2006 Bowman Jumbo Football box

And now on to our first main event: a jumbo box of 2006 Bowman Football:

• Purchased from/price:  Dave & Adam's Card World / $37.95
• Packs/cards:  10 jumbo packs / 35 cards
• Set size:  275 base (including 165 rookies), 55 chrome
• Key features:   2 autographs, 1 relic per box (1 box topper auto)
• Key cards:  RCs of Jay Cutler, Reggie Bush, Vince Young, Maurice Drew, Marques Colston, Devin Hester, Greg Jennings, Santonio Holmes, Mario Williams, Joseph Addai
• Michigan Wolverines:  Braylon Edwards, Gabe Watson RC (& Chrome version), Jason Avant RC, Tim Massaquoi RC (& Chrome version), Tom Brady
•  Set completion:
• Base:  249/275  (91%)
• Chrome:  39/55 (71%)
•  Extras:
• Base:  52
• Chrome:  0

 

Nance and Greenway autos, Keiaho Chrome Refractor, Holmes jersey, Barber White parallel, Manning/Burress/Jones Blue parallels

• Inserts:
• Gold parallel:  9, including Braylon Edwards, Santonio Holmes RC, Randy Moss (1:1, ~12 expected)
• Blue parallel:  Kevin Smith, Plax and Daieal Manning RC (#'d/500, 1:4, 2-3 expected)
• White parallel:  Marion Barber (#'d/125, 1:14, 0-1 expected)
• Chrome refractor:  Freddy Keiaho RC (#'d/ 500, 1:20, 0-1 expected)
• Autographs (2/box):
• Signs of the Future autograph Martin Nance (box topper)
• Signs of the Future Chad Greenway
• Relics (1/box):
• Fabric of the Future Santonio Holmes jersey
• Best pack:  #9 included Massaquoi, Avant and Watson RCs as well as an Addai RC.  Despite Rod Marinelli's presence, it also included Favre, Rivers, and Warner, plus the Barber White Parallel and Colston Chrome RC.  Possibly best of all, no foil-less veteran cards (see below).
• Worst pack:  #3 Included 3 Buckeye RCs, the Plaxico (MSU) Blue Parallel, and several cards missing foil (one of several packs with that flaw).  THIS pack is where Marinelli belonged...



Peyton Manning, Chad Johnson, Drew Brees

• Quality control:  7/10  everything came out of the packs in good shape except 20 veteran cards which were missing most or all of their foil stamping on the front of the cards.  These included the three stars above.
• Collation:  7/10  considering I received more than 300 base cards for a set of 275, I was disappointed that I pulled this many doubles and needed 26 to complete the base set.  Chalk it up to the way some jumbo and rack packs are packed in a less-than-random fashion where it's possible to pull very similar or identical packs.  Fortunately, I pulled no Chrome doubles, and the inserts fell as expected.
• Value:  8/10  at full price (I'd guess $70-$80) a couple years ago, this box wouldn't have been worth it, but for about $40 now, I'm close to the base set and first part of the Chrome set, picked up a few good Wolverines, two autographs and a jersey, plus some good RCs.  Plus sometimes there's just something more fun about opening jumbo packs, even if it means less to open at once.
• Set design and player selection:  7/10  The design is fairly simple and easy on the eyes. Cards feature your standard Topps photography:  not overly flashy, but solid.  Obviously Bowman is a set that focuses on rookies, and this set doesn't disappoint, although with this many players you're bound to have some disappointments and plenty of "who's that?"  Fewer veterans meant I didn't get some of my favorite Michigan alumni or other players.  But I also liked that this wasn't an enormous set that required multiple boxes to complete.
• Inserts and extras:  6/10  This is an area where I ding Bowman every time:  enough with the stupid one-per-pack parallel cards.  They're boring and a waste of an otherwise useful card.  The other numbered parallels are reasonable, if unexciting (white!  blue!) while the refractors are a comfortable staple of a set with Chrome.  Kudos to Bowman for including two autographs and one jersey, even if none of them were exciting (and the autographs were stickers, but otherwise solidly designed).

Overall score:  35/50

I'd recommend this box to the frugal football collector, but only as an alternative to 2006 Topps, which I feel was a better overall set.

In closing:

WOLVERINES!

Brady and Edwards base, Avant/Massaquoi/Watson base RCs, Watson Chrome, Edwards Gold parallel

Bonus packs: 2008 SP Rookie Edition Football

Before I get to the meat of my recent box order (three boxes from Dave & Adam's Card World), here's a quick look at the free bonus packs I got with my order for spending a certain amount (a cool idea, by the way):  four packs of 2008 SP Rookie Edition Football.  (NOTE:  this won't be a formal review as I picked these up for free)
Having purchased three retail boxes previously (good prices at the local Meijer), I already have one set and I'm well on my way to two (refer to my wantlist if you think you can help).  Michigan had a couple rookies in the set, including Chad Henne and Mario Manningham, plus each of those boxes promised one autograph, plenty of RCs and a good number of SPs (which I've since shipped off in an auction).  Here's how I did:

Pack 1:

• 43  JaMarcus Russell
• 50  Tony Romo
• 68  Calvin Johnson
• 89  Kurt Warner
• 142 Mario Manningham RC
• 198 Rashard Mendenhall SP 93

Pack 2:

• 10  Thomas Jones
• 34  Vince Young
• 76  Michael Turner
• 80  Steve Smith
• 121 Fred Davis RC
• 238 Mike Hart SP 94

Pack 3:

• 11  Jerricho Cotchery
• 47  LaDaninian Tomlinson
• 55  Brandon Jacbos
• 75  Sidney Rice
• 113 DeSean Jackson RC
• 315 Donnie Avery SP 96

Pack 4:

• 24  Wes Welker
• 32  Maurice Jones-Drew
• 39  John Lynch
• 81  Julius Peppers
• 102 Andre Woodson RC
• 124 Glenn Dorsey RC

And here's a look at some of what I pulled:

From top left:  Mendenhall SP, Avery SP, Hart SP, Davis RC, Manningham RC, Jackson RC, Woodson RC, Dorsey RC, Calvin Johnson

All in all, not a bad lot of packs, especially considering they were free.  The best news was that I ended up picking up a Kurt Warner I needed for my second set, leaving just a handful of RCs before I get that done.  The rest, besides the Manningham and Hart, are available (just leave a comment) or I'll see about packaging them up in a giveaway or contest later.

Getting started

Hi everybody! (HI, DR. NICK!) If you read the About section at the top, you can probably tell that this is going to be a sports card blog with a decided Simpsons influence. The title comes from a long line of fake movie titles from the show ("Faster, grandma, grandma's gaining on us!") and I can promise that won't be the last Simpsons reference you'll see here. Anyway, I'm a baseball and football collector from Michigan that was inspired by many of the blogs you'll see on your right to create my own.

To get started, in the next couple days I'll be reviewing a few different boxes (no I'm not rich, but I managed to scrape together some cash to pick up a few at a time in the last week). While that likely won't happen as often and you'll probably see more of a mixture of packs and boxes, we'll be starting off with a bang. In some as-of-yet undetermined order you'll be seeing:

• 2010 Topps Football Jumbo/HTA
• 2005 Topps Draft Football
• 2006 Bowman Football Jumbo
• 2005 Topps Football Jumbo
  
• 2007 Topps Baseball Series I (24 packs of 22)

Though I can pretty much guarantee 2010 Topps Football will be first if it's the first to arrive.

My goal is to try to provide an idea of what a collector can expect from a typical box or pack of a product. While a site like Beckett tries to do that, fairly or unfairly they get criticized for some pretty anomalous results. I'll be acquiring new stuff from various channels, including local stores, eBay and card shows, so there's no chance of that happening here. For each item I review I'll review price, design, collation, inserts and extras, and my opinion of the overall quality and value (and I'll try to make sure there's plenty of pretty pictures too). If there's anything else readers would like me to include, please let me know--I'd like these reviews to be as informative as possible.

I also hope to open up more opportunities for trading. Right now my main source for making deals and working on my wantlists is SportsCardFun, but as more people read this blog I hope to make more deals that way too. My wantlists and tradelists can be found in the links on the top right of the page, and I'll work on keeping those updated. I mainly collect baseball sets, football sets and University of Michigan alumni (all four sports, but mostly football, baseball and hockey).

Look for new posts on the aforementioned boxes very soon!