2012 Topps football retail mega review!

I've got a good post for you today, something I haven't done for a while:  a box/pack review!  Since I've cut down drastically on paying the wax pack idiot tax (free new blog name to the first person who wants to use it), I haven't had the fun of busting a new product in a while.  However, I was excited enough about 2012 Topps football and the imminent promise of trading with Colby (who'll have his own posts up about this shortly, I hear) to go for broke on retail packs.

After busting an entire case of the 2011 version as an experiment (with mixed results overall) last year, I decided to take a different tack.  Hobby boxes and their promise one lame relic or a not-quite-as-lame autograph were out of the question; jumbo boxes, despite their two auto-plus-one-relic appeal, are just too expensive to justify the purchase, especially when they don't seem to produce one base set anyway, at least not in my experience.

So today I experimented with 10 jumbo (or rack) packs of 36 cards each ($5.29/per) and one 72-card hanger box ($10.49).  I'd generally heard those were the way to go because the blasters and their guaranteed Captain manupatches (and dicey player selection, other than Charles Woodson and Jake Long!) don't justify spending $20 for 81 cards.  Here's a look at how I did:

Base:

Here's the front and back of Calvin Johnson's base card.  It's a fairly pleasing design this year overall.  I don't have much more to say about it because the rest is pretty standard:  stamps for achievements, RCs scattered throughout the set (bring back piling them all up at the end of the set, Topps!) and useless team cards, but some fun shots.  Note that I didn't pull any SPs (excellent list on SportsCardRadio, plus a full checklist, all while Beckett employees waste time pleasuring themselves to their own videos of box breaks), but then again, that's why they're called "SPs."

Set completion:  268/440
Doubles:  83
Triples:  23
Quads:  1
Total extras:  107/375

No sense in bitching about not-excellent collation when you buy 10 random racks and a hanger, I guess.  Hopefully I can trade some of these to Colby.

Inserts:
I ended up mostly with the ones that came one per pack but did get a few that were slightly tougher, and then one total surprise.  I'll list the odds for the ones that weren't in every pack.  Here they are in the order I liked them, least to most:

Game Time Giveaway:  5 (one came in the hanger, four in the racks, not sure on odds)
It's not that I hate these, but Topps' increasingly dubious and useless "giveaways" don't inspire much confidence in me these days.  I may try to actually sell them this year, something I regret not doing last year.

 

Prolific Playmakers:  11
Let's see, the design is extremely boring and seems like it was intended for some other mailed-in Topps base set.  That and the player selection is often questionable, especially since there's autographed versions of these.  Seriously, Jabar Gaffney?  F-- for this one, Topps.

 
Paramount Pairs:  11
These aren't all that bad, it's just that it's such a stale concept at this point.  We're starting to get into Topps baseball reprints territory with how derivative and predictable these are.  Fine design, but definitely not a set I'm going to collect.

QB Immortals:  4 (1:2 jumbos)
Not an especially thrilling design, but pretty good, and obviously these are quality players we'll be seeing.  I may actually try to work on this if I can trade for the ones I need--no sense in spending anything on them otherwise.

Gold parallels (#d /2012):  4 (1:3)
Nice and familiar, but in a good way, not an "If you make just ONE more ToppsTown-type insert, you're going to be getting a redemption card for your favorite pet" way.  The complaint about the atrociously lame serial number "stamp" stands, however.

Pink parallel (#d to 399):  2 (1:17)

It's a relatively small gesture, but a quality one to try to raise breast cancer awareness with this interesting insert.  I'm not so insecure that I wouldn't say these are kind of cool, even if I probably won't be going after the versions of my favorite players with too much effort.

QB Rookie Reprints:  9 (1:2)

This is my blog so if I want to rag on Topps for overdoing baseball reprints but utilize the concept (which, admittedly, has been done) with football, I can.  Kind of cool how they limited it to QBs this time, and if they did a different position the next couple of years, I think I'd be down.  This is the set I'm most likely to try to complete, and fortunately it's not even very large.

1965 Topps Tall Boys:  11

Last year it was the minis, and this year it's this pretty sweet throwback.  The set's much too large for me to consider completing and I'll probably send this to an appreciative Colby instead, but I do very much like the inclusion of something this fun.

Those are all the more standard inserts you'll pull, but I did end up with this guy, which caught me completely by surprise:

"What's so great about that?" you're probably asking.  Well, when I noticed it standing out in the pack, I figured I'd just pulled another of Topps' various parallel versions and nothing special.  That is, until I flipped it over to check the serial numbering so I could figure out what it was:

Whoa!  There's a 1/1 that came out of the blue!  Definitely not something you see every day when it comes to retail, that's for sure.  I've only pulled two other 1/1s, one being from 2008 Razor Letterman and another in my 2011 Topps football last year, but both of those were from cases.  Not, bad, not bad at all, Topps.

I'm not exactly sure what to do with it because I don't know what pricing would work out to be on a guy like this, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna try to sell it if I think I can get enough for it; otherwise I can make it available to someone who appreciates the Lions more than me, which shouldn't be hard to find.

Summary:

These were fun to bust; I enjoyed the jumbos far more than the hanger, which basically involved opening the box and removing a shrink-wrapped brick of cards to flip through.  Jumbo packs are just more fun, though either way you've got a decent chance of pulling something worthwhile.  A few of the inserts were pretty boring but one of the guaranteed pulls is the sure-to-be-popular Tall Boys.  Random (e.g. terrible) retail collation is still your enemy, but if you can get past not likely pulling a crappy hit, these offerings are a good way to go.  Whether you're going for an impulse buy or working on the set, I'd recommend some jumbos, especially if you can get them on sale.

I'm hoping to pick up a few more racks to get myself closer to the set, then I'll see where Colby is at, and hopefully we can help each other with our wantlists without requiring further spending.  If any of you happen to be busting these too, though, please let me know, as I'll eventually be making a lot of this available.

I hope you enjoyed this review, and I promise I'll have more good content coming soon, especially in the form of purchases from eBay, SportLots, and eventually, COMC!

2008 UD Heroes Football retail boxes (x3)

I know it had been a while since I did a box break, but there hasn't been a ton that interested me and/or was a good deal.  Despite a possible card show on Sunday plus scads of Black Friday deals on Blowout, Dave & Adam's et al, this afternoon I took advantage of one of the few days a year where Meijer has its cards on sale.  (Which sewingmachineguy also pointed out today--good on you, dude!)  I'll be honest--I check Meijer's ad scans online every week to check for this kind of thing, so it didn't exactly catch me by surprise today.  Add to that the fact that you could snag a few further discounts and it added up to a nice deal for me, one I was happy to take advantage of after nothing on Black Friday wowed me.

Therefore, I ended up with these three boxes.  I had some fun with the baseball set of that year and these were the only boxes at the store I hit up that made any sense to buy--I refuse to buy anything new from Topps since I know it'll be poorly made, missing cards and completely lacking value, and there's an easy way to avoid that headache.  Blasters generally don't appeal to me either, and Panini's retail products leave a LOT to be desired.  But these looked enticing especially since I almost picked up a bunch of blasters of them on the cheap from D&A.  I was somewhat considering opening one each day for three straight days, but in my post Michigan victory euphoria, all bets were off, and I ripped through these quickly.

So, without getting too formal, since my review process has changed greatly--mostly because I didn't like the amount of effort I was putting into them--here's a quick look at how I did:

Product:  2008 Upper Deck Heroes Football retail boxes (x3)
Packs/cards:  24/6 (x3)
Price:  $23.99, not including further discounts with Meijers "Santa Bucks" (x3)

Base set:

Base fronts:  veteran, RC, legend, (also a checklist) Sports Hero, Guitar Hero

Base backs:  a regular card and a checklist

Once again I like the look of the base set:  you get a nice action shot framed by a nice marble kind of background.  The hand-painted checklists really stand out, too, and are a great addition.  The set's split into five groups:  football heroes, rookie heroes, (in college unis!) legendary heroes, sports heroes and guitar heroes.

My two quibbles:  I don't love the multiple versions of every player and would have preferred that they cut the set size down or include additional players instead; this set is called "Football Heroes" and yet you're lacking Tom Brady, among others?  The only pro Wolverine in the set is Braylon Edwards of all people.

The other big issue I have is the inclusion of the sports heroes and guitar heroes.  At least the other athletes fit in as part of a sports set, though again I don't appreciate them taking away from the subjects of the base set; the guitar heroes bore me to death and are an obvious cash-in attempt on the series of games, and to that end, UD failed miserably.  Overall, I still generally like the set, especially since it features so many Wolverines.  (See below)

Set completion:  258/266 (97%)

Doubles:  130

Triples:  21

Quads:  12

Quints:  8

Total dupes:  171/429 (40%)

Don't get me wrong--I knew I'd pile up a bunch of extras out of three boxes when I was due 429 base cards for a 266-card set.  I'm just disappointed by the Topps-like collation I got that meant that, despite busting three boxes, I'm still eight cards short of the set.  Despite my liberal arts-induced aversion to math, I have a very simple explanation for the above, though:  each pack includes two cards each from 1-99, 100-199 and 200-269. (261-263 don't exist)  In case you still don't get it, the fact that there's only 67 cards in that least group means you're going to pull a disproportionate number of extras there, an especially egregious decision on Upper Deck's part and one I can't begin to understand.  

Unfortunately, that group happens to include the Sports and Guitar Heroes throwaways mentioned above.  A tiny handful of my quadruples and a few of the triples come from #s 1-199, but obviously the majority of the rest, including all of the quintuples, are from that other craptastic group.  So here's the part where I ask you, my readers, to check if you have the ones I need because I'll happily send money, cards, money/cards your way for them; otherwise I'll just grab them from Sportlots and call it a day.  I currently need:  15 17 27 33 46 88 91 95.  I also obviously have plenty of extras up for trade if anybody would like some before I eventually sort them into teams for dispersal that way.

Inserts:

Blue LenDale White (#017/125), Green Andre Woodson (#331/350) and running Michael Johnson (#058/350)

These inserts appeared to fall one per box since that's exactly how I pulled them.  Not as exciting as the hobby versions I'm sure, especially since I like what they did with the baseball set, but not terrible either.

Hits:

Dwayne Bowe Green Retail jersey

 Eli Manning Green Retail jersey

Tony Romo Green Retail jersey

The outside of each box promised one of these per box ("On average") and each did deliver as promised.  I don't love the ugly background or the tiny jersey windows that feature single-color swatches, but all the same, these are a nice bonus in a box I bought primarily to build the set.  I'm not a fan of Bowe, and Manning and Romo are two of my least-favorite QBs ever, so each is absolutely up for trade and already in my trade bait.  They will serve nicely in that respect, so, again, a nice bonus, though easily not as valuable as they should be at the original price of the box.

Overall:  I got everything that was due to me, including three guaranteed hits, and I was only eight cards short of a complete set.  It still kills me that I pulled that many dupes because Upper Deck fails at basic math, though.  But I do like most of the aspects of the base set, and I'll be happy to have it completed shortly, one way or another.  I certainly wouldn't pay the original $50 for these and now, having opened them, I wouldn't drop $30 each either, but for what essentially amounted to $20 per box, I'm only slightly miffed at the overall haul.  In the end, I'd stay away from these and either go hobby or just grab a complete base set.

Hey, I get to use this image for what I originally intended again!

All four of Braylon Edwards

 Two each of Chad Henne and Jake Long

Two each of Shawn Crable, Mario Manningham and Mike Hart

2011 Topps jumbo football case: inserts and sorta wrapup

This will be the last look at what I pulled from my 2011 Topps football jumbo case; however I plan to post an update/summary of my progress in selling things off pretty soon.

Today I'm showing off the plethora of inserts the case yielded, then giving my final opinion on quality control and the product as a whole.

Inserts (390):  

Faces of the Franchise:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

A very meh insert that borrows from its equally uninspiring baseball cousin Legendary Lineage.  The player combos aren't terribly exciting, and instead of making one for each team, or at least focusing on teams with quality combinations...well...they produced this crap.  I pulled two full sets, 19/20 of a third and one quadruple (the crap you see above).

Game Day:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Now here's an insert I like.  I think what works for me is that the player is the obvious focus while the background is very secondary, though it often ends up looking very cool itself as it's depicted in the team's colors.  I also like how it highlights a key game in a player's pro or college career (kind of like Peak Performance highlighting a single game or season achievement in baseball).  I got 39/50 in the set plus 20 doubles and one triple.

Gold:  30 (1:2, 30 expected)

You've purchased a Topps flagship box before, yes?  These have remained fairly constant and the only thing I really don't like is that they abandoned stamping for printed-on numbers, which just isn't the same.  It wouldn't be a Topps set without these.  I was happy to pull a Steve Breaston, but the next best player I got was probably Reggie Bush or Eli Manning, unfortunately.  Why these were 1:2 I couldn't say.  Fortunately, every card was different, so I didn't have to deal with the annoyance of beating the odds and pulling a double.

Minis:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Carrying on the momentum from the baseball set, I'm sure, these work well here.  I just wish there weren't so many (140) or else I'd shoot for the set.  As it is, I'm trying to sell the 57 of them (including Cam Newton and Mark Ingram) I didn't really want, but I'm keeping the Charles Woodson, Tom Brady and Mario Manningham you saw last time.  I am happy to report that I got 60 different players here--no dupes!  They seem to suffer from bad cutting/centering, though.

Super Bowl Legends:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

Here's another set I was pretty happy with, both due to concept and design.  Because my football knowledge isn't even a tenth of my baseball knowledge, I enjoy the history lesson it provides for a sport I've come to love over the last few years.  What I didn't love so much was the collation:  I got 25/45 in the set, then 21 dupes and 14 triples.  I just feel that out of a case it wouldn't kill them to get me one 45-card set.  Collation aside, it's a cool set with the bonus of forcing collectors to learn Roman numerals.  Bonus #2:  three Tom Bradys (one for each ring), though I only pulled two.

Super Bowl Legends Giveaway:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)

This one's still a bit of a mystery as all details of the promotion haven't been released.  It doesn't necessarily look like you redeem them for crappy Topps commons, but there are definitely prizes (virtual and tangible) for redeeming certain numbers of codes, with one of the better prizes being a Joe Namath autograph--the stipulation I'm reading into being that you need to unlock 45 "unique" items, but maybe that's not necessary, or maybe you can trade for them.  We'll know more in the future, but for now I'm holding onto mine until I know more and can decide I should redeem them or sell at a fair price.  Lots of sellers are liquidating these but I don't think that's the best idea without knowing what they could get you.  On a related note, I pulled five 10-card sets, then nine of a sixth, but got a seventh of a different card.  By the way, if you're lazy/stupid/cheap enough to be searching for free Giveaway codes, by all means please use the one above.  If you do, my reaction will be thus:

ToppsTown:  60 (1:1, 60 expected)
Ok, let's get this out of the way:  these suck, though not quite as much as the flimsy, throwaway versions Topps has done in the past. These are more like StarQuest, except with a dumb game you can play online.  Go ahead and swipe my code, see if I care.  I got 41/50 out of this set plus 19 dupes, so not terrible there.


NOTE:  I already showed the Black parallels in the hits post, so that's why you're not seeing them here.


NOTE #2:  I didn't pull an SP somehow, despite quite a bit of searching.  Go figure.


Quality control:  D-
Things seemed to look ok as I got started, but not long after that I started accumulating a small pile of cards with wrecked-as-hell corners:

I'm not sure this scan does the damage to the upper-right corner justice, but it's pretty bad, and symptomatic of a good pile of cards from the case overall (with some being bad on the lower-left instead).  Additionally, I found a nice little stack of poorly miscut cards:

Any worse and Brian would have been poking his head into his neighbor's card above going "HAY GUISE, WATS GOIN' ON IN THIS CARD?"  Since Topps has a stupid policy of limiting you to sending in 25 damaged cards at a time, plus I'd have to go through the hassle of proving they didn't fall off a truck (literally, apparently, judging by what you see) with scans of the boxes/packs/my retinas, I'm gonna say screw it since I really only needed something like 15 cards to complete sets 4 and 5 and I should get those soon in a deal anyway.  
I think the total number of damaged and miscut cards came out to be less than 50, but it was still very annoying after ponying up for a case, and I'd be even more pissed if I'd grabbed just one box and those cut into my base set.  Then again, this is Topps, whose reputation for quality control (if they ever had one, I don't rightly know) has plummeted in the last few years.  Way to set the bar low, guys.


Overall grade:  B+
At this point I don't think I could live without putting together a Topps flagship football base set.  While I'm sure I won't be repeating the case experiment very often, I'm glad I tried it with these first, especially because of what you saw in the hits post:  two autographs and a generally excellent rookie patch guaranteed plus some extras make for a nice experience for the money (and these will surely come down to more reasonable levels before long; I just wanted to strike while the iron was hot for selling purposes).  The base set and many of the inserts are also big pluses, and really only the usual Topps annoyances--bad QC, one or two stupid inserts--detract from a very good product.  So I give buying something of this product a big thumbs up and I strongly encourage you to save up for the jumbo box--you'll be glad you did.


And now, my promise that I'll return to this topic in a couple weeks with what I learned after trying to sell some of my hits, sets and inserts!

2011 Topps jumbo football case: base and Wolverines

I'll get to the inserts and my overall thoughts next, but for now we'll take a look at the design, collation and Wolverines from my case:

Case:  2011 Topps football (jumbo)
Packs/cards:  60/50 (10 packs of 50, six boxes)
Price:  $510, Dave & Adam's

Base cards:

Some fronts:  regular, team card and RC

Aaron Rodgers back

Design grade:  A
I've always been a sucker for Topps' design.  Well, maybe not always--they had some pretty ugly sets prior to the late 90s--but for the last few years I've appreciated their consistent, yet subtly different base set designs.  With base Topps, you pretty much know what you're gonna get:  solid photography, a white border and a section with team, position and logo.  Added to that you can expect stamps or icons for RCs and major awards.  The backs are pretty standard, too: a clean design with bio info, a blurb about the player and full stats, not to mention team colors being part of the theme.
As usual, there's a few different types of cards or subsets:  regular players, RCs, checklists, Rookie of the Year, MVP, Pro Bowl and teams.  These are all mixed among the base set as Topps has been doing for the last few years--no more blocks of rookies at the end of the set, for example.
Not everyone is a fan, but for me this is what a Topps base set should look like (and I'm fully aware it was borrowed from its older brother, 2011 Topps baseball).


Base set completion:

• Set 1:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 2:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 3:  440/440 (100%)
• Set 4:  439/440 (99%)
• Set 5:  429/440 (97%)
• Set 6:  325/440 (74%)
• Extras:  13 x7s, 7 x8s

Average:  ~419/440 (95%)

Collation grade:  B

This is actually pretty solid for Topps--at least the average number makes it look like it.  It was nice to be able to do a case to get a more useful statistical sample to determine what you might be able to expect.  I do want to note that while the numbers came out pretty nicely, they're a bit higher than they should be in that a large handful of cards came out of the packs damaged (almost all of those being significantly wrecked corners) or with inexcusably poor centering (but all that falls under QC, not collation).  I'm debating sending those back to Topps, but I'm in the process of working out a deal on Blowout to get the rest of the base I need for sets 4 and 5.  I am a bit annoyed that I needed a single card for the fourth, but I'll live.  I decided not to go for a sixth set since it seemed like it would be cost prohibitive, but I'll have those to trade for other stuff, so that's a plus.  I'm happy that with relatively little work I should finish with five base sets, meaning I can keep one for myself and try to sell four others (want one?).  

And the bottom line is that getting about 95% of the base set is reasonable to me when you do the math:  you pull roughly 500 cards but each pack has roughly seven inserts, plus maybe a hit (some being thick and eliminating a few more).  My average box based on the whole break shows that you should get about 420/440 base cards, fewer than five doubles, three-to-four hits and around 70 inserts.  As far as Topps' very low bar goes, that's pretty good!

Wolverines!:

Lots this time since there were quite a few in the base set and I even pulled a bunch of inserts (no hits, though).

Base part 1

Base part 2

Inserts, with the Minis being Manningham, Woodson and Brady

More to come soon with a look at the inserts and my overall recommendation!

Case break is Friday night; 2008 UD First Edition football review

Case is here:  This is the case.  I will be opening it starting around 8 pm EST Friday evening on Livestream (I'll provide a link/embedded player here).  I've lined up a few contests/giveaways, and how many I do will depend on how many of you bloggers/readers show up.  I'll likely also share a link to the break on the Blowout forum, but they'll be excluded from the giveaways since they're not awesome like you guys.  If you want to be a part of those please make sure to show up reasonably early as some will depend on guessing something before I get crackin'.  Also, please make sure you can identify yourself somehow so I can distinguish you from the ineligible Blowouters.  I'll probably try to get some kind of roll call going before I break the boxes so I can figure out who's around, and I figure that's a good thing anyway--you can advertise your blogs to the other viewers and maybe even to the Blowout folk who might not know about them.  Good?  Good.  See you all tomorrow night.

And now, a box review!

As I mentioned when I announced the case break, I took advantage of Dave & Adam's' deal where if you spend a certain amount, you get free stuff.  I felt like my best choice for what I spent was a box of 2008 Upper Deck First Edition football.  I've made it no secret that the 2008 draft class (Wolverines Long, Henne, Hart, Manningham, Arrington, etc., plus Matt Ryan, Chris Johnson, Joe Flacco, et al) is pretty much my favorite in recent memory, plus considering how much base I'd be getting, I thought I'd be a lock for pulling a complete set.  It doesn't really have any bells and whistles, pretty much being the recent equivalent of Collector's Choice, but I was cool with that in a free box.  Read on to see how I felt about the results of a box that was, for all intents and purposes, free.

Box:  2008 Upper Deck First Edition football
Packs/cards:  36/10
Price:  Free (free gift), Dave & Adam's


Base cards:

Veteran and Star Rookie fronts

Backs

Design grade:  A-
I definitely like what UD did here.  The card stock is different--maybe more of a cheaper feel, but that doesn't bother me.  I like the fronts quite a bit, especially the full-bleed photos.  My only real ding is the semi-transparent white band on which the player's name, position and team reside, because I think they take away from the photo.  The shots of the players are often excellent, though, and I picked a fun example in T.O. above.  The Star Rookies are a nice mix of poses, like Rice above, and action shots, including players in pro and college unis.  Another plus is the ordering of the set--I often like when they're sorted by team, although in this case that's where sorting stopped because players aren't in alphabetical order (not that it really makes a difference to me).  While it's not always necessary, I like team groups for the purposes of team sets and checklisting.  Overall this is a low-end but enjoyable base set, definitely targeted toward the bottom of the market, especially kids, I'm sure.


Base set completion:   204/225 (91%)
Extras:   82 doubles (25% of base cards pulled), 38 triples (12%).  Total doubles:  120/324 (37%)
Collation grade:  E
If you think I'm being harsh, you should have seen me while I was busting these.  A little more than halfway in I hadn't seen a double and things were going swimmingly.  Then, pretty quickly, things went downhill and I started pulling the exact same packs, in some cases twice.  I wasn't too worried at first since I was going to be getting 324 base cards, which meant 99 dupes--that means I should have been seeing lots of extras.  Still, when I noticed that I was missing some players I knew were on the checklist, including one Chad Henne, I started getting mad.  All the same, I wasn't that frustrated, at least not until I actually sorted these out.  Holy gap power, that's a lot of doubles!  While I need a few from the first 200, it looks to me like 201-225 may have been short printed--I only pulled 10 from that group, and that meant lots of other rookie doubles.  I can't complain too much about having extra Joe Flaccos and Chris Johnsons, exactly, but I'm not a fan of the non-random pack-outs you see sometimes, and I got bitten hard by them here.  As a nice segue into the inserts, I didn't have the greatest luck there either, as you'll see.


Inserts (36):

StarQuest:  36 (1:pack, 36 expected):  The box clearly touts this insert and nothing else (which makes sense, since there isn't anything else).  I remember this insert from the Collector's Choice days, and as usual, the design is hit or miss.  I call this bland, shiny design a miss, but maybe others like it.  When I found out it was a 30-card set, I hoped I'd land all 30, and just six doubles, but that wasn't meant to be--instead I got 25 unique players (I didn't feel like scanning all of them) and 11 different dupes.  Since I'm so close to the set I figured I'd tack them on to my wantlist, then maybe dump the set later if I decide I don't want to keep it.


Overall insert grade:  D-
I'm not as harsh here because the box doesn't purport to include any big extras and you get exactly what you're promised.  I just wasn't wowed with the design of the one they did include, and I was annoyed at not even pulling a set of them, odds be damned.

Hits:  In this box?  For real?

Value grade:  D-
I may as well be consistent!  While I got this box for free, I want to compare the value of picking up the packs vs. buying a factory set, which is apparently an option.  I can tell you hands down that the factory set is the way to go, and not just because you get a free jersey card; there was just no way I was going to pull either set from this box.  I have a few useful dupes of the rookies, but other than that, not much to be excited about.  Hell, even as a free box this isn't doing much for me, considering the money or effort I'll have to put into completing it.
Recommendation:
Stay away, stay very far away.  Go with something else if you spend this much on D&A.  Woof.


How about some Wolverines to cheer me up?:

Braylon Edwards, Charles Woodson, Tom Brady, Mario Manningham, Adrian Arrington, Shawn Crable, Tom Brady StarQuest


Wantlists are here.  Please help if you can--I have plenty of dupes for trade, or other stuff of course.


2008 Upper Deck First Edition:  41 53 57 163 193 198 202 204 205 206 208 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 225
2008 Upper Deck First Edition StarQuest:  4 16 17 21 25