Topps Chrome 2010 Baseball: 1 Box Break

This is it! The last of what I broke open from my boxing day bonanza at my local card shop! Lots of success from these breaks that left me yearning for more. This is easily the weakest of the products I busted, but it still had a few gems. In respect to the 2011 Topps Chrome product, this 2010 box pails in comparison for the quality of the cards and the number of hits I received. Click here to see my review of the 2011 Topps Chrome product.

This is the first box of Topps Chrome 2010 I have bought and is only the second Topps Chrome product I have ever purchased. What this box showed me is that the 2011 product is far superior to the 2010 product and that I am better off spending my future pennies on the 2011 product. In the end I should count myself lucky I received a few good cards from this product and leave it at that!

The biggest problem with the 2010 Topps Chrome cards is that the cards were poorly made. The chrome makes the cards severely bend to the point it becomes difficult to stack them. The images on the front are also not nearly as clear as the 2011 product. The players on the 2010 product have an almost double image around them from the application of chrome that makes the whole image blurry. Additionally, the chrome is not always evenly covering the cards, leaving globby bits on some places on the card's front. 

Another problem is that the cards were often poorly packaged. Often the back card would have an impression left from the wrapper's seal. The worst was in one of the autographs I received had a scratch down the middle of the auto from the wrapper's seal. Another card (the Derek Jeter shown here) had a line running down the back of it, presumably created from when the pack was mechanically sealed. There were also a number of packs at the bottom of the box that only contained 2 cards, both of which were base. I have never seen a trading card product with this many problems and TOPPS should have RECALLED their product.

Despite the numerous manufacturing problems, the 2010 Topps Chrome set does have some attractive features. The base cards feature a similar design to the 2011 product and have some satisfying action shots. The backs of the base set also have a healthy amount of text and stats. The rookie cards follow the same format as the 2011 product in that they are the high numbered cards in the base set. These cards are distinguished by a RC on the front.

The common base card parallel is the refractor. These parallels look identical to the regular cards except they have a silvery tint and extra gloss to the fronts. On the back of the card, the word refractor is printed around the card's number on the back. These cards look nice, but not nice enough to build an entire set of. They are also not serial numbered, unlike the blue parallel that I found 1 of. This blue parallel is identified by its blue border and is serial numbered on the back to out of 199. 

I pulled 3 subset cards out of this box. I feel that this is a really low number of subset cards as I pulled about twice that in the 2011 box. The fronts of the cards are especially glossy and reflective, with each card featuring a particular outstanding player of that season. The backs of the cards have a retro look with cardboard backs and a classic text font. Each of the cards are serial numbered out of 1961, 999, and 499. If it wasn't for how much the chrome makes these cards bend, I'd be much more inclined to collect these.

I pulled two autographed rookies, neither of which were serial numbered. One of these was Jenrry Mejia and the other was Jon Jay. The autos were signed in blue ink and look pretty nice except for the bending. I feel that any card that is autographed should be serial numbered, but there are a lot of products out there that refuse to do this. The biggest problem with the autos is that the Jay auto has multiple scratches down the center, along with a smudge just below. This is all from the packaging process as the auto cards were put face up towards the package's seal. I have no idea how Topps thought this would be a good idea.

The Cardinals are my favourite team, so I am over the moon with a Jon Jay rookie auto. However, the numerous damages and card bending left me deflated over this product. There is a chance that I pulled a bad box, but I have read elsewhere that the 2010 product had severe bending. I would not recomend this product unless I can buy it on sale, which is perhaps why the box I bought was on sale. I give the 2010 Topps Chrome product a half eaten soggy pickle!