I'm Ready for Some Football-Themed Loot From the National

In honor of the first day of the 2012 NFL season I thought I would show off some of my promo/redemption loot from this year's National in Baltimore.  It was my first National and I had been planning to attend for nearly a year (since reading and hearing so much about the 2011 Chicago National).

I attended on Friday to avoid the Saturday crowds .  I arrived before the doors opened with my list of redemptions and special offers in hand.  When the doors opened I headed straight to the corporate area, and lined up at the Topps booth to obtain the special 2012 Gypsy Queen mini National promo cards.  After over an hour in line, we were told they were out of the Bryce Harper card, but I was able to obtain the remainder of the set - including these football minis (Ricardson, RGIII, Luck, Tannehill, Blackmon, and Floyd):

Next I lined up at the Panini booth for another hour-plus wait to secure the special Panini redemption packs (which were loaded with great stuff).  Below are some of the football cards I received (I also scored an autographed hockey puck [Matt Read] a cut autograph card of Hall of Famer Eddy Rousch and some assorted baseball, basketball and hockey cards - which I will show in a future post).

Now - on with the football (which includes this really cool Robert Griffin III towel card):

Three Richardson cards:

A couple of Blackmon's:

A few RB's you might have heard of (the Gore is numbered to 5):

Oh - and a few QB's who might do OK this year:

After the redemptions, I ended up roaming the floor and digging through cards for the next 5 or 6 hours.  My feet were tired, but I sure could have used another day to roam the floor!!

Happy football season everyone!!