2010 Press Pass PE football Blister Packs (x25)

Two Saturdays ago I hit up Meijer and found something new and interesting to try:  blister packs of 2010 Press Pass Portrait Edition football.  I pulled two of the one-per-pack autographs (James Starks and Rusty Smith) and thought they might be fun to buy again.

Flash forward to this afternoon when I made another required trip to my favorite store, armed with more Santa Bucks coupons.  Again, nothing else appealed to me in the card aisle, but on a whim I decided to price check the Press Pass PE packs to see what they'd ring up at since that's how I verified they were 20% off last time.  I was more than a bit surprised, then, when the formerly $14.99 packs came up at $5.59 apiece.  Thinking the one I had grabbed was a fluke I tried two more, and sure enough, they pulled up the same price.
Well I sure didn't need more of a kick in the pants than that!  I promptly cleaned that particular store out of all 15 packs they had.  After busting those, encouraged by what I had pulled, I hit up another store and grabbed 10 more--out of the roughly 25 they had on hand there, I mean I was trying to show SOME restraint.  That explains why you see "only" 15 of the 25 packs above, by the way.

Before I show off just the hits from these, I'll give you a quick update on the rest of the stuff from this set having now opened 27 packs:

• Set 1 completion:  42/50
• Set 2 completion:  28/50
• Extras:  13 trips, 4 quads, 1 quint
• Blue parallel:  20/50 with 7 doubles (1:pack)
• Headliners:  6/34, 2 doubles (1:3)
• Class of 2010:  4/10, 1 double (1:6)
• Face to Face:  7/20 (1:3)

And now, the hits:

Yes, I really did pull FIVE autos of Joe Webb.  Two more of James Starks definitely made up for that, though, as he's one of the better ones in the set.  The Stafon Johnson and Chris McGaha Reds are alternate versions of the basic Gold autographs.  Spiller is the hit of the break here, a Wal-Mart Exclusive auto (hilarious since I never set foot in that hellhole) numbered 02/25.  Clausen, talentless emu that he is, is a Gold version of the jersey insert numbered 193/199, while Benn and Canfield are the base versions of the jerseys.

All told, I finished with only three jerseys, which is better than I could have hoped in my wildest dreams.  The three Starks and the Spiller (if I can ever determine a value) may net me some useful cash or bring something nice in trade.  As usual, everything you see above is available for sale or trade but it'll take a bit of time for me to get everything put up on my football FS/FT album; that shouldn't stop you from making offers should you desire.

I'm not currently posting base set wantlists because I may go back for a few more of these packs before all is said and done, and hopefully I'll eventually hit something bigger, be it the Donovan Warren auto (the lone Wolverine) or the big guns--autos of Sam Bradford and Tebow of Nazareth.  Even if I don't, these are a blast to break and are light years ahead of the shit Topps keeps spewing out.  Let's see, blaster of worthless tripe or three of these?  Decisions, decisions....

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.