Preview: 2012 Press Pass Sports Town Football

At the end of October Press Pass will be releasing their third straight single pack per box product, Sports Town Football. Showcase and Fanfare were the other two releases that were single pack per box products and each had a niche with Showcase doing a bit better because the more unique design using acetate not to mention a number of the autographs had  personalized signatures and inscriptions. These two products were also released prior to the NFL season so collectors were still chasing down the first autographs of their favorite draft picks.

 

By the time that Sports Town is released on October 31^st the season will be entering Week 9 and there will be roughly 15 NFL-licensed products available, 2 Upper Deck NCAA-licensed releases plus 7 Leaf football related products and 4 Sage products all available for collectors to purchase. The landscape will be very different when Sports Town makes it to the shelf, it will be much more difficult to grab a collector’s attention over a licensed product.

 

Press Pass decided to go in a gimmick route, sort of; they have infused the player’s picture with a picture of the city skyline where the team is located. Hence the name “Sports Town”, it focuses on the player’s location. Some of the skyline’s are more recognizable like Seattle’s Space Needle (I miss Seattle so much some days) behind Russell Wilson and the Capital Building behind RG3. The skyline is slightly muted to put the attention on the player and it is hued to the team’s colors. Because Press Pass does not have a NFL or NCAA license all of the pictures appear to be from training camp or practice shots. A huge bonus is that all of the cards are on-card autographs with some containing inscriptions.

 

Each 1 pack box (4 auto cards per box) runs around $70-75 and the entire set is made up of a 50-card autograph checklist. Only the top drafted players were selected to be included in the set and I believe that each team is represented by at least 1 player with some teams, like the Colts, having as many as 5 individual cards (Luck has 2 different cards, Dwayne Allen, Vick Ballard and Coby Fleener).

 

Here is what you can expect from the product:

Four hard signed autographs per box

All cards are numbered (10 different levels) with the highest being #/199

Variations, 1/1 and Printing Plates can also be pulled

I noticed that some of the cards appear darker than others or the foiling appears different, the differences can be seen with the Luck and Richardson cards, I am not sure if these are variations, parallels or just a difference in the way that the cards were scanned in when initially posted on the sales materials. There are some obviously differences with inscriptions and ink colors plus the Luck card with him in a red jersey is listed as a variation on the sales materials.