Box break - 1997 Upper Deck Football

THE PRODUCT: 1 box of 1997 Upper Deck Football

This box might look hefty, but it's just a 20-pack retail box.  Much of the volume is from a styrofoam insert in the bottom of the box.

1997 Upper Deck football box

Here is a retail pack, which is conveniently labeled "retail" in the lower left corner.  There are 12 cards per pack.

1997 Upper Deck football pack

THE BIG HITS: Game Jersey relic inserts

Upper Deck jumped on relic cards quickly and had relics in all its products by 1997.  The football relics were just a small set of 10 cards.  They were tough to pull with an insertion rate of 1:2,500 packs.  This box has less than a 1% chance of having a relic card.

THE CONTENTS

This box held no pleasant surprises - just lots of base cards and dime-a-dozen inserts.  The base cards mostly fall under three subsets - the standard base cards, game dated cards recalling a special player performance, and star rookies.

139 - Deion Sanders

191 - Barry Sanders

35 - Jerry Rice

I only pulled two different types of inserts from this box.  One is the Teammates insert.  These are die-cut cards that are made to join together into one wider card when you get two matching cards.  The box contained four of these cards.  I also pulled a Star Crossed insert.

Teammates - TM51 - Steve Young
Star Crossed - SC19 - Drew Bledsoe

CONCLUSION

This wasn't the most exciting box.  The relics in this set are such a long-shot that it's hard to have much hope that you'll get lucky.

Box break - 1997 Stadium Club 2 Football

THE PRODUCT: 1 box of 1997 Stadium Club Series 2 Football

Here is a nice series 2 box for 1997 Stadium Club.

1997 Stadium Club Series 2 football box

Each box contains 12 packs, and each pack has 15 cards.  Some people call these jumbo packs, but Topps calls them the Home Team Advantage (HTA) packs.  Most Stadium Club products can also be found in a retail and hobby format.  HTA is like hobby deluxe.

1997 Stadium Club Series 2 football HTA or jumbo pack

THE BIG HITS: printing plates

Only in HTA packs can printing plates be found in Stadium Club products.  The insertion rate on these plates is astonishingly high at 1:69 packs.  That's one per six boxes.  I wish that all the special cards that I chase on this blog were as easily found.

THE CONTENTS

No plates here, but the base cards are pretty nice.  The Stadium Club cards from the late 90s all seem very thick and super glossy.  What I don't like is that the base cards are embossed around the player name.  The embossing makes the card surface a bit rougher, and the super glossy cards feel like their scratching each other.  Sorting through the stack, I feel I'm scratching the hell out of the cards.

46 - Marshall Faulk

70 - John Elway

220 - Transactions Rod Woodson

While I didn't get any plates, I did pull three different types of insert cards.  I pulled three of the Never Compromise cards, two Bowman's Best Preview cards, and one One of a Kind card.  The One of a Kind set is a full parallel of the base set.

Never Compromise - 37 - Darnell Autry
Bowman's Best Previews - BBP4 - Tony Gonzalez
One of a Kind - 262 - Jeff Herrod

CONCLUSION

I have to admit that I'm disappointed in not pulling a printing plate.  The odds are only 1:6, but that is so good compared to the others boxes I rip on this blog.