectors are not treated the same as the big inventory buyers or bulk busters and flippers.

For me, it may take a while for this black eye from Topps to heal, I guess it could mean stepping away from supporting their products through the years like I have done. Hopefully in the future Topps and other companies have a far great plan in place to support all of their customers, especially during promotions like this.

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The hunt is on.

Panini announced today that they have inserted so super short print variations in their 2011 Contenders Football release. These variations are only on the on-card Rookie Photo Shoot cards, but each one has a small and unique twist to find the variation. Unlike last years, where it was a simple variation in the pose, this year – you have to work for it to find the differences. Early indications also are looking like these variations have a very limited printed run.

Below, I have made found a few of the variations and tried to make it a little easier to notice the differences. As more of these variations surface, I will be posting more photos.

2011 Contenders Ryan Williams Auto

2011 Contenders Jordan Todman Auto

2011 Contenders Torrey Smith Auto

2011 Contenders Bilal Powell Auto

2011 Contenders Christian Ponder Auto

2011 Contenders Cam Newton Auto

2011 Contenders Ryan Mallett Auto

2011 Contenders Mikel Leshoure Auto

2011 Contenders Colin Kaepernick Auto

2011 Contenders Tiwain Jones Auto

2011 Contenders Jaime Harper Auto

2011 Contenders Leonard Hankerson Auto

2011 Contenders Clyde Gates Auto

2011 Contenders Blaine Gabbert Auto

2011 Contenders Delone Carter Auto

The 2011 Contenders Football product released one week ago today, so I decided to take a look at what some of the most popular selling cards were from the set, so far.

The table below shows a comprehensive list of total amount of Contenders autos sold, the high, the low, and the average price. 12 of the 135 rookie autographs have not surfaced on eBay as of today. 22 of the 135 are currently selling for more than $50 on average, and 41 of the 135 are selling for more than $20 on average.

In the coming weeks Panini should be releasing the Short Print list for the set, so it will be interesting to see where the prices go from there.

Every year with Panini releases their Contenders Football product, the speculation around which autographed rookie tickets will be short printed begin to pop up. Last year, a number of the perceived short prints from the hobby release, became common inserts after the product hit the retail store shelves. That could be exactly what we are going to see again for this year, although, Panini has not confirmed if they will be doing 2011 Contenders in retail.

Below is a sortable table of all of the Rookie Ticket Autographs in the product and a corresponding number of current and closed auction so far on eBay. I put this together to attempt to get a better picture of which cards may short printed, and which others were the super short prints. As of today, there are still 11 cards that have not surfaced on eBay – which is leading me to believe some have been held back for the retail product.

I will be updating this list through the next few weeks with updated sales and listings – hopefully this can give all of my readers a little heads up on how many of their cards are actually in the marketplace.

Last updated: 2/22/2012 9:32 PM CST

In it’s 2012 baseball release, Topps has, once again, inserted some variations for some of the regular cards in the set. Like most years past, Topps keeps these Easter egg items under wraps and lets the public try and find all of the oddities that are included with in their print run. These short print (SP) variations are alternative photos for the regularly issued card in the set.

There has already been a lot of hype around the Rally Squirrel variation that was inserted into the set, as many media outlets began to pick up the story, the copies that have already appeared on eBay began to reach extremely high prices. As of now, we are unsure of print runs or scarcity of any of the SP cards inserted in the 2012 Topps baseball product.

We will be updating this as we find more. Please be sure to comment if you come across any that are not on our list.