2007 Exquisite Football Analysis

Exquisite Football is the Mac-Daddy of all football products. At around $500 for a box of 6 cards its also one of the priciest products out there. So what do you get for your money? Here’s what 2007 Exquisite Football has to offer:

Card #1: Base Card

Card #2: Rookie Signature

Card #3: Rookie Signature Patch

Card #4: Maximum Jersey

Card #5: Patch Card

Card #6: Random Autographed Card

The order may be different in each box but you are guaranteed to get 1 card from each slot.
Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty of each card slot.

As a baseline for this breakdown, I’m assuming that there are 8,725 total boxes of Exquisite that were produced. This is based on the number of Rookie Signature Patches, which of course come one per box.

This doesn’t account for cards held out of circulation for NPNs or other reasons, but I think its a close enough estimate for purposes of this analysis. The full checklist is available at the Upper Deck website.

Card #1: Base Card - There’s no avoiding it, you are getting a base card.

60 Players
Hope to get: Tom Brady, Brett Favre
Hope not to get: Ronald Curry, Rex Grossman, Jon Kitna

Print Runs
Regular Cards #’d to 150 (9,000 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 1 (60 total cards)

You have about a 1 in 145 shot of getting a 1/1 parallel base card. Not too good.

Verdict: Expect to lose money on Card #1. The regular base cards can go for as little as a dollar up to around $15-$20 for a Tom Brady or Brett Favre. The 1/1 parallels can fetch at least $100 for the less popular players and even more for stars, but odds are way against you pulling one.

Card # 2: Rookie Signature - Also guaranteed one per box. This card is also close to a throwaway. The rookies on this checklist include mostly defensive players and late round draft choices.

42 players
Hope to get: Ahmad Bradshaw
Hope not to get: Anyone else, unless you are a player/team collector

Print Runs
Regular Cards #’d to 150 (6,300 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 60 (2,520 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 1 (42 total cards)

#’d to 60 = 1 in 3.5 boxes
#’d to 1 = 1 in 208 boxes

Verdict: Again, this slot is probably a money loser. The regular cards go from $2-$10 for most of the players. The best hit is RB Ahmad Bradshaw of the Giants who had a decent season for the Superbowl Champs and has some upside.

Regular versions of Bradshaw started at around $200 but are now are fetching between $75-$100. The /60 version will get you a bit more. Again, Ahmad Bradshaw is the absolute best you can hope for here. Odds of pulling an Ahmad Bradshaw: 211/8,725 or about 1 in 43.

Card # 3: Rookie Signature Patch - Also guaranteed one per box. This card will hopefully be one of your money cards. Score a decent rookie and you can make back a good chunk of the cost of a box. Score a great rookie and you can pay for your next three boxes.

33 players broken into two Tiers

Tier I - 23 Players including Patrick Willis, John Beck, Trent Edwards, Kevin Kolb, Drew Stanton
Regular Cards #’d to 225 (5,175 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 99 (2,277 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 1 (23 total cards)

Tier II - 10 Players including Adrian Peterson, Brady Quinn, JaMarcus Russell, Marshawn Lynch, Dwayne Bowe
Regular Cards #’d to 99 (990 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 25 (250 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 1 (10 total cards)

86% chance of getting a Tier I Rookie and 14% chance (About 1 in 7) of getting a Tier II Rookie

Verdict: You are most likely to hit a Tier I rookie. Worst case scenario, you get about $20-$30 for it (Antonio Pittman, Brian Leonard, Yamon Figurs, Paul Williams, Tony Hunt, Chris Henry). The Tier I QB’s (Edwards, Kolb, Beck, Stanton) can fetch $100 and up.

Only a 1 in 7 chance of hitting a Tier II Rookie, but the payoff can be big. Other than Dwayne Jarrett and Robert Meachem, who sell for around $60-$70, the other Tier II Rookies all sell for over $100. The big hits like Peterson, Quinn, and Russell will more than pay for your box alone. Unfortunately, you are much much more likely to hit a Tier I rookie.

Card #4: Maximum Jersey - Nothing too exciting here. And also guaranteed one per pack

100 players
Hope to get: Adrian Peterson, Joe Montana, Walter Payton, Tom Brady
Hope not to get: Johnnie Lee Higgins, Byron Leftwich, a whole bunch of defensive players

Print Runs
Regular Cards #’d to 75 (7,500 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 15 (1,500 total cards)
Parallel #’d to 1 (100 total cards)

Verdict: No chance at a patch here. Absolute best case scenario here would be a low numbered parallel of a good player with different colored jersey swatches. Unfortunately, most of the breaks I’ve seen have 4 swatches that are the same color. Again, hard to get good value out of this slot too.

There is an autographed version of the Maximum Jersey cards #’d to 5, but they don’t come in this slot. They count as your other auto that would fall in slot #6. So in other words if you get an auto’d Maximum Jersey you are still going to get the non-auto’d version in the same box. There’s just no avoiding it.

Card #5: Patch Card - A couple options here. Most of them mediocre at best…

Here are the possibilities for the Patch slot, starting with the most common.

Exquisite Patch - 100 Players, #’d to 50 (5,000 total cards)
Exquisite Patch Parallel - 100 Players, #’d to 15 (1,500 total cards)
Maximum Patch - 42 Players, #’d to 25 (1,025 total cards)
Exquisite Combo Patch - 28 cards, #’d to 25 (700 total cards)
Exquisite Trio Patch - 15 cards, #’d to 15 (225 total cards)
Exquisite Quad Patch - 10 cards #’d to 15 (150 total cards)
Maximum Patch Parallel - 42 Players, #’d to 1 (42 total cards)

Verdict: You have an overwhelming chance (about 75%) of getting an Exquisite Patch card. The patch window is small (smaller than a postage stamp), but they do squeeze some three color patches in on some of the cards. In this slot, you just have to hope for lots of colors in your patch, no matter which type of patch card you get.

Card #6: Random Autograph - Here is where it gets interesting. In this slot you can pull any sort of autograph, from the mundane to the extraordinary. However you can’t pull another Base Rookie signature (thankfully) or Rookie Signature Patch. There are 23 different sets that you can pull from. I won’t go over them all, but I’ll try to give you an idea of what you can hope for.

Most Common
Signature Jersey Numbers (#’d to Player’s Jersey Number, 1,344 total cards)
Signature Patch (#’d to 25, 1,050 total cards)
Exquisite Endorsements (#’d to 20, 720 total cards)

Multi-Signature Cards - about 1 in 3 boxes
Combo Signatures (#’d to 25, 750 total cards)
Ticket Matchups (#’d to 30, 600 total cards)
Trio Signatures (#’d to 20, 600 total cards)
Quad Signature Swatch (#’d to 10, 420 total cards)
Quad Signature Patch (#’d to 5, 210 total cards)
Quad Signatures (#’d to 10, 200 total cards)
Dual Signature Swatch (#’d to 15, 150 total cards)
Dual Signature Patch (#’d to 10, 100 total cards)

Super 1/1 Big Hits - about 1 in 91 boxes
Rare Materials Signatures (#’d to 1, 42 total cards)
Dual Logo Signatures (#’d to 1, 21 total cards)
Quad Logo Signatures (#’d to 1, 21 total cards)
Dual Legendary Cuts (#’d to 1, 8 total cards)
Quad Legendary Cuts (#’d to 1, 4 total cards)

Verdict: If you get a dud for your rookie patch auto, you can still score big time in slot #6. Obviously the Shield Logos and Cut Autos will sell for huge amounts, but even if you don’t hit one of those, you still have about a 1 in 3 chance of getting a multi-signature card. Unfortunately, that still gives you a 2 in 3 chance of just getting a single auto.

Player Selection

In all, 227 different players appear in the set in some way, shape or form, which is a huge number.

The 10 Players that appear on the most cards are:

1. Ted Ginn Jr. (814 cards)
2. Marshawn Lynch (813 cards)
3. Dwayne Bowe (763 cards)
4. Peyton Manning (761 cards)
5. Vince Young (729 cards)
6. Brady Quinn (719 cards)
7. Adrian Peterson (718 cards)
8. JaMarcus Russell (712 cards)
9. Dwayne Jarrett (702 cards)
10. Calvin Johnson (677 cards)

Not too shabby right? Unfortunately, you still have to wade through 52,755 cards of the other 217 players, so don’t count on pulling one of the top guys.

One of One’s

There are 473 total 1/1’s in the set, 90 of which are hidden in serial numbered Gold Boxes. If you watch the Exquisite Box Break Videos on youtube, you’ll notice almost everyone saying “no gold box.” These boxes are serial #’d to 15, and all six cards in the box will be a 1/1. You have about a 1 in 582 shot at scoring a Gold Box.

If you aren’t lucky enough to get a Gold Box, you still have about a 1 in 23 chance of getting a 1/1. Unless you work for Beckett, of course.

Adrian Peterson

This guy is so important, he gets his own section. As you can see from above, he appears on 718 cards. No Base Card and no Rookie Signature, but his Rookie Signature Patch card is probably the most important in the set.

Odds of hitting the Rookie Patch are about 1 in 70. Odds of hitting any AP auto are about 1 in 21 boxes.

Final Thoughts

Like any other high-end product, Exquisite is all about high risk/high reward. The Base Card, Rookie Signature, and Maximum Jersey Card slots are very hard to get value out of, and the Patch slot is only slightly better.

In all reality, only two cards can possibly yield big hits. If you miss on your rookie patch and random auto, you could find yourself in a deep hole. If you are looking for value, stay away from Exquisite. If you want to chase the dream, crack open your piggy bank and take a shot.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Articles. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.