Tales from the draft folder: 2008 Mayo Football

For the second straight night, I've passed out while watching the Braves. As a result, the posts I had planned ain't exactly written. I scoured the draft folder and found this Mayo pack I had started writing about back on January 27th, but never actually posted for some reason. Maybe I ended up posting it on A Pack A Day or something.

Also: everyone who has sent me a trade e-mail will be replied to by Friday. If I don't get back to you, please punch me in the face to get my attention.

Ok, now for an old pack. Updated notes in blue.


Just got this pack today (1/27/09), $5.50 at Champion Sports Cards in Kennesaw. I'll let the cards speak for themselves and do a more detailed dissection on my own blog (probably did post this already on APAD) once (typo) I've been able to examine them more thoroughly.

24 Matt Cassell

274 John Harvey Kellogg

267 Maurice Jones-Drew

40 Marcus Smith RC SP

227 Derek Anderson mini

SB39-B Super Bowl XXXIX thick insert

76 Muhsin Muhammad

101 Jerry Porter

To sum up: Topps spent a fortune in black ink. The photos ranged from pretty good (Cassell, Porter) to dreadful (Smith). I'm not impressed by the Pro Set throwback thick Superbowl insert. The mini card is kickass as always, but Derek Anderson? Eecch. I would eat cornflakes for every meal if I could get my mustache to grow the way Kellogg's does. I'm glad I didn't drop $100+ on a Hobby box, but you can bet your sweet bippy that Blasters Shall Be Bought. (One blaster that is. I wasn't all that impressed with this set after the short prints turned out to be needlessly tough. I still want my McLovin autograph!)

I never have to buy another pack of Mayo as long as I live

I ran out to Target today to pick up last minute Valentine's stuff. It's not like you can pick up flowers a month in advance to save money. Of course I should have been going to an actual Florist but the ones by me don't sell Upper Deck. Apparently neither does Target... Wally World has had UD for a week but there's still no sign of that yellow package with Jeter's mug on it yet. Maybe Upper Deck is mad at Target because Topps got released early and they're holding back on them. I took care of my societal holiday obligation and snagged a few packs of American Heritage and two packs of Mayo. I really want to like this stuff and I thought I'd give it one more shot. I'm not sure if the Topps Gremlins put these packs in my path to try to win me over or the Upper Deck Spies put them there to ensure I'd never buy a pack of them again. You see, in those two packs I got the one card I really, really wanted other than the Matt Ryan rookie:

The Falcons Super Bowl card. See folks, they were actually there. This is proof. I wasn't dreaming. IT WAS REAL. Now if I could just go back in time and hold Eugene Robinson in his hotel room at gunpoint until kickoff. Of course Upper Deck used the new logo insead of the old logo, but I ain't complaining. The old logo was kinda dorky looking to be honest.

The other pack had two mini cards in it including:

Yep, finally got my ship. Now I have the Ryan, The Falcons cards and a random boat. What the heck else could I possibly want? Well other than the McLovin autograph THAT TOPPS TEASED ME WITH. I also got this card in the pack with two minis to cap the whole set off:

Sir Arthur. Sherlock Holmes' daddy. I got the Complete Sherlock Holmes book for Christmas when I was a kid and I read the hell out of that book. I still try to catch the Jeremy Brett shows on Bravo or A&E or wherever the hell channel they're on now at 3 in the morning when I can find them. Plus: I want that mustache. I want to reach into that card, rip it off his face and glue it on mine. I will wear Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's handlebars with pride.

So I got a couple packs and got exactly what I wanted. What's the use of buying more packs? I can't beat those two unless I got a coin card or some such nonsense, which will never happen anyway. Ah, those sneaky Upper Deck spies. they're more clever about their anti-Topps espionage than I imagined. Hey folks, how about planting some UD blasters in Target next time though, huh?

One of the more useless things I've done lately...

I think anyone who has followed this blog for any amount of time knows that I'm somewhat obsessed with Allen & Ginter. I've got the 2007 and 2008 sets completed and I'm currently working on the 2006 set. You also know that I like to have the sets I like the best in binders. Now, you can't hand complete Allen and Ginter sets through ripping wax without accumulating a lot of mini cards. And I've got a bunch of 'em, but not quite enough to seriously consider building a mini set. I've got about 80 from 2006, 150 from 2007 and 120 from 2008, give or take a few. That's a lot of mini cards, but nowhere close to a set for any of those years. But... put all three of 'em together...

Yeah, it's kind of silly to be honest, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The different designs look pretty neat all on the same page. There's plenty of spaces for the 2009 cards too and at least I've got 'em all in one place now. I put all these in pages a few weeks ago when I was on my set building binge. Last night I tried to put in the Mayo Cut Plug minis I got from that blaster break into the A&G Frankenset, but they don't actually fit into the sheets. They are just a teensy bit larger than the A&G/T206 sized cards as you can see here.

That is probably the size of the original Mayo cards, but man is it going to be a pain to store those Mayo minis. Good luck to anyone who builds that Mayo set, because Topps didn't cut you guys any breaks.

2008 Mayo Cut Plug Blaster Break and Review

All righty then. I know the short prints. I have my blaster. I am facing certain doom and I laugh. I laugh! Ha! Ha! Let us face the doom together, as one.

Rip.

Pack One:

95 Kyle Wright RC
28 Glenn Dorsey RC
212 Funkmaster Flex SP
179 Anthony Gonzalez mini
201 Trent Edwards
182 Shawne Merriman

So, starting the blaster off right with a Funkmaster Flex short print. Yeehaw. Actually his card makes him look more like a defensive line coach for Kansas City than a DJ so I guess he fits in the set. Right? RIGHT? Ugh. I know this has been asked over 9000 times since Saturday, but can someone tell me why when Shawne Merriman got caught doing steroids the entire universe didn't implode from the unfairness of it all? But A-Rod gets outed (illegally and unethically) and Everything Is Ruined Forever. Ugh. If it weren't for the kick ass Glenn Dorsey card I might have given up on this box after the first pack.

Paquet Deux:

197 Gus Frerotte
261 Paul Gauguin
258 Dallas Clark
123 JP Losman Princeton Mini
SB38-A New England Patriots
162 Matt Schaub
151 Leon Washington

I'll compare the Princeton card with the mini in another pack. That vivid orange back is really striking in a set full of black, black, black. So far, I've noticed something about this set. The cards that have brightly colored uniforms look a hell of a lot better than the ones with muted colors. Compare The Gus Frerotte card with Matt Schaub there. Bench warming Frerotte pops right off the card while Schaub just looks like a schlub. And I don't know what's up with Leon Washington. His jersey just looks... off. Like it's a photo negative or something. The Gauguin card looks horrible. There are all kinds of pixel artifacts all over his face. I could come up with a better card of him in 5 minutes. Topps really just mailed this set in and that's a shame. The thing obviously was not even close to being ready by the release date. They should have pushed it to 2009 and done it right. I doubt we'll ever see a second set unless they decide to do a baseball set sometime in the future.

Paquete tres:

79 Archie Manning
131 John Elway
244 Justin Gage
263 Chris Chambers SP
105 Sterling Sharpe mini
138 Ahmad Bradshaw

Lookit that mop on Archie Manning! That card rocks. Elway is the first legitimate star I've gotten in this box, but they over processed his photo. It looks like an impressionist painting or something. Maybe pixelated Gauguin painted it. Sterling Sharpe makes for three retired players in the pack. I had to check twice to make sure the Bradshaw card wasn't Terry.

Satz vier:

20 Reggie Brown
234 DJ Williams
294 Reggie Wayne
273 AJ Hawk Mini
SB40-A Pittsburgh Steelers
189 Brian Westbrook
207 Antonio Cromartie

These Super Bowl decoy cards don't impress me much even though this Steelers card is pretty good looking. I like the fact that the three cards from each Super Bowl can be put together but it's still something like a 130 card set or so if they do all the Super Bowls. Do they actually do all the Super Bowls? I don't know because I haven't seen a checklist and I can't trust the one from Topps anymore. More SPs, more decoys, it's almost like Topps is using this set as a testing ground to see just how far they can push us in the '09 A&G set. Don't be surprised if you see 150 short prints (in a 200 card set) and a 438 card "Congressional Districts of America" decoy insert set in A&G this year. Here's that Princeton card compared to a gloomy looking AJ Hawk. Bam! It's like your eyeballs exploded!

Pacchetto cinque:

32 Roydell Williams
48 Marty Booker
314 Kurt Warner SP
98 Troy Smith Mini
227 Derek Anderson
64 Dwight Freeney

Kurt Warner pretty much has to go to the Hall of Fame now, doesn't he? I mean, he took the freaking CARDINALS to the Super Bowl and damn near won! That by itself is just mind boggling, add it to his career with the Rams and that's Hall of Fame material. I have nothing to say about the rest of the pack.

Пакет 6:

213 Keenan Burton
147 Colt Brennan RC
280 Thomas Jones
164 Ronnie Brown mini
SB42-C New England Patriots
76 Muhsin Muhammad
101 Jerry Porter

When was the last time you saw a fish eye spot on a new card?? (note - there is one on that Patriots card up by the top right corner but it didn't show up well on the scan. You can see it on the card) Oh well, the 2007 Patriots had a slight blemish too. (bad scan ruined my joke, grrrr) I got the Muhammad and Porter cards in the first pack I opened, also as the last two cards in the pack. Meh. I honestly don't have a lot to say about any of the cards in these packs. Maybe I'm just out of the loop after taking a year off from fantasy football. Here's a card of Colt Brennan, who got his butt stomped by Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

Πακέτο επτά:

96 Malcom Kelly RC
41 Tashard Choice RC
266 Brady Quinn
288 Tony Romo SP
165 Bobby Engram Mini
119 James Harrison

Not a bad pack other than Quinn with a big ol' dink on a corner. A couple of rookies including Ga. Tech star Tashard Choice. I have no idea how he did for Dallas this year. Tony Romo ain't a bad SP to pull with all the Cowboy lovers out there. Romo is still popular, right? He hasn't given Jessica Simpson the clap or anything has he? I'm so totally out of it right now. I have got to pay attention to football next year just so I can do a decent box break. Sorry folks. Much like the set, this review is now a complete train wreck.

パック8:

321 Santana Moss
253 JaMarcus Russell
240 Kyle Boller
H-11 Chincoteague Pony
SB39-c Philadelphia Eagles
143 Demarcus Ware
164 Ronnie Brown

We end the box with a freaking horse. I wanted a ship, and got a horse. A big smelly horse. That poops. Ships don't poop. EVER. There's nothing else interesting in here, so here's the checklist for the horsies if you like that sort of thing.

Mercifully, it's all over. Here's the wrap up:

36/275 Base cards (13.1%)
4/55 Short Prints (Funkmaster, Chambers, Warner, Romo) 1:2 (7.3%)
0 Doubles
1 Damaged (Quinn)

Mini cards:
6 base
0 SP 1:12
0 Yale Parallel 1:17
1 Princeton Parallel (Losman) 1:24
0 Harvard Parallel 1:66
0 Ships 1:12
1 Horse (Chincoteague Pony) 1:48

4 Super Bowl inserts 1:2

0 Autogamers

Well, the best card in the box was a horse and I don't even like John Elway. (ba-dum-ching!) I want to like this set. I mean I really want to like this set. There's an authentic retro design, mini cards, famous ships, framed relics and autos, mini back parallels... It's just my kind of set. But I don't like the set. Topps killed it through sheer incompetence. The bogus sell sheet sent prices through the roof, then they pulled a bait and switch with the final checklist. The 55 short prints was the last straw for me though. Allen & Ginter has pretty much a perfect base set to short print ratio. 300 base, 50 short prints, one in two packs. It makes the set challenging, but not impossible. Now, since this is a football set I didn't expect there to be 350 cards in there. 300 is really pushing it for a football set that isn't a base brand like Topps or Score. There just aren't that many star players in the NFL. With the Legends players, celebrities and old timers in the set, 330 was doable. A 290/40 ratio would have been good and would have been close to the A&G makeup. 55 short prints is just not right for this set. Oh, but Dayf, it's just 15 more short prints, what's the big deal?

Ok. Short prints are found one in two packs. A set with 40 short prints means with perfect collation you need 80 packs to pull 'em all. There has not ever been, nor will there ever be perfect collation on God's green earth. So let's boost that up 50% to 120 packs. We're looking at 5 boxes here, but you will definitely have at least 95% of the short set if not a full set and then some and a good chunk of the short prints with plenty to trade. Ok, now let's add those 15 extra short prints. 80 packs is now 110. 50% more is now 165. Now we're at about 7 boxes, we've probably got a couple of the short sets put together and if we're lucky we have about 75-85% of the short prints with a big ol' pile to trade. Now let's get a-tradin'. Oh, wait a minute...

WHO IN THE SAM HILL IS GOING TO BE BUILDING THIS SET?!?

Allen & Ginter is a great set for trading, because everybody and their mother collects it and it's easy to swap doubles. Who's collecting Mayo football? The case breakers have already burned all their base cards because they were promised two autos a box and got two autos in a case. Actual football card collectors just want their favorite players and don't want to chase down a needlessly difficult set. The retro set building crowd is distracted by the new 2009 products and is already frothing at the mouth for Heritage baseball to come out. So who is collecting this set? This overpriced, half assed, needlessly difficult bait and switch set?

NOBODY!

Nobody* is collecting this set except the most hardcore retro card set builders who happen to have very deep pockets and don't mind that the hits in the product are mostly garbage. That is not a very large subset of collectors, folks. So even if you do pony up for half a case of this who are you going to trade all those doubles to? Nobody. You're eating those doubles. If you like the set, buy it ready built online and help out a case breaker who is still looking frantically for that Joe Paterno card that will help him pay off the credit card he put that case on after seeing that Topps promo video with the Charlie Sheen card on it.

I wanted to like this set. I really really wanted to like this stupid set. It could have been such a good set. But Topps muffed it. And now it's a bad set and I'm sad. I'm sad because this set now has no future. I'm sad because Topps utterly screwed the pooch. I'm sad just like pixelated Paul Gauguin.

Poor pixelated Paul Gauguin. Why couldn't Topps have left you in Polynesia painting topless native girls and not have dragged you into this mess. Poor Mayo Cut Plug.

*well, nobody except Matt. But that's all! Probably!

2008 Mayo Cut Plug Short Print List

I think I've finally tracked down the Mayo short print list. I've found it here, here and here and apparently it was confirmed on Beckett's My Collections site. One more lie on the Topps sell sheet though - There were supposed to be 40 short prints, but there's actually 55. Five more short prints than A&G in a set with 20 less cards. Good Job Topps. You have now completely destroyed any credibility your sell sheets used to have AND screwed up the Mayo set in the process.

The one silver lining of this is that I officially gave up on the set today and went out and picked up the one short print out of the set I really, really wanted.

Note the high number of superstars in that list. I've kind of lost track of football this year, but the only non shorted superstars that immediately come to mind are Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson and Larry Fitzgerald. You have a 1:110 pack shot at everyone on this list. Think about that when you're about to plop down your 5 bucks for a hobby pack.

2 Kyle Orton SP
3 LenDale White SP
8 Justin Tuck SP
11 Fred Taylor SP
12 Ryan Torain SP RC
14 Jake Long SP RC
19 Troy Williamson SP
22 Aaron Kampman SP
25 Selvin Young SP
26 Will Franklin SP RC
34 James Jones SP
39 LaDainian Tomlinson SP
40 Marcus Smith SP RC
43 Matt Moore SP
53 Steven Jackson SP
54 Adrian Arrington SP RC
58 Matt Leinart SP
67 Willis McGahee SP
68 Fred Davis SP RC
70 Anthony Alridge SP RC
81 Michael Turner SP
86 LaMont Jordan SP
94 Todd Heap SP
107 Jeremy Shockey SP
120 Heath Miller SP
130 Brian Urlacher SP
133 Calvin Johnson SP
135 James Hardy SP RC
146 Plaxico Burress SP
159 Terrell Owens SP
172 Andre Johnson SP
185 Brandon Marshall SP
198 Dwayne Bowe SP
210 Tom Brady SP
211 Nate Burleson SP
212 Funkmaster Flex SP
223 Warren Haynes SP
224 Antwaan Randle El SP
236 David Garrard SP
237 Vincent Jackson SP
249 Carson Palmer SP
250 Laurent Robinson SP
262 Ben Roethlisberger SP
263 Chris Chambers SP
275 Eli Manning SP
276 Matt Ryan SP RC
288 Tony Romo SP
289 Brian Brohm SP RC
301 Brett Favre SP
302 Anthony Morelli SP RC
314 Kurt Warner SP
315 Rashard Mendenhall SP RC
316 Mike Hart SP RC
327 Clinton Portis SP
328 Xavier Omon SP RC

Now I can finally figure out how well I did on my blaster. I'll have that posted tomorrow morning.

Topps Keeps Me Up At Night

I love the Mayo set, but Topps really screwed the pooch on the autogamers. I was looking around for an American Heritage box break on YouTube and I stumbled on Topps' official video for Mayo:

For the record, here are the autograph and relic hits shown off in the video:

Adrian Peterson autograph
Joe Paterno autograph
Charlie Sheen autograph
Willie Nelson relic
Vince Lombardi cut sig

Here's the list of cards actually inserted into the set.

Finally, here are those 5 cards with their actual packout status:

Adrian Peterson autograph - not there
Joe Paterno autograph - not there
Charlie Sheen autograph - not there
Willie Nelson relic - not there
Vince Lombardi cut sig - not there

Sorry Topps, but that just ain't right. I sure hope this doesn't bode ill for T51 Murad...

That's another set I was looking forward to... Please don't muck it up Topps!

So, about Mayo...

That presell information was complete garbage. There is no Paterno autograph, there is no McLovin' card and (thankfully) no Gorton's Fishermen either. We do have this guy though.

This incident fills me full of dread and ennui. We have a very nice looking retro set that is reasonably well done, but because Topps couldn't get their act together on the autographs and promised the moon and the stars on the sell sheet, the whole thing looks like it will become the Edsel of football cards. I don't want Topps to lose their license or anything, but I'm also not happy that sell sheets can't be trusted anymore. I would have been sad if Mayo had gone the way of Sterling, but maybe Topps should have bit the bullet and waited another month to put this sucker out. At least 2009 Topps and Upper Deck hit shelves next week. I need something to distract me from the madness of the past few days. If any of you inveterate gamblers out there bought a case lookin' for the Graphs, I'll take some of those worthless commons from ya. I need me a Marconi card.

Deconstructing Mayo

So Mayo is live. If this had come out last year I would have gone certifiably insane over it, but my apathy toward the NFL this year has kept my retro cravings at bay for the time being. I'm still interested in it though, so I've been trying to figure out the set makeup now that I have a pack of them in my hands. My pack rip is over here if you want to take a look at the cards.

Basically Mayo follows the Allen & Ginter formula, except it uses the design of the first trading card set to feature football players. The design is not as attractive as Allen & Ginter, but it is pretty good in its own right. Some of the photos I've seen are dicey however, the set kind of reminds me of Cracker Jack in that regard. The set really follows A&G to a T, down to framed relics, mini cards, mini parallels, and 1890's style mini insert sets. If you've collected Allen & Ginter you should know what to expect from this set.

The set is broken down into 205 veterans, 50 rookies, 10 coaches, 10 legends, 15 'public figures' which I guess is what they are calling the non-football subjects and 40 short prints to make up a 330 card set. No word on what the short prints actually are yet. My cynical guess is that they are the 40 best rookies in the set, but they could conceivably be a mix of vets, rookies, public figures, etc. The sell sheet can be seen here, which also has links to the checklist in Excel format and the sell sheet in a .pdf.

The checklist doesn't tell me much about the possible short prints. Hopefully Topps put them all at the end of the set at cards 291-330 like in the A&G set to make things easier on us. That would make Favre, Warner and Tommy Tuberville short prints, which I could live with. Matt Ryan is at card 276, right after Eli. PLEASE Lord, don't make Matt a short print. The coaches are all college coaches as expected since Paterno is the big sell for this set. I'm not sure what the heck is going on with the 'public figures' as Napoleon Dynamite and McLovin' are in the checklist. Figures I pull Cornflake dude instead of McLovin'. Also Lord, if you ignore my pleas on the Matt Ryan thing, PRETTY PLEASE let that guy sign his card as McLovin'. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease. Legends are your boring usual suspects like Elway and Montana. Holy shit, David Cross is in there! Dammit, now I have to pick through the checklist and figure out the 15 'public figures' in the set. I wish I had paid attention to the NFL Draft now, I don't recognize half the rookies' names.

PUBLIC FIGURES IN TOPPS MAYO ACCORDING TO THE PRESELL CHECKLIST SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE:

10 Rich Eisen - NFL Network dude. I've always liked his broadcasting stuff.
24 Sig Hansen - Woohoo, a crab fisherman.
38 John Hillstrand - ANOTHER crab fisherman.
52 Phil Harris - NOBODY LIKES CRAB THIS MUCH
66 Mike Rowe - He freakin' NARRATES for Deadliest catch!!! Enough with the damn crabs!
80 Christopher Mintz-Plasse - the aforementioned McLovin'. My favorite card in the set if only for breaking the streak of crab celebrities.
93 Jesse James - He was in the 2006 A&G set so why not here as well?
106 David Cross - Ok, this card is epic.
119 Charlie Murphy - The comedians are balancing out the fishermen nicely.
132 Artie Lange - Misspelled on the checklist, this is a comedian on the Howard Stern show.
145 Gary Dell'Abate - Baba Booey? Are you fscking kidding me? First crabs, now Stern?
158 Seth Rogen - Superbad actor #2 in the set.
171 Jonah Hill - Aaaaaaaand #3.
184 Jon Heder - Also misspelled in the checklist. Vote for Perdo!
197 "The King" - THIS BETTER NOT BE A STINKIN CRAB

Ok, this is fifteen sort of public figures I guess. I pulled Cornflake guy though, so someone got bumped. Mr. Kellogg's number in the checklist is occupied by Bob Stoops so I'm not sure what's going on. Also Mr. Hansen's card #24 is actually Matt Cassell. I'm not seeing many Legends in that checklist either so I'm starting to think the thing is a bunch of bunk. Assuming it is correct though, here are the tough inserts I'd most like to pull:

Mayo Americana Autographs - William Shatner!
Cut Signatures - Jack Benny
Mayo Americana Relics - Willie Nelson
Mayo Century Series - Norman Rockwell paintbrush
There are also stamp cards and a liberty dime card in the Century Series checklist. The dime would be sweet.

Here are the inserts along with the odds as listed on the back of the pack:

Short prints 1:2 packs

There are only 40 short prints for the 330 card set according to the sell sheet. This is pretty close to Allen & Ginter's 50 SPs in a 350 card set, so it looks like it will be challenging, but not impossible to complete the set. There is no list of SPs out so far, but I'll link to it once Topps gets around to announcing it.

Mini parallel short print 1:12

Same deal as A&G. Mini short prints are a little tougher to find.

Yale Mini parallel 1:13
Princeton mini parallel 1:24
Harvard mini parallel 1:50
1984 mini parallel 1:250

These are parallel versions of the mini cards with different backs. I found an auction that showed three of the four backs. Pretty straightforward, they show the team color and letter. Yale is easiest with a blue back, Princeton is one per box with an orange back, Harvard Crimson is tough as they are numbered to 25 and fall at about one in every other box, and I don't even know what 1894 looks like as they are numbered to 5.

Famous Ships mini insert 1:12
Horses mini insert 1:48

These two insert sets hearken back to the 1894 as ships and race horses were frequent subjects of tobacco cards back in the late 19th century. I've got a horse of my own right here and I've also got a couple of ships somewhere. The ships look quite good and similar to the cards of the time. I'm not so sure about the unicorn, however.

Mayo Framed Autographs:
Group A 1:1950
Group B 1:3000
Group C 1:4300
Group D 1:920
Group E 1:1000
Group F 1:193
Group G 1:1350
Group H 1:188
Group I 1:120
Red Autograph 1:1420
Americana Autographs:
Group A 1:1000
Group B 1:1600
Red Autograph 1:12500
Cut Signature 1:35328

Signatures are on a mini card and put inside a frame. You know the drill. I suck at math, but somehow all those percentages add up to at least one per box. There don't appear to be any rip cards in this product, so the red autos are probably going to be in the same frames as the regular cards.

Mayo Framed Football Relics:
Group A 1:38
Group B 1:32
Mayo Framed Americana Relics:
Group A 1:400
Group B 1:600
Mayo Framed Century Series Relics:
Group A 1:1200
Group B 1:1650

It seems like these cards should be the ones two per box, but who knows. Same deal as A&G (how many times have I typed that so far?), mini card, inside frame, little swatch inside the card. If there's a Matt Ryan with a little red swatch I'll probably try to jump on one, but otherwise, meh.

Not listed on the back are the Super Bowl inserts. It looks like these are similar to the Dick Perez and state flag inserts. A thick filler card to deter searchers and provide a little something other than a blank hunk 'o cardboard. The sell sheet says Super Bowl ring card, but I don't see a ring on this card. the card I have is numbered SB39-B so maybe there is an A variation with a ring? I've seen one auction online for them so far and that one showed a card with a Broncos helmet so maybe there's one 'winner' card and one 'logo' card for each Superbowl. An 84 card filler set would be a real pain in the butt though. We'll see.

There are also supposed to be buyback cards in the set, but I don't see any odds for them.

I like the cards, but I'm not sure I like them enough to pay over a hundred for a hobby box. I'll probably buys ome retail packs to tide me over until Heritage comes out. Assuming I don't buy American Heritage instead. That stuff is pretty cool too, I'll haveto show off the pack of that I got soon.

Mayo Football and American Heritage are live

I have packs in my greedy little hands.

Mayo rip over on A Pack A Day within an hour or so now, I'll probably get to American Heritage tomorrow.