2010 Element Box Break & Review

Design:

This year’s Element is all about “Going Green” and recycling.  Almost, if not all of the cards are printed on recycled cardboard.  The packs aren’t even wrapped in foil.  The wrappers feel like recycled paper too.  Sorta like some of the old school packs from the 90’s.  If your familiar with the Heritage products from that “other” manufacturer you’ll get the idea of how each card looks and feels.  2010 Element looks totally different than last year’s.  The 2010 cards have a clean, fresh look to them almost as if they were grown from a tree 🙂  Sometimes the black text on the reverse side can be hard to read because the cardboard is dark itself, but its not that bad.

Price:

A hobby box will run you around $80.00.  To me, that sounds about normal.  Your not going to get a lot of new products for less than that.

Hit Quality:

Press Pass guarantees two hits per box on average.  I ended up pulling three hits.  Every box comes with a Mystery pack on top which can yield a serial numbered card, autograph, or cash.  I pulled the following:

• J.R. Fitzpatrick Blue Ink Autograph
• Jimmie Johnson Finish Line Race-Used Tire #’ed/99
• Jimmie Johnson Recycled Materials Race-Used Tire/Sheet Metal #’ed/25
• Kevin Harvick Blue parallel #’ed/35

I’d like to think every box has a good chance of having something extra for the collector.  Press Pass seems to underestimate the number of hits you get per box.  Many of the boxes I’ve opened have had an extra hit.  You can look for Danica Patrick’s first NASCAR trading cards within this product too.  She doesn’t have any relics or autographs in Element, collectors will need to wait until Eclipse for those.

Press Pass is holding a contest where the winner will receive a complete set of 2010 Wheels Autographs numbered 1/1.  My box came with one contest card that gives you a starting point towards the answer.  I think each contest card says the same thing on the back.  You can head over to OrderOfElements.com for weekly clues until someone gets the right answer.

Overall:

Overall, I give 2010 Element 4 recycling logos out of 5 (1=poor & 5=perfect).  This product does have a lot of base cards which is great for those set collectors.  I bet you could finish a single base set with two boxes.  I like the fact that Press Pass changes the theme of this product every year.  Its just not the same thing all the time, they put a lot of thought into it.  I like cards where you can hold them up to the light and you can see the grain of the cardboard versus a plain glossy coat.