By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Football collectors have been waiting on their Blue Wave Refractor packs for several months. The first batch of cards has finally shipped.

These packs were available to collectors who pulled autograph redemptions from 2012 Topps Chrome football. Not everyone has gotten their packs yet because Topps is sending them out with the redemptions that have been fulfilled so far such as some Russell Wilson and Dwayne Allen.

The first group of collectors getting the Blue Wave packs could likely benefit most on the secondary market. The first bunch of cards on eBay will mean those that one could spark a bidding war because of the limited quantities of the cards.

But these cards aren’t going for outrageous prices unlike some of the baseball counterparts from 2012 Bowman Chrome, likely because of the lack of autographs on most of the cards.

So far, an Alfred Morris autograph sold for $200. Some non-autographed singles have sold for about $10-$20 with others selling for less.

But some of the bigger names such as Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill, Alfred Morris, Doug Martin and Josh Gordon and running through auction right now and could command good prices.

The biggest names have yet to show up.

Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Football. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here. Follow Beckett Media on Facebook and Twitter.

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Topps Chrome Football is one of the most popular products of the year. The 2012 product has seen tens of thousands of auctions on eBay.

As of Tuesday morning, there were already more than 47,000 closed auctions on eBay and purchases on the Beckett Marketplace causing Dan Hitt, a senior analyst at Beckett, to speculate that this is one of the most broken football card releases of all time.

Beckett has updated 2012 Topps Chrome Football in its Online Price Guide with HI and LOW values for Rookie Cards, parallels, autograph cards and more.

As you could imagine, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III cards are the most coveted.

Luck’s base Rookie Card (not the photo variation) has a range of $6-$15. The photo variation of the card has a range of $40-$80.

What about refractors? Here’s a peek of what collectors can get in the OPG.
- Red /25 $400
- Gold /50 $250
- Sepia /99 $150
- Blue /199 $120
- Prism /216 $80
- Black /299 $100
- Pink /399 $80
- Camo /499 $80
- Purple /499 $80
- Xfractor $40
- Orange $30
- Refractor $25

To view pricing for other cards in 2012 Topps Chrome in the Online Price Guide, click here.

Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Football. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here.

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Topps Chrome and color parallels go together. The more color, the better the box – at least that’s how many collectors feel.

Since last week’s release of 2012 Topps Chrome Football, colored parallels have slowly made their out of packs into collectors’ hands.

The most popular parallels in 2012 Topps Chrome Football seem to be Black, Gold and Red, numbered to 25, 10 and five, respectively. Obviously, the low numbering has a lot to do with the collectability of the cards.

Look at these particular auctions:

- 2012 Topps Chrome Andrew Luck Red Refractor Auto /5 – With a little more than an hour left the card is at more than $3,600.
- 2012 Topps Chrome Andrew Luck Gold Refractor Auto /10 – This card is approaching $1,600 with three days left
- 2012 Topps Chrome Robert Griffin III Red Refractor Auto /5 – Three days left, the card is at $1,525
- 2012 Topps Chrome Robert Griffin III Gold Refractor Auto /10 – With two days left the card is just over $1,000.

However, when it comes to the player it almost doesn’t matter if there is color or not on the autographed card. This RG3 refractor autograph is already at $259 and this Luck autograph with the photo variation is more than $300.

Related post: Photo Guide: 2012 Topps Chrome rookie variations

Beyond Luck and RG3, some of the other rookies seem to be bringing in decent prices as well.
- Trent Richardson Red Refractor Auto /5
- Trent Richardson Black Refractor Auto /25
- Ryan Tannehill Superfractor Auto 1/1

But it seems only the rare cards are getting big value from rookies not named Robert Griffin III or Andrew Luck.

Collectors of other players (Doug Martin, Russell Wilson, David Wilson, Rueben Randle, Brandon Weeden), this could be a chance to get some cheap color.

Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Football. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here.

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Collectors might have found cards with different pictures of certain rookies in 2012 Topps Chrome Football.

Topps released 25 rookie base cards photo variations.

To make it easier to tell the cards apart, we’ve put together a photo guide. The cards on the left are the photo variants and the cards on the right are the base card pictures.

Check out the gallery below.

#1 Andrew Luck

#13 Justin Blackmon

#17 Dwayne Allen

#23 Trent Richardson

#40 Russell Wilson

#62 Alshon Jeffery

#70 Rueben Randle

#79 Brandon Weeden

#98 Mohamed Sanu

#99 Brian Quick

#109 Ryan Tannehill

#147 Doug Martin

#153 Nick Foles

#156 A.J. Jenkins

#166 Michael Floyd

#175 Stephen Hill

#186 Ryan Broyles

#189 David Wilson

#194 LaMichael James

#200 Robert Griffin III

#202 Isaiah Pead

#209 Coby Fleener

#210 Brock Osweiler

#212 Kendall Wright

#213 Bernard Pierce

Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Football. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here.

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Topps Chrome Football officially releases Friday and the company is promoting the use of on-card autographs.

But based on availability and timeliness, it didn’t happen for all players.

Instead collectors will get redemptions for certain players, and to take the sting out Topps is adding a bonus to those who redeem for the autograph cards.

Several players — Dwayne Allen, LaMichael James, Bernard Pierce, Russell Wilson, Mark Barron, Dre Kirkpatrick, Stephen Hill, Brian Quick, Matt Kalil – will be signing shortly, according to Topps.

For these players only, if a collector returns a redemption card for an autograph, they will receive a four-card pack of Topps Chrome Football Blue Wave Refractor parallels.

“The Blue wave program intended to make an undesirable situation (redemptions due to players not signing) more acceptable to our consumers,” Topps wrote on its Twitter account.

There are 110 subjects in the blue wave parallel set including some players who do not appear in the regular base set: Alfred Morris, Josh Gordon, Daryl Richardson, Brandon Bolden, Bobby Wagner, Vontaze Burfict, Jorvorskie Lane, Greg Zuerlein, Joseph Morgan, Rod Streater, Bryce Brown and Damaris Johnson.

These blue wave packs will also be the first time Morris autograph cards will be available from Topps. The Washington Redskins rookie running back only had cards in Panini America and Upper Deck until now. His autographs will not be in regular Topps Chrome packs.

“(A) late breaking deal allowed us to add to these special redemption packs,” a Topps representative wrote in an email.

Susan Lulgjuraj is an editor of Beckett Football. You can email her here with questions, comments or ideas. Follow her on Twitter here.

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Contributing Editor

On the heels of the NFL Players Rookie Premiere, Topps is readying one of its most popular football products.

Topps Chrome is coming back with all on-card rookie autographs. The product is scheduled to come out in early November.

There will be at least 45 different rookies in the product with autographs. But what makes the set fun for many collectors is all the Refractors. The 24-pack hobby boxes – with four cards in each pack – will have eight different refractors. With a 220-base card set – 110 veterans and 110 rookies – that’s a lot of cards to chase.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of refractors in Topps Chrome:

・ Refractor, numbered to 150
・ Military Refractor, numbered to 99 (new for 2012)
・ BCA (breast cancer awareness) Refractor, numbered to 75 (new for 2012)
・ Prism Refractor, numbered to 50 (new for 2012; Hobby only)
・ Black Refractor, numbered to 25
・ Gold Refractor, numbered to 10
・ Red Refractor, numbered to 5 (hobby-only)
・ Superfractor, numbered to 1 (hobby-only)

Single-player rookie autographs aren’t the only features of Topps Chrome. Up to 40 rookies will also have autographs with jersey patches. In addition, there are dual and triple rookie autographs. Some of the autographs will have also photo variations.

Topps is reaching in to the vault pulling out old designs for many of the autographs and inserts.

Autos will be on designs from 1957, 1965 and 1984 Topps.

The 1984 design insert (35 subjects) will fall on average of one in every six packs. There will be three types of Refractors (regular, Gold, Prism). Also 15 subjects will be featured with on-card autographs, which are numbered to 15.

The ’57 and ’65 inserts fall at an average of one in every 12 packs. The ’57 design will feature 30 rookies and have a regular Refractor. But the autograph version of the ’57 cards are hobby-exclusives.

The ’65 design will also have 30 rookies and have Refractor, Red Refractor, Prism Refractor and autographed versions.

Topps isn’t done there. What else is coming to 2012 Topps Chrome?

Die cuts.

Red Zone Rookie Die Cut cards to be specific. There will be 35 subjects on these cards (1:24) and come in several Refractor types as well: blue (/50), Gold (/25), Superfractor (1/1; Hobby only) and Refractor autographs (1/1), which are hobby-exclusive.

Susan Lulgjuraj is a contributing editor for Beckett Media. You can email Susan here. Follow her on Twitter here.