2009 SP Threads Football Product Review
It is absolutely SHOCKING to see how bad Retail Packs can get! Especially after opening a Hobby box of SP Threads a few months back. In all honesty, if you put a 24-Pack Retail box and 2 Hobby Packs in front of me, I would take the 2 Hobby Packs without thinking twice! If you want a demonstration of the dramatic difference between Retail vs. Hobby packs, SP Threads will do perfectly.
What was most disappointing was the single hit was a cheap, crappy Early Doucet III Event Worn Jersey Card! What event could it be??? If Columbo were real, I would hire him to find out what events my Jersey Cards were worn at! Wouldn't it be funny if the back of the card said "Congratulations! You have received a piece of a Replica Jersey worn by Early Doucet III while dining at a Seattle Arby's with Bertrand Berry!"? This is why I don't like buying retail. The only thing satisfying about the box was imagining a Retail Pack searcher getting home after plucking all the hits from his local Wal-Mart and receiving the same Early Doucet Jersey Card I got. Now that's what I call justice!
The Good: Die Cuts, Sharp Looking Base Cards
The Bad: This isn't SP Threads, it's Retail SP Threads, which means you have a 0% chance of getting anything cool. There is no autographs, Letterman, or anything else of value in the retail version. All your buying is a stack of common base cards, a couple die cuts, and the rookies that weren't good enough to warrant an Auto in the base set.
The Bottom Line: Overall, I can't justify or give you a single reason why you should buy the Retail Version of SP Threads. The hobby version is Awesome! If your seeking a stack of base cards, 4 die cuts, a half dozen no-name Future Watch Rookies, and an Early Doucet Event Worn "Case Hit", be my guest. Don't say I didn't warn you when buyer's remorse sets in. If your trying to put together the Die Cut set, save your money and buy them on eBay or rip a Hobby Box. The Die Cuts are some of the coolest looking cards to come out this year, but buying Retail to put the set together is as crazy as putting a No-name Contenders Rookie Auto in your Segway Spokes! Or as crazy as NOT putting a 1990 Donruss in your Segway Spokes!
Design- 7.5/10
The design is awesome! As usual, the "SP" brand name provides us with some of the season's best looking cards. The base cards are clean, crisp, and sharp looking. The subtle use of Gold Foil adds up to a fantastic looking base card. Unfortunately, the worth of the cards is extremely ugly, with a $2.00 ceiling for veterans like Adrian Peterson and Peyton Manning. The Future Watch cards, which are part of the base set are also sharp looking, although I'm not a fan of using the "sideways" lay-out for every one of them.
The saving grace of this product is it's AWESOME die cuts! Who on Earth doesn't like a well done die cut!? These Die Cuts are to die for! The 100 card die cut insert set also includes every major Rookie! Since the product came out several months ago, I have been tempted to put the set together. What sucks about the Retail version is you have no chance at getting an Auto Die Cut.
The Early Doucett Event Worn Jersey card would be un-attractive no matter how much foil and gloss you threw at it. The "Game Day Gear" set is pretty ugly, these "event worn jersey" cards don't even have a dash of foil or gloss! I've said this before, but I want to see a Jersey Card with some dirt on it! One that looks like it has played a down or two in an actual NFL game!
Checklist- 3.5/10
A deep checklist of current players and an exceptionally deep rookie base set. Unfortunately, the Retail Checklist stops just short of the "big rookies". Meaning, you have little to no chance of getting an Auto Rookie of Percy, Sanchez, Stafford, Moreno, Crabtree, or any other big time rookie. The only chance you have of getting any top tier rookie is getting one of the die cuts. I got 4 die cuts and none were rookies. The best rookie I pulled was probably the Future Watch Brian Hartline. Really, the only other decent Rookies you can get in a retail pack are Austin Collie and Mike Wallace (Both book under $10 and are not autographed).
What's frustrating is that this is such a deep product at the "Hobby" level. At the Retail level, the Checklist is cut in half, and that's just the base set! I'm not entirely against Retail, as I enjoyed opening Topps Magic Blaster Boxes, but this is one of those Retail offerings that is "un-buyable". The "Game Day Gear" (Early Doucett III I got) can be found in any generic Retail Upper Deck offering, it's listed under the 2009 Upper Deck set. So, the "guaranteed" hit isn't even part of the SP Threads checklist!
Pulls- 2/10
The pulls were as bad as it gets, when the best a 24 pack retail box can do is an $8 Barry Sanders Die Cut, it was about as bad as any box has a right to be. Usually, a Retail box offers at least a chance at getting an Autograph or a Short Print. Literally, the only substantial pull you can get from a Retail Box of SP Threads is an Event Worn Jersey Card of a player you may or may not like. In this case, I got an Event Worn Jersey Card of Early Doucet III! In all honesty, it doesn't get much worse. I don't know how it could.
If you want a true representation of SP Threads, find your local Hobby Store! This isn't SP Threads, this is the Retail Remix, they should call it "SP Event Worn Threads". I pondered giving the pulls a 0/5, but you can't give a Zero in a review. All I know is that there is no way I can get .99 cents for an Early Doucet III "Game Day Gear" on eBay! No one is going to pay $2.00 to ship a card like that!
Value- 1/10
The only card I got in the entire box that I could sell for more than $1 on eBay is the Barry Sanders Die Cut. I would still probably only get $3-5 for it. I actually think I got lucky in getting Barry Sanders for 1 of my 4 die cuts. As bad as this box was, I think it has the potential to get even worse! There's no value in a box that offers you a Jersey Card and a stack of worthless base cards. In all honesty, the Value of SP Threads is far worse than the normal Retail offering. Buying the retail version is like buying a $10 pair of Oakley's and finding out why they only cost $10. Then to make things worse, someone breaks into your car to steal the "Foakley's"!
Building a great collection is all about finding value, whether it be ripping a hobby box that will pay for itself or buying a great card at a great price. Buying Retail SP Threads is flushing your cards and money down the toilet. I cannot foresee a scenario where you'll even get a card worth more $30 in a box! We all get the "itch" to rip retail from time to time. So, if you must rip retail, I would suggest going with something like Topps National Chicle. I have found that on average, Topps offers the most value at the retail level. I prefer the "pack searcher proof" $19.99 Blaster Boxes. In general, I find that Blaster Boxes will surprise you and that the odds seem far better than the box or company states. I actually pulled a Ted Williams Jersey card out of a Goodwin Champions Blaster Box and a Triple Auto out of a Topps Magic Blaster! But, there is no match for a Hobby Box! Hobby packs are where the goods cards are hiding!
Box Break- Here's the "biggies" from Retail SP Threads Box Break. Remember, I went through this so hopefully you wouldn't have to!
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- Retail Case Hit!
The single hit in the box isn't even part of the SP Threads set! It's a part of the "Generic" Event Worn Jersey Collection known as "Game Day Gear" (Listed under 2009 Upper Deck)!
Enjoyability- 2/10
The excitement of ripping this box was lost before I even opened a pack. When a 24-Pack Box offers a "guaranteed jersey card", you know your in for a disappointment. It's also deflating when your more or less told off the bat that you have no chance of getting a cool autograph or rare relic. It doesn't even give you a 1:6,000 pack chance of getting anything of value!
As I opened the packs, it became apparent that the SP Threads Retail version "was who I though they were". So please, don't be like Denny Green and lose even though you knew who they were! What more can I say, it's just not very much fun to open a dead end Retail box of a great product. If you want to have fun with SP Threads, it's not found here, it's found in the Hobby Version.
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