I'm still buying at least one box of everything new being released in sportscards, but for the past few weeks I haven't had time to properly review new sets and see how they're doing online. Was I ever surprised when I started looking at the new 1998 Ultra Football and found prices flying not only on Ultra, but also on 98 Score Rookie Preview which I had picked up a few weeks back and not paid much attention to. Add to these two 98 Pacific Revolution and you find three really early season sets with lots of rookies and plenty of punch.
No one should be surprised by the success of Ultra Football. If you collect basketball cards you're familiar with the short-printed rookies in Ultra Basketball (where the Tim Duncan rookie is up to around $60). Fleer didn't change anything for football and the 225 card set is short-printed between cards 201 and 225, just where the rookies can be found. In checking Ebay to see what these tough rookie cards are selling for I found something else, Score Rookie Preview.
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With rookies like Ryan Leaf being short-printed in 98 Ultra Football, you can expect to see some high prices being offered for them. |
Why was I shocked by the prices of Score Rookie Preview? At only 99 cents per pack I picked up a box under $30 and put it aside. Let's look at it objectively. One insert set Star Salute (1 per 35 packs), 500 Ryan Leaf autographs, and only a portion of the full Score base set. Why is it making such an impact? Simple answer: low production. Pinnacle only made 250 cases of the product and it sold out fast. With just two rookies in the base set (Leaf and Peyton Manning) and each of them in NFL helmets, not college uniforms, the chase was on.
I do have some questions about the two hot rookie cards. Will they be different than the ones to be released when the Score full series hits the streets later this month? Beckett has previewed prices of $20 and $15 for Manning and Leaf, but that sounds outrageous if 40 million more show up within a month. The card to chase in this release might be the Star Salutes. Beckett shows super low prices on these inserts in their preview even though only 250 of each card was produced and Pinnacle has already stated they won't be in any other release.
| With a limited print run of 250 cases this Score Rookie Preview Peyton Manning rookie is hot, but will it be the last we see of it this year? |
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I like the fact that Score found a way to show us the two hot rookie QB's in their NFL helmets, but I think this year's draft had a lot more than just those two rookies to collect. Ultra gives us 25 rookies and even though they're in their college uniforms I believe they'll end up being the hot cards of the early season. The other factor to help Ultra is the chase for Platinums and Masterpiece parallels. Each rookie card has only 66 numbered Platinums and of course every card in the set has just one Masterpiece available.
This week also brings us another football release that shows promise. 1998 Pacific Revolution football brings the attractive gold and silver foil swirled cards out at a time of year when they can include some great rookie cards. While not covering all of the rookies that Ultra has, Pacific has fit in a few different ones and also managed to create some great chase cards. The Shadow parallels are easy to overlook (as they look like the base card with a simple embossing in the middle, but each one is numbered to just 99 on the back and can only be found in hobby packs. The rookies in the Rookie & Stars insert set are also paralleled to just 50 numbered cards.
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This Pacific Revolution Fred Taylor rookie is a Shadow parallel, but it's tough to tell until you see the numbering on the back of the card. Just 99 of them were produced! |
I think I'm going to put my money on Ultra, but watch out for the parallels in Pacific Revolution and those limited Star Salute inserts in Score Rookie Preview. Have you seen these three early football sets? Which one do you prefer? Write about it on the bulletin board and we'll see what happens as more NFL products are released. I have a good feeling about football cards this year. It's a great rookie class and with the labor problems in basketball it might be the year we talk about football cards the same way we talked about basketball cards these past two seasons.
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