[NumminzAK]

I'm returning to the hobby after a twenty year +++ break and I'm still learning the ropes. I have a fairly decent budget compared to my younger collector years who went through tons and tons of Score and Proset back in the day.

I want to avoid wasting the budget on base stock and here's where I'm at so far. I'm leaning toward spending the cash on serial numbered, autographed rookies from 2015 with patches. Not really wanting to spend $100 per card at this point...but am willing to grab singles of the good stuff for around $20-$30 if it's the right card. Right now I find I'm grabbing Inception auto rookies with patches if numbered 125 or fewer and I'm a fan of the Valor / Platinum.

I'm trying to find a ranking of upper quality product that I might be looking at. I know to avoid Score / Base Topps / Topps Chrome / Prizm...

Should I focus on Topps Inception / Valor or is there another product I might be missing right now?

Where does Triple Thread or Topps Fire fit in?

I'm even thinking of grabbing some unopened Inception boxes to put in the closet for a few years and flip down the road.

[ZSDOne]

Topps Valor are very nice looking cards - the patch autos look fantastic and I believe that almost all of them are multicolored patches.

Platinum looks nice as well - beware that the patch autos seem to be sticker autos and the on-card autos don't have patches

I've only gotten one Inception card, but it was a nice on card auto of a good player (David Johnson) and wasn't that bad price wise

While Panini is doing their best to ruin it as a prodcut to buy in boxes, Contenders rookie autographs still have a good following and picking up individual Contenders autos is still worthwhile

[NumminzAK]

I picked up a Quad Autographed Inception card from 2015 with Jaelen Strong, Breshad Perriman, Nelson Algholor, and my favorite...Tyler Lockett. The card even has Tyler's jersey number...16/25. I might have paid a bit too much for it...but the card seems incredible to me. I don't know much about the other three receivers.

[savagenate]

I picked up a Quad Autographed Inception card from 2015 with Jaelen Strong, Breshad Perriman, Nelson Algholor, and my favorite...Tyler Lockett. The card even has Tyler's jersey number...16/25. I might have paid a bit too much for it...but the card seems incredible to me. I don't know much about the other three receivers.

Strong is a project, albeit a good one. Permian lost his entire rookie season to injury. His main knock coming to the NFL was he drops too many passes. But we never got to see what he could do. Algholor had a couple decent games at the end of the year under Kelly. We'll see how he fits their next system. Lockett speaks for himself lol.

As far as products, you still get a ton of base in valor. Also, they have some major hits, but a lot of people are pulling a ton of a Browns running back that now one knows, and Bryce Petty, from what I've seen and personally experienced. Risk reward there. Inception is entirely a rookie set, so if you like the rookies, with less base, that could be a good way for you to go. They seem to look great every year!

High end stuff like Immaculate and Exquisite have the potential to give more bang for the buck...but could also give you junk lol. Triple Threads, is up there too, as far as hits ratio goes. There are a few products that I think every card is a patch or auto, but I can't remember which ones, since I can't afford to look that high :p Museum might be another good route to go as well. Good luck!

[djohn]

I'm even thinking of grabbing some unopened Inception boxes to put in the closet for a few years and flip down the road.

Be careful with buying boxes and holding them to flip, as they may have redemption cards of the key rookies in which case they won't flip as well. I am not certain about what redemptions are in Inception, but you should definitely check carefully before using that strategy.

[NumminzAK]

Good call on the redemption cards...forgot about that part of it. Bought some old 2012 topps and had redemption cards for silly things, but they were expired of course.

Here's hoping just one of those other three rookies does something next year and Lockett gets MVP for the Super Bowl this go around.

Definitely going to put my money into mostly just outright purchases of quality, limited run cards this time around. Could have bought one box of Inception for what I paid for the quad auto and likely wouldn't have hit anything worth the price of purchase...

Thanks for all the tips.