Junk Era Shiny Crap: Doing the Math
 

I love a couple of the junk wax era shiny inserts. Like 1996 Summit Above and Beyond. I did the math the other night and thought the results for a set building exercise were interesting.

The set has 200 cards.

The cards were seeded 1:4 in hobby boxes.

Each hobby box had 18 packs and sold for $2.99 MSRP

So, what would it cost to put together a set by busting packs in 1996? Well, each box had 4.5 cards on average and retailed for $53.82 plus tax. Call it $55 with tax and assuming a bit of a discount for a box purchase. So the least the set could cost would be, in round terms:

44 boxes x $55 per box = $2,420.00

Divide that by $200 and the set would run $12.10 per card assembled.

Today nearly all of the cards cost under $2 but the Jeter runs $40 and the Bonds, Griffey and a few others will sell for several bucks too.

Interesting what this stuff cost new...

Well, one insert set does not the entire product make. It would be a share of the box break value, but only a small part of it.

Except that my point was how much it would cost and how much effort it would be to compile a set of the inserts by breaking down product.

I think that is a losing proposition for just about any decent sized insert or parallel set. Even with perfect collation, building a set by busting packs is not cost effective, nor are the cards rarely "worth" what you'd have to pay.

I remember thinking how cool it would be to have a set of 1994 Collectors Choice Gold Signature cards. Wonder how much that would cost to build from packs! I seem to recall the Thomas having a value of around $100-150 at one point. I think you can probably find one for under $10 now. Still a great set/card and at 1 per wax box (I think factory sets had a small brick of them too), not an easy set to build.

1994 Collector's Choice was the last set I busted packs from when I was a kid. I was, and am, a huge fan of the set. Of all the packs I busted, I only ever pulled 1 gold card. I have since busted 4 boxes, and am attempting to build the base, silver and gold sets very casually. I managed to complete the base set by packs and trades, I bought a small lot of silvers to supplement what I pulled from packs and have traded my way within 42 cards of completing that set. I am at 432 on the golds but am still a long way from completion, with Jeter still missing, all of the Griffeys, Jordans and all but one Thomas also still unaccounted for.

If I were to attempt this busting packs, I imagine I'd be spending around $10-15 per series 1 "card" (realizing it's the entire box), and more like $20-25 per series 2 "card", plus shipping.

If you went the complete set route, you would get 5 gold cards per set. I imagine that's how you'd achieve the lowest "per gold card" rate, maybe around 4 bucks a card or less, but that's still significantly more than what I'm at per card so far (realizing I still have some major gaps to fill).

Thank goodness I'm not in this for the money ;)

Richard.

Fascinating subject fellas.
RayB

The fun part is piecing together these sorts of insert sets now and seeing how cheaply it can be done. It is somewhat of a slog. The first 50% of the set usually can be knocked off with a big lot or two for cheap. The next 25% is a bit more costly. The next 20% is pricey because you will have to buy singles and pay shipping on them. The last few big cards will cost. I spent more for my Jeter card from the 1997 Topps Gallery Peter Max insert set than I did for the other 9 cards in the set. Still, you are probably looking at a financial commitment of about 10%-20% of what the cards would have cost from box breaks. Speaking of which, I will occasionally break a box of late 1990s product but strictly for the fun of it because I know it is a losing proposition. Last boxes I broke down were 2 boxes of 1997 Topps Stadium Club and they yielded only two Matrix cards, a few Pure Golds and one Millennium. And with my luck I end up with Juan Gonzalez or Ryan Klesko. Way cheaper to buy them directly from a retail seller.

When I first got back into collecting (in the early 2000s) I busted a lot of boxes of stuff from the 80s and 90s -- the stuff I collected as a kid and the stuff from just before I started collecting.

I'd love to sit down to a few boxes of 1991 Upper Deck and see if I could complete the set, the Heroes sets, the Silver Sluggers, etc, but by the time I buy the right combination of boxes to have a shot at it, and ship them, I'm probably in for over $100 for what I could probably just buy for $20.

Still might do it one day though, just for the fun of tearing into the packs and collating.

Richard.

I don't open packs any more, other than a stray one here or there. Have not really bought wax since the early 2000s. Still, every once in a while, I find a good deal on something. I recently bought two boxes of the 2003 Donruss Team Heroes issue (i want to say for under $50 delivered) and opened those. I figured I probably could have maybe even turned a small profit had I tried to resell the unopened boxes or held some sort of box break deal. I wanted to open them though, guessing I'd probably still not get my money's worth. I was right, but it was still a fun break. I pulled a Schmidt bat card and a no-name auto, a few stat line cards (none were a super low print run), a couple decent glossy players and that was about it.

If I could find enough boxes with some fun stuff inside and cheap enough to feel like I didn't completely waste my money when I didn't pull anything epic, I would still be opening wax today.