Got the itch again today–stopped by my local card shop to check out some cards that the owner had called me about (baseball related), and grabbed a few Bowman Chrome Football rookies that I didn’t need, but were cheap ($1 for 11), and could turn out ok, but it left me with a desire to bust something.

Since I knew I was heading to my local faceless giant corporate retailer, I decided I’d see what they had–fully expecting that I would probably end up with more Topps Heritage Baseball.

To my surprise, though, they actually had a fair amount of football available–albeit not a lot that I had collected.  They had a couple of the cheap Leaf Rookies & Stars $10 boxes, some Ultra, and a few others–but once again, I couldn’t get past the sucker buys.

At least this time it was a sucker buy of packs–and the main reason that I went for it was that it was all 2007 packs that were included, including some Topps Draft Picks & Prospects, which for some reason is a favorite set of mine. So I grabbed 2 boxes, with 4 packs each, plus a “graded” rookie card (I forgot that they do the stupid BCCG rookies in these, and almost always a Score card), plus a bonus.

First box, the bonus was a pack of 2007 Upper DeckFirst Edition, which was new to me.  Not much exciting, although Selvin Young and LaRon Landry rookies aren’t too bad, and I have to admit, the photos on these cards are quite good–probably the best I remember seeing in 2007 sets (usually Ultra is the only set that I remember using high quality action shots).

The graded card was a BCCG 10 2007 Score Brady Quinn–knowing what they include, probably one of the better I could have hoped for.

Checking out the packs, I noticed that two of them had come open in the box–not sure how that could have happened, and got me thinking about whether they might somehow search these packs before using them–but I can’t believe that that would even be possible, without them getting into big time trouble.  The first pack was Donruss Classics, which yielded nothing of interest–the second was Playoff Prestige, which featured a Prestigous Pros Black Peyton Manning, #197/500, which in a pack like this isn’t too bad.

The last two packs were Press Pass SE (uneventful, other than a Marquee Matchups Brady Quinn/JaMarcus Russell), and the Topps Draft Picks & Prospects, which had two base rookies (local boy Marcus McCauley and Kenny Irons), and a Bronze Chrome Garrett Wolfe rookie.

The second box features a BCCG 10 2007 Score JaMarcus Russell, along with a 2007 Topps bonus pack (which shockingly may have been the first pack of regulat Topps I’ve opened in 2007).  It did have Ahmad Bradshaw and Robert Meachem rookies, but all of the cards were a bit beat up from being loose in the box (the rest of the packs are glued quite heavily to cardboard for shipping).

The one pack that was different from the first box was 2007 Press Pass regular, which replaced the Donruss Classics–and ended up being the pack of either box.  Started off with a Teammate Marshawn Lynch/Daymeion Hughes (which books at lower than I expected–less than $1), followed by Brady Quinn ($3), and a Calvin Johnson Blue Reflector ($10).

Close behind that was the Playoff Prestige pack, which had a local boy Sidney Rice rookie ($5) and a Peyton Manning Super Bowl Heroes ($8).

The other packs yielded a Insider Insight Anthony Gonzalez and what appears to be a Gold Drew Stanton (Press Pass SE), and another Selvin Young rookie and local boy Aundrae Allison Bronze Chrome (Topps DP&P).

Overall, actually not too bad.  Relatively cheap, quick, and somewhat fun–not a bad way to kill a little time on a snowy Minnesota spring night.