2010 Press Pass PE football retail blister packs

No Michigan game, no Day of Rest post, though there's still some decent-to-good conference championship action today.  I'm rooting for everyone who can help Michigan get to the BCS bowl it clearly deserves, but either way, I sure wouldn't mind seeing Michigan State get pantsed by a Wisconsin team out for revenge.

So while doing my usual traversal through my Google Reader, I caught Sewingmachineguy's post that mentioned Meijer still had cards 20% today.  I needed a few other things there anyway, so I headed down to a different one than last week, one that I think has a better card aisle.  Nothing really looked all that great to me since most of it was recent blasters, as usual, plus there were 2008 UD Heroes football boxes, which I now know to avoid.  Then some hanging blister packs caught my eye and I remember that I had looked at them before:  2010 Press Pass Portrait Edition football:

These were originally $14.99 but were discounted to $11.99 thanks to this week's 20% off sale.  Here's what I pulled:

Base

Not a bad bunch of players, and unlike the often crappy player selection in SAGE, I'm reasonably happy with these.  Plus, the design is fairly pleasing.

Inserts

Gronk and McCluster are one-per-pack Blue parallels.  Yawn.  Benn is a 1:4 Class of 2010 insert that's also sorta boring in terms of design, but at least he's a reasonably good player.

James Starks Sideline Signatures Gold auto

Rusty Smith Sideline Signatures Gold auto

And then there was the real draw of the packs which justified the price:  the one-per-pack autographs.  Actually, each pack guaranteed one auto OR memorabilia card, but of the bunch on the hanger, I picked two that didn't look terribly thick to me and hoped that they contained signatures; I'm not paying $12 per pack for a $2 jersey in this day and age.  Some might consider that pack-searching, but in my defense, I didn't molest the packs through the blister packaging, put them on a scale or even stare at them for 10 minutes to try to gauge their thickness--I took a quick look at each and thought "I'm pretty sure these aren't jerseys."

As with the base, the autographs have a nice design that's conducive to the inclusion of a signature.  Better yet for many, the autos are on-card, and that's always a plus.

So all that said, I did OK here.  Starks is obviously the better pull, and COMC tells me he goes for $25 while Smith reaches $20.  Starks, of course, is a Packers RB, but here he's airbrushedly (feel free to use that word yourself) pictured with his alma mater, Buffalo.  Smith is a Tennessee Titans QB from Florida Atlantic, which probably partly explains why he went all Ned Flanders with his inscription.  I don't want to sound like I'm against inscriptions like that, though--overall I think they're a cool idea and add a nice personal touch to autographs.

For under $25, these were kind of fun to open.  I don't think I'll pick any more up unless I can find them for under $10, which isn't totally out of the question.  Everything you see here is for trade, especially the two autographs, both of which went right into my Football FS/FT album.  If you see anything you like, please let me know and I'll set it aside for you.