Leaf Limited Football is a rare product that bucks current trends, beginning life as a one hit-per-pack brand and shifting toward a more normal configuration over the last few seasons. It remains a step up from other Donruss football sets in terms of price, and potentially with respect to content as well.
Leaf Limited Football is a hobby-only product for 2008, configured at five cards per pack (at a suggested price of $10 per pack) and 16 packs per box. Packaging touts four memorabilia or autographs per box.
Base Cards and Parallels
The 2008 Leaf Limited base set utilizes an all-foil design that looks fine but makes the cards tricky to handle without smudging. There aren't many surprises among the 100 veterans that lead off the set, but since this is a mid-season release, it is nice to see updated photos - Chad Pennington with the Dolphins, Michael Turner with the Falcons, etc.
Past stars of the NFL get their own Legends subset with cards numbered to 499. The black-and-white photos on these cards give them a suitably old school feel.
Rookies are divided into two groups, both of which share the Phenoms label. The first 100 appear on regular cards numbered to 999. The remaining 34 rookies, including all of the big names from the Class of 2008, have Materials Phenoms cards with a prime swatch of event-worn jersey and an autographed sticker. Selected players from both groups have Phenoms College variations, which are similar to the Materials Phenoms but with pieces of college game-worn jerseys.
Parallels are numerous, beginning with Spotlight versions with Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum foil treatment and print runs ranging from 125 to one. Many base cards also have autographed (Phenoms Signatures for the rookies, Monikers for the vets and legends) and game-worn (Limited Threads) variations as well.
I opened a random box of Leaf Limited Football for this review and found 67 commons, three regular Phenoms and three Legends. I also pulled four total Spotlight parallels and a Phenoms Signatures parallel of Tampa Bay DB Aqib Talib.
Memorabilia Cards
Leaf Limited's memorabilia cards do a nice job showcasing both past and present NFL stars in the same way as other Donruss brands. This is apparent in game-worn sets like Team Trademarks Materials and Prime Pairings, which mix players from all eras.
There are also numerous ways to find multiple swatches from current stars on one card thanks to Team Threads Combos, Triples and Quads, Matching Numbers and Matching Positions. The aptly named Jumbo and Rookie Jumbo sets serve up oversized swatches, and Banner Season provides autographed jersey cards of the likes of Adrian Peterson, Randy Moss and Eli Manning.
With an autograph already in hand, I expected to unearth three memorabilia cards in the About.com sample box, and that's exactly what I found: a Team Trademarks Materials Ronnie Lott, a Team Trademarks Materials Prime Ladell Betts and a Matching Positions Edgerrin James/Rudi Johnson.
Autographed Cards
Limited Cuts leads off Leaf Limited's autograph program with cut signatures from 25 big names from pro foot ball history, most of whom (but not all) are no longer with us. Doak Walker, Hank Stram and Red Grange are just a few of the legends on the checklist.
The top 2008 rookies all signed for Limited Slideshow, which feature on-card autographs along with an actual photographic slide from the NFL Rookie Photo Shoot. Though the cards are numbered to 50 or less, they all have unique slides.
Last but not least is Lettermen, which predated similar cards from other football sets by placing signatures on an entire letter from an authentic (though not game-used) jersey nameplate. This season's cards are numbered to 20 or less.
The Last Word
There's little doubt that Leaf Limited has an impressive array of memorabilia cards, and the autograph program may be the best of any Donruss brand released in 2008. It's also less of a gamble buying boxes as they are currently configured that it was a few years ago when the cards came in single, fairly expensive packs.
The only question is whether or not there's enough to Limited to buy a $10 pack and wind up with only some commons and perhaps a second-tier rookie numbered to 999. With that in mind, a full box is the way to go for anyone who wants to chase the big pulls that await this season.