Hobby Musings: Revisiting 2015 Topps High Tek Football – With a sale price around $30, I decided to pick up a box of 2015 Topps High Tek Football. Capitalizing on the popularity of if its baseball brand, this release marked the first, and only, time the product line was brought to football as it was one of the releases from Topps final year of producing football cards. Each eight-card box is advertised to include one on-card autograph and one base parallel card.
The autograph checklist is pretty nice in this product. Besides including members of the 2015 rookie class like Jameis Winston and Todd Gurley, there are also notable veterans and retired legends. My own box yielded Panthers tight end Greg Olsen. Numbered to 99, the card featured the autograph in blue marker.
While sticker autographs are never fun, I’m especially happy to see on-card autographs in High Tek. With the nice, translucent design, stickers would have looked pretty terrible on these cards. Unfortunately, there are some already forgettable rookie signatures in this release. That being said, you can also find some nice star QB autos such as Brett Favre or Terry Bradshaw.
Besides the Olsen, I came away with a purple base parallel of Deion Sanders. It features the same design 
as the base set, only with a differently-colored graphic scheme behind the player image. While it was nice to pull a Deion parallel in a Cowboys uniform, it was a little disappointing to not have it numbered. Considering that it is one of the main cards in the box, it would have been nice to have had a little extra value in it. Especially seeing as there are plenty of sequentially-numbered parallels all the way down to 1-of-1’s to chase.
Looking at the other base cards in the box, I pulled two Brandon Marshall cards. At first, I was annoyed because I thought I had pulled dupes in an eight-card box. On further examination though, I noticed a different background on the two cards. One has swirls while the other has pipes, and that’s the only difference I can notice. While it’s gratifying not to have the exact same card, it’s also a little maddening to essentially have the same card. It also makes an already hard to complete set all that much harder.
That being said, these cards are very nicely made. High Tek was always well-noted for design quality, and the latest releases for both baseball and football kept up with that tradition. I also liked the diversity of the base checklist itself. While pulling a rookie card of Kevin White, I also came away with cool base cards of Hall of Famers like Bob Lilly and Tim Brown. I do wish Topps had reconfigured the box yield to include more base cards so it wouldn’t take an unrealistic amount of boxes to finish off a set. This year’s baseball release will partially settle that as it includes many more cards than it has in past years.
This was a fun, albeit brief, box break. If you’re someone who likes to spend a good half hour or so busting through packs, High Tek may not be for you. However, if you want a break with some good upside at a reasonable price, you may want to give it a try. While the odds on the rookie autographs are better, there aren’t too many sealed products where you have a chance at ink of Peyton Manning or Marshall Faulk at this price point.
One thing I would caution you on is the redemption cards for certain autographs. The main reason for that is they appear set to expire at the end of November this year. Since Topps currently has no policy for honoring or replacing expired redemptions, you may want to consider busting it sooner rather than later.
Kelsey’s ability to bring hobby coverage to the mainstream sports fan has been a true asset. GTS is happy to feature his thoughts on collecting in Hobby Musings. The opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of GTS Distribution.
Hobby Musings: Revisiting 2015 Topps High Tek Football
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