There was a time when collecting sports cards felt simple, accessible, and genuinely fun. Packs could be found almost anywhere. Grocery stores like A&P and Giant carried them. So did Peoples Drug, 7-11, K-mart, Walgreens, Woolworth, and even gas stations. I even remember buying cards at a Staples once. They were everywhere.
Back then, the experience was straightforward. You could buy a few packs, enjoy the randomness, and reasonably expect to complete a set without much trouble. There weren’t endless variations or artificial scarcity. It was collecting in its purest form.
Over time, that changed.
The industry shifted its focus toward hobby shops and dealers, and away from the everyday collector. Distribution narrowed, availability dropped, and the introduction of inserts changed everything. At first, inserts were easy to spot. Some were thicker or slightly different in size, and people would feel packs to find them, leaving the rest behind. That was the beginning of the end of the fun, at least for me.
Then came something unexpected: the 2019 Topps Alliance of American Football set.
For a brief moment, it brought that excitement back.
The Alliance of American Football launched with promise, and Topps returned to football cards for the first time in years. It felt like something new and worth following. I found myself watching games weekly on the NFL Network, hoping the league would catch on.
But it never did.
There was little to no promotion. Local sports coverage ignored it. Even broadcasts revealed the reality when the cameras pulled back and showed sparsely filled stands. Then, after just seven weeks, the league folded. The timing could not have been worse. The cards were released just days later.
Now, about the set itself.
Topps advertised a 200-card base set, but in reality it feels more like a 175-card base set plus a 25-card “Future Stars” subset. That distinction matters, because the Future Stars cards are extremely difficult to complete without resorting to singles.
What makes the set appealing is also what makes it frustrating. There are numerous inserts, including serial-numbered parallels with different color variations, along with autograph cards. On paper, it sounds exciting. In practice, it becomes a grind.
The biggest issue is availability.
Dealers largely ignored the release. I attended two card shows. At one, not a single dealer had AAF cards. At a national show, only one dealer had hobby boxes, and that was it. When I asked others, some didn’t just say no, they seemed uninterested or even annoyed by the question.
That leaves retail and hobby boxes.
Retail “booster” boxes, typically found at places like Target and Walmart, contain 10 packs of 10 cards. Most stores seemed to stock only a few boxes at a time, usually around $20 each. Hobby boxes, on the other hand, contain 24 packs and guarantee three autograph cards, initially priced around $75.
Naturally, I started with retail.
At first, it was encouraging. After opening just three booster boxes, I managed to assemble a full base set and pull several inserts and autographs. It felt like the old days again.
So I kept going.
That’s when the pattern revealed itself.
After opening ten more booster boxes, I was unable to assemble even one additional complete set. The packs clearly follow a fixed distribution pattern. If you don’t hit certain key packs, you will never complete the set. Those missing cards simply don’t appear outside that pattern.
At that point, retail boxes felt like a dead end.
So I turned to hobby boxes.
By then, prices had dropped significantly, sometimes as low as $30. Opening hobby boxes was a completely different experience. In fact, they follow a pattern as well, but a far more favorable one. From six hobby boxes, I was able to assemble six full 175-card base sets.
Consistent. Predictable. Almost too predictable.
And yet, even with all that product opened, the 25-card Future Stars subset remained nearly impossible to complete. Across 13 booster boxes and 6 hobby boxes, I managed just one full set, and only after purchasing three singles online.
Then there are the serial-numbered parallels.
That’s a story all its own.