Thursday, April 9, 2009

2008 Press Pass Game Breakers #12 Donnie Avery

It amazes me how differently I can feel about the same card based on its front and back.

Today's card is the 2008 Press Pass Game Breakers #12 featuring Donnie Avery. The front features a great picture of Donnie Avery in action in the 2007 Texas Bowl. Game Breakers and Avery's name are featured in a distressed white font. So far, so good. Most of the background is blurred. The top and bottom feature odd cutouts of a football. Overall a pretty nice design with a great picture. A quality picture can go a long way for making a nice looking card.

Unfortunately the back gets much lower marks from me. Reason #1, the same picture is featured on the back. To me, that just screams that a card company is working on a tight budget. To be fair, the picture is cropped not as tightly as the front. A close up and wide shot of the same image can sometimes provide a different look, but I don't think they achieved that this time. Reason #2, in an attempt to make the same picture look different, the hue of the photo was greatly altered from Cougar red to an odd yellow or green. They could have saved the back for me with the stats. I love stats on cards because it's a nice reference tool. But this card features combined stats for 2004-2007. That's better than no stats, but there is plenty of room for year by year and total stats.



Sunday, April 5, 2009

1997 Genuine Article #M35 & #M47 Antowain Smith

Special thanks to reader Victor for these scans.

I know nothing about Genuine Article cards, but these look pretty sharp.

Card #M35 features Smith being tackled. As usual, I LOVE the old school helmet. Oops, it looks like they misspelled his first name though. The back is very basic with a text scouting report.

To me, card #M47 is much more attractive. The front features a very interesting picture of Smith. I don't know if it is in game or not. Is he looking at a would be tackler? Is he posing for the camera? Who knows. It looks like this picture was taken at the 2006 Liberty Bowl based on the patch on his shoulder. Again his name is misspelled.

The back features Antowain running through Texas A&M players. The picture on M35 also is against A&M. UH didn't play A&M in 1996, so obviously this wasn't from his senior season. I'd guess it is from 1995. Whatever year it was, it wasn't pretty. Those were some tough times for UH football.

M35



M47