2013 purchases #1: 2008 Score football value packs (x2)

I was at Meijer yesterday for the usual reasons, and as always I stopped by the card aisle, though I rarely purchase anything there anymore due to the relative futility of pulling anything good from retail packs, and mainly because I was resolved not to repeat my mistake of excessive retail spending from last year.

These two discounted fat packs of 2008 Score football caught my eye, though, and I figured for less than six bucks I could have fun ripping a couple value packs of a set that included my favorite ever NFL draft class.  It also didn't hurt that each pack comes with 52 cards, making those a nice value even at their original $3.99 cost.

Score has traditionally been and continues to be a low-end set targeted towards younger collectors--a not-so-crappy version of Topps Opening Day, if you will.  That explains the low price despite the huge number of cards per pack, plus the simple base set and inserts.


Speaking of the base set, here's what they look like, front and back:

It's a nice enough looking set that I think anyone can enjoy, and the card backs are better than some of Score's other versions, including a reasonable amount of stats and a quick blurb.

I pulled a few doubles, but I didn't really care because I wasn't picking these up for set-building--there's 440 cards in the set, including 110 rookies, which aren't so abundant in packs.  In fact, even in these value packs, you only get four at a time, meaning I ended up with eight:

These would be a pain in the ass to compile via wax, especially considering the ridiculous number of doubles you'd incur.  The design of these, though, with the simple addition of a "rookie" indicator along with pretty good photography, is reasonable enough.

While I'm still discussing the base set, I'll take a page out of Spankee's book and attempt to predict the Super Bowl tomorrow based on the number of Ravens and Niners in these two packs:

Yep, that was it, except for a pair of inserts you'll see in a minute, one of each team.  I sure hope this pack proves to be wrong!

Speaking if inserts, I pulled a total of 12, what essentially amounted to six one-per-pack inserts in each:

Bruschi is numbered 391/400 and Wayne is 273/400.  The Anderson is a Scorecard version #d 753/999.  You only see one of the stickers, called "Donruss Decals," because you'll see the other in a minute.  Those tattoos represent the other Super Bowl entrants in my packs, and I literally laughed out loud when I pulled one of each.

Speaking of the Derek Anderson, I also laughed my ass off when I read the back of the card:  "The Browns have a unique situation with two potentially elite starting quarterbacks in Brady Quinn and Anderson."  That could only have been written by a Notre Dame homer since anyone with a brain knew Quinn hasn't been "elite" for a single day of his life.  Also, try to say "Derek Anderson" and "elite" in the same sentence while maintaining a straight face, I dare you!

The last of the inserts.  The Carlson and Stokley are the Glossy parallel, one of the kinds I consider to be extremely useless and wasteful, but whatever.

Finally, I managed to pull six Wolverines from these packs, which was pretty exciting for me:

Yep, my other sticker was a Henne, which I thought was pretty cool, though the only place I'm gonna stick him is with the rest of his cards in my Michigan PC.  Not a bad group at all!

So I had fun busting a couple packs for less than $6 and got a few keepers in the process.  The rest of the stuff will go towards trades, but for now, not likely by request as I'll probably be including it in current and future trade packages (plus I don't feel like listing out everything I pulled).  If you do have a set wantlist for these, though, please feel free to send it my way.

And now we wait and see how long I go without giving in to the temptation of retail packs again!