At the beginning of the decade, it wasn't uncommon to pay $30 or so for a pack of football cards with only the promise of a run-of-the-mill jersey card inside. That won't cut it in 2008, so SP Rookie Threads Football loads up with five jersey cards and two autographs - including two Autographed Rookie Lettermen - in every box.
Five-card packs of 2008 SP Rookie Threads Football have a suggested retail price of $50, and there are six packs per hobby box. Upper Deck says every box should contain one Super Swatch jersey card, one patch card and one multi-player jersey card.
Base Cards
SP Rookie Threads definitely doesn't put much emphasis on base cards, but there are 100 NFL veterans that make up the base set. Player photos are set against a background that looks like jersey material, with the team logo at the bottom highlighted by gold foil. A team color element contains the player name, number and position.
None of the various cards of 2008 rookies are numbered as part of the base set, an interesting choice that may make for some debate over whether any of them are considered to be "official" rookie cards. In 2007, the Rookie Lettermen cards filled that role and were numbered accordingly.
Thanks to the thickness of the memorabilia cards (more on them in a minute) in the single pack of SP Rookie Threads I opened to review, I found just one base card of Dallas quarterback Tony Romo.
Memorabilia Cards
It's safe to say that few if any products will have as many player-worn memorabilia cards of the 2008 rookie class as SP Rookie Threads. The haul begins with the appropriately named Rookie Threads jersey cards, numbered to 250 and featuring swatches shaped like the letters 'RT.' There are seven parallel levels plus lower numbered patch and autographed versions.
Rookie Super Swatch jersey cards present a large piece of jersey in a window shaped like a pentagon and also have patch versions. Rookie Numbers cards have two swatches in windows shaped like the rookie's NFL number, while Triple Threads and Rookie Foursomes gather swatches from three and four rookies on one card respectively.
Current NFL stars also have Super Swatch cards, some of which are limited to just 25 copies, as well as Flashback Fabrics game-worn cards. Legendary Fabrics live up to their name with jersey cards of players like Bo Jackson, Dan Marino and Terry Bradshaw.
That's a lot of memorabilia cards, and they combine to fall at least one per pack. The About.com sample pack held two: a Rookie Super Swatch Chad Henne numbered to 99 and a Rookie Threads Patch Earl Bennett numbered to 25. While Bennett might not be the best pull from this rookie class, there's no question that the three-color swatch is pretty sweet.
Autographed Cards
As mentioned above, the Autographed Rookie Lettermen (seeded 1:3 packs) are the biggest stars in this set, placing rookie signatures on authentic (though not game-used) letters like the ones found on the nameplates of NFL jerseys. To keep them fresh for 2008, Upper Deck created Lettermen cards that spell out other things besides last names, such as college names and nicknames. Numbering varies from 360 copies on down.
More rookie autographs are available in the Signing Day and Signature Choice subsets, and veteran signatures can be found on SP Authentics cards. Multi Marks cards show off autographs from two, four, six or eight different players on a single card, and Upper Deck says that six multi-signed cards can be found in every ten-box case.
All of the autographs combine to give you a 50 percent chance of finding one in each pack, though I did not pull one from my review pack.
The Last Word
Products with a memorabilia card in every pack continue to evolve, and SP Rookie Threads is evidence of that fact. The heavy reliance on photo shoot-worn rookie jerseys over game-used pieces may dampen the enthusiasm of some collectors, but a heavy dose of autographs should help it appeal to another group of hobbyists.
This isn't a set for people who like to put sets together, but it looks like a fun product to open by the pack or box for anyone hunting unique jersey and autographed cards of 2008 rookies and NFL stars.