The first thing that hits you when you pick up a box of Wild Card’s new Auto Mania football card product is the big number at the bottom of the box. “Eight Autos Per Box.” No matter if it’s a league or college licensed product or not, that’s a pretty good selling point.
Wild Card says it produced only 400 cases (4,800 boxes) and each box is numbered.
The autographs in this one include NFL players who were rookies this season as well as current college stars, thanks to the wide open NIL market. Among the available youngsters: Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, Aidan Hutchinson, Bailey Zappe, Derek Stingley Jr., Kenneth Walker III, Kenny Pickett, Breece Hall, Brock Purdy and C.J. Stroud.
Wild Card does not hold an NFL license, so in turn, they are prohibited from printing material with logos or trademarks, so they have to get creative. They use what are called “Pro Look” uniforms on the photos of the rookies. At first glance, look just like any licensed product, but through some strategic use of photos where the helmet logo wouldn’t be visible anyway, they make the lack of logos a little less obvious. In all honesty, they pulled it off fairly well, although the pro players featured are in limited supply compared to the college players.
The checklist features 100 players and about 20 of them are in the Pro Look uniforms.
One of the eight autographs is included in a magnetic case and numbered to 5 or less, then collectors get seven more signed cards, each in a snap tight case and quite a few featuring low numbered autographs.
Each card is sealed within its own pack. It wouldn’t be far fetched for hobby shops to sell these in a per pack format.
Seven of the sealed packs are exactly the same but the super short print auto is clearly in its own pack with a different colored wrapper and text letting you know what’s what.
A very first card was a green Isaiah Likely, numbered 4 of 7 copies. This was a our first look at the Pro Look uniforms and they are pretty nicely done.
The Baltimore Ravens tight end is un-Likely to sell for much money, though. Playing behind all world TE Mark Andrews, Likely did grab 30 plus passes for over 300 yards and three scores on the season.
The second card we ripped was an autograph of Univesity of Georgia safety Lewis Cine. Sadly, Cine suffered a bad left leg fracture that cost him the entire 2022 season. 
Next up was Khalil Shakir, a wide reciever out of Boise State. The rookie Bills wide out showed flashes of brilliance in the playoffs, so there’s potential for this one. As an added bonus, this orange copy is numbered 8 out of 10.
Tampa Bay rookie running back Rachaad White was the next card we pulled. White also showed signs of a bright future when he came in to replace starting running back Leonard Fournette in Tampa.
Next step was the University of Miami quarterback to D’Eriq King. This card was also very low numbered coming in at 6 of 10 copies. King is currently on an XFL roster, so his collectibility is rather limited.
Next up is our favorite defensive lineman of the draft, Phidarian Mathis. The Eagles rookie is one that we’ve pulled in every single product we opened this year. The streak continues. Go Birds.
The last regular pack of the box held a Perrion Winfrey auto. The Cleveland Browns DT played sparingly this past season.
Now time for the super short print autograph pack.
It turns out we were seeing double as we pulled another autograph card of Rachaad White. Luckily this is a 1 of 1 autograph so no complaints.
So that wraps up our Brief Box Break of Wild Card Auto Mania. Aside from the lack of logos, these cards are really well done with intricate designs, nice foil and well placed sticker autos. Boxes are currently available for between $175 and $200 on eBay. You can see some of the autographs that have been pulled and listed here.
As we’ve mentioned plenty of times before, buying unlicensed products from lesser known manufacturers means you always run the risk of getting autographs that just have little value but the quality of the cards and the fairly limited nature of them makes this kind of an interesting product.
Check out sports card boxes of all kinds in Sports Zone’s online store here.
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