2013 Topps Archives Football Hobby Box

I think the biggest difference between baseball and football Archives sets, for me anyway, is that I haven't seen much of older football sets.  I've seen tons of all the baseball sets, especially the designs, as they're rehashed in every Topps product.  The football still seems a little fresh to me.  After a couple of decent packs of 2013 Archives Football, I decided to grab a hobby box to use in my football contest.

The back of the box has 4 cards on it:

Yes I cut them out.

The base set has 50 cards each of 4 different designs.  Cards 1-50 are in the 1976 design:

51-100 are in the 1985 design, which is my favorite:

101-150 are in the 1986 design:

Lastly, 151-200 are in the 1959 design:

I like the variety Topps went with.  As far as Hokie, I got two:

I already had these, which is great, since they can now go towards my set.  FYI, my set needs for 2013 Archives can be found here.

Short prints make up the end of the set (201-240) and fall 1:4 packs.  They come from a range of Topps designs:

I'm not a huge fan of these, so I don't plan on collecting them. They just don't look like a set in a binder.

Each box yields 2 gold parallels.

I already like the 1985 design, and I think the gold parallel looks fantastic. I love the black. 

I'm not nearly as big a fan of the 1959 design in gold form, though.  The border is hard to look at.

I'm on the fence when it comes to the inserts.  I understand them, but I'm not sure I'm a big fan.

These aren't terrible, but the design isn't one of my favorites.

The gray on these is just bland.  I prefer the baseball-style popups that had more of a full player.

The last insert is modeled after the 1970 glossy set.  They're neat, but the colors can be a little in-your-face.

Finally, we reach our Fan Favorites autographs.  One of them applied to the football contest, and was shown yesterday.  I was a big fan of Ed McCaffrey, so it was pretty cool getting his auto:

My second autograph is cool for many reasons: 1985 design, great signature, great name, etc.

This is just a beautiful card.

The box was about what I expected to get.  The two autos were nice and I'm pretty close to the complete base set.