There's no question that 2006 was the year to get in on the super high end football card business. With rookies like Reggie Bush, Vince Young and Matt Leinart, it was only natural for all three companies with NFL licenses to take shots at producing ultra limited, super premium football cards.
It took until April 2007 for the final super high end entry, 2006 Topps Paradigm Football. Topps is hoping that the last product of the 2006 season will redefine collectors' expectations of value in a super premium product.
Each pack of Topps Paradigm contains five cards and comes in a specially designed acrylic crystal box.
Card One: Base Veteran/Retired Card or Veteran/Retired Parallel Card
Topps Paradigm base cards depict a select group of 40 NFL stars and retired legends. The card design has a slightly futuristic feel reminiscent of Finest, with the main visual element consisting of a foil parallelogram that also forms the base of the Paradigm logo.
That logo is in the upper left corner of the card, with the player's last name on a foil stripe at the bottom. The cards are printed on a thick stock that is the nicest I've seen for any Topps product.
Normal base cards are numbered to 169, with gold parallels numbered to 25 falling 1:8 boxes. My review box contained a regular Gale Sayers card numbered 091/169.
Card Two: Rookie or Veteran/Retired Dual Relic Card
The second card is a dual relic card (Topps' name for a memorabilia card) with two swatches from either a 2006 NFL rookie or a veteran or retired player. Rookies are more common, seeded at twice the rate of the veteran/retired cards, and are numbered as part of the base set so they count as the players' "official" Paradigm rookie cards.
A total of 19 rookies fall in this category, with Chicago Bears special teams ace Devin Hester the biggest name. Veterans include Peyton Manning and LaDainian Tomlinson and retired players are true legends like Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas.
Normal dual relics are numbered to 249 with gold parallels limited to 25 copies. The About.com sample box yielded a Willie Reid gold parallel stamped 17/25.
It's interesting to note that the card backs carry a disclaimer stating that the relic pieces aren't guaranteed to come from a specific jersey or game but don't say whether they are cut from game-worn uniforms. A small quibble? Perhaps, but in a product this expensive it would be nice to see if the swatches come were worn in an actual NFL game.
Card Three: Rookie Autograph or Base Retired Auto Variation
Guaranteed autographed cards start to fall with the third card in each box. A total of 30 rookies appear on autographed rookie cards, with 14 of them numbered to 199 and 16 others numbered to 149. Both tiers have gold parallels numbered to just 50.
One in eleven boxes will find an autographed card from one of four retired players instead: Joe Namath, Barry Sanders, Joe Montana or Jim Brown.
While the first group of autographed rookies consists of mostly undistinguished names, the second batch has a few more desirable young players like Joseph Addai and Marques Colston. I pulled a Brodie Croyle gold parallel from my sample box numbered 21/50.
Card Four: Rookie Autographed Relic Card
The fourth card in the box has the potential to be one of the top rookies from the 2006 class. One in eight boxes holds an autographed oversized patch relic rookie card of Bush, Young, Leinart or one of seven other first year players, with a print run of just 99 copies.
Boxes without one of the prized RC's will still find an autographed relic card of a rookie numbered to 249 or less. While these are still nice cards of the players who appeared on the autographed rookie cards (plus Maurice Jones-Drew, who is absent from both tiers) they are listed as inserts instead of part of the base set.
That means that collectors who don't pull one of the auto patch rookies get a bit of a double whammy, receiving a card of a potentially lesser player and getting one less actual RC in their boxes. Topps may want to revisit this particular aspect of the product breakdown if it brings Paradigm back for 2007.
My review box held a Jerious Norwood autographed dual relic with black and red swatches numbered 081/249.