Modern Case Breaking Craziness

[Lucas00]

I took a small risk on 2 breaks this past year. Both single player breaks and both I bought one name in. They were unlicensed baseball so not the most costly. I got neither of the players I bought in either break. Probably $50 straight into a black hole.

You can imagine a 100-200 card checklist for a premium product starts to stack up $ pretty fast. Usually $500ish for the box and then sold to people I would say at an average of $20-$50 per player. Lets say the low end for both. 100 player list and and $20 a card
=$2000 for a $500 box. For top tier products (modern football/basketball mainly) you can multiply that number many many times over. At the peak of the boom I have no doubt these “flawless” and “immaculate” breaks were making well over $10,000 a case for opening up 50 or so cards.

Anyway, The breaker sent me a message a few weeks later with a copy/paste style response saying something like “We see you bought into a few breaks and didn’t get anything! That is unfortunate, sorry it can happen. We hope to see your name in the future”

Never again. And it seems like many people are in the same boat as seemingly breaking loses popularity by the day.

[Carter08]

I watch a break or two on YouTube because apparently I have too much time on my hands. I appreciate the feigned enthusiasm when the big card turns out to be a Jalen Reaghor auto.

[butchie_t]

Somehow this seems not on the level. Sort of like a modern day ‘The Sting’ with the card producers being the mob bosses in this instance.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Carter08

I watch a break or two on YouTube because apparently I have too much time on my hands. I appreciate the feigned enthusiasm when the big card turns out to be a Jalen Reaghor auto.

I also have that way too much time problem.

Originally Posted by butchie_t

Somehow this seems not on the level. Sort of like a modern day ‘The Sting’ with the card producers being the mob bosses in this instance.

I have only seen a few. There was a couple that if the breaker had any slight of hand experience card(s) got switched out. Camera was too close and hands darted around way too much going in and out of view. I doubt that is the norm though.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Lucas00

Never again. And it seems like many people are in the same boat as seemingly breaking loses popularity by the day.

I thought about buying into a case break, baseball, of a standard product like Chrome. It would have been for a team - Cincinnati Reds. But then I had the exact same thought as OP, that for the same money I could buy a single nice card that I actually want.

I don't have the stomach for gambling. I don't buy lottery tickets, or scratch tickets, and don't go to casinos. I stopped buying boxes... nearing twenty years now. Reds players rarely amount to anything, so prices remain fairly inexpensive. Jonathan India prices are still relatively cheap when compared to Jarred Kelenic, and India had the better year. The Reds player whose prices remain surprising is Jose Barrero. I think flippers are hoping his story is not yet told. But he couldn't beat Kyle Farmer for the starting SS job, so I'm not convinced.

Vintage Reds prices like the BRM are also relatively accessible, until you get into niche products like Kahn's, but then compared to the Yankees it's not so bad.

Back to the original topic, though. I think for a team collector like me, a case break is an alright idea. But I don't want to return to the days where I had 4000 count boxes of worthless cards that no one else cared about. So ultimately that's why I never purchased a break.

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[BobbyStrawberry]

I must admit I don't get it at all. I love cards and sports, but I'd much rather gamble on an actual sporting event, which for me is much more fun to watch than a streaming video of someone opening a box.