1997 Score Board NFL Experience "Cheap Thrills" Box Break

I'm more of a baseball guy, but recently decided to invest in some real cheap boxes for the fun of the break.  I pretty much stopped buying boxes and packs years ago, but occasionally get the urge to open something up and nothing beats the thrill of ripping an old box when you don't want to spend crazy current day box money but still want a chance to pull something interesting.  I grew up buying the late 70s/early 80s packs and boxes, but it was the 90s that pulled me back into buying wax after a 5 year hiatus and it was a downward spiral I didn't want to find myself on when I finally kicked the habit in the early 2000s.

Starting out my "Cheap Thrills" series, I decided to open a box of 1997 Score Board NFL Experience. This particular issue was advertising a couple different draws to get you to buy their product.  The first was that they were inserting vintage cards (or redemptions, as I know that Namath rookie wasn't fitting into these packs!) into the packs.  I don't remember if it was just decent players and cards or anything goes.  I suspect that with roughly one vintage card per box, even though it was Score Board, that they were generally OK cards/players and not a bunch of boring and worthless commons from  newer sets.  The second draw was "Even our wrappers are collectible".  That meant that collectors could save those normally trash filling wrappers and redeem them for prizes.

It is interesting to note the valuation they placed on certain items at the time.  I don't know how much the packs were originally, but by 1997, I'd guess they were at least $1-2 each.  Figure a box was $36-$72 or more.  The minimum redemption was for a random autograph card at 70 wrappers.  Yes, it's nice to get something for "nothing", but you still probably had to buy the packs in most cases to get those wrappers, unless you were lucky enough to find someone who bought packs or boxes but didn't want to mess with the wrapper redemption.  At 70 wrappers, figure that random card was going to cost you $70-140 in packs!  Double that and you could have yourself a Keyshawn Johnson autographed photo.  Keep going and you finally reach level 6 and prizes such as a Barry Bonds autographed bat, Drew Bledsoe autographed mini helmet or $200 Dale Earnhardt phone card.  Not bad for 650 wrappers or somewhere between $650-1300+ in packs!  Not bad indeed.

Wow, check out those redemption levels.  How did we ever get to redeem a Willie Mays signed bat at the same price as a Scottie Pippen autographed photo?!  Smart consumers could have made out well and those chasing the current hot list might be looking back on their items now with regret.

The cards themselves weren't bad for the time.  They were matte finish and there were 100 in the basic set.  It appears there were two insert sets to chase and then of course, the vintage pulls.  Boxes contained 36 packs with 6 cards each, so for your hard earned money you should have ended up with 216 cards.  The Season's Heroes insert cards were found 1:18 packs and Bayou Country were 1:35 packs.  The vintage "buybacks" were supposed to average 1 per box.  In this particular box, we were also given roughly 9 chances to win a Ford F150 truck.  Just what a kid buying football cards needed!!

So, I got to ripping packs and in the end, I pretty much hit the odds as stated, although I only had 7 tries at the Ford truck.  After sorting out the base set, I found excellent collation.  I ended up putting together 2 complete sets and only had an extra 12 duplicates (or triples as it were).  I got 2 of the Season's Heroes cards and a single Bayou Country and 1 vintage card for a grand total of 216 cards + the 7 sweepstakes pack inserts.

All in all, I think I did OK.  2 complete sets, a couple so-so inserts and a vintage buy back card.  I had fun opening the box/packs and all of this cost me a grand total of $6.29 (excluding the shipping for the order, but that was a lot of 20 items to spread the fee across).  Only with old, cheap boxes can you feel like you might actually have gotten your money's worth after opening the full box.  At 3 cents per card and the thrill of the rip, I have no regrets here.

Oh yeah, who was that vintage buy back card I scored?  Did I hit one of the big prizes?  Joe Namath?  Bronko Nagurski?  Bart Starr?  Unfortunately, I was not to win the big lottery this time, but I was happy with what I got, considering it could have been worse, and I believe it is even a card I didn't own already…

1974 Topps John Riggins

I am not sure where this product sits on the spectrum of buyback issues, as I know Topps did them as early as 1991, but it was before the manufacturers decided to specially mark the buyback items with a foil stamp or embossed logo.  I'm a fan of that method personally, because it makes that buyback a bit more special than the 1,000,000+ versions of the cards originally printed, but purists would argue otherwise.  To each their own, but in this case, my Riggins is no different than a copy you might find in a card shop's quarter box.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and plan to have a few more breaks from the 20 item lot I spoke of earlier.  Stay tuned!