The Pitfalls to Participating in High-End Case Breaks By the Team

Participating in case breaks is always a risk.  Participating in high-end case breaks can sometimes be extremely risky.  Today, that risk caught up to me big time. 

I had bought into a case break of 2013 Topps Five Star Football on the Blowout Cards forums.  The format was random teams.  I ended up with the Cleveland Browns. 

The checklist for the product wasn't out at the time so nobody really knew for sure whether they had a good team or not.  Of course, some teams are pretty much guaranteed to be good no matter what (e.g. Saints, Packers, Broncos).  Other teams you know will be good based on the amount of big name rookies on that team which attended the 2013 Rookie Photo Shoot (Rookie Premiere).  And then there are those teams which are lacking any big name rookies, and who typically aren't your historically great team -- like the Cleveland Browns. 

It was my hopes that maybe there would be some awesome veteran signatures for the Browns in 2013 Five Star but my hopes were crushed when the checklist came out.  Not a single Browns player in base checklist, nor any Browns players having single hits.  The only Browns player in the checklist is Brandon Weeden who appears on a octo-patch book with seven other players.  Even if that card was pulled in the case break, I'd still only have a 1/8 chance of getting that card. 

So, when all is said and done, I bought into a case break, got a shit team, and have about a 0.00001% chance of getting anything from the break -- literally. 

It was only around $40 to buy into the break so it wasn't a huge waste of money.  I knew the risk, but damn.  I sure am kicking myself for buying into this break despite knowing the risks. 

2013 Topps Five Star Football Is Live!

2013 Topps Five Star Football cards are going live!  A handful have already hit eBay at the moment.  The cards are looking amazing!  Just take a look at some of these beauties!

DROOL.

JAW DROPPING.

AMAZING ON-CARD SIGNATURE!

Wow.  These cards are like the stuff of dreams.  So much on-card action going on.  No stickers!  Beautiful design, imagery, and layout.  I think this stuff blows National Treasures out of the water in terms of looks.  It's not even close. 

I will have to buy myself a few of these beauties. 

Box Breaker Review: JD Jammin Sports Cards

I've been dying -- absolutely dying -- to buy some 2013 Fleer Retro Football.  I love the base card design.  I like a lot of the retro inserts (although not all of them).  I like Upper Deck products.  But unfortunately, it didn't seem like a lot of box breakers were breaking Fleer Retro.  The product isn't for everyone.  Not everyone likes the retro designs.  Admittedly, the checklist is filled with a lot of no-name players.  It always sucks when one of your autographs is a player who wasn't drafted at all.  But despite that risk, I just had to buy into a break for some Fleer Retro.

To help me find someone who was breaking Fleer Retro I turned to Google.  On the first page was a box break listing by a breaker who I've never heard of: JD Jammin Sports Cards. 

Was this person legit?  I did my due diligence.  I watched a few of JD's breaks on Ustream, and recap videos on YouTube.  He seemed legit.  He definitely had a very nice looking website, at least.

I decided to give him a shot and bought three spots in a 3-box box break. 

Freakin' love the retro base card design!

When it came time to break, I got the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, and the Cleveland Browns.  The Falcons and the Browns are pretty bad teams to have in 2013 products, but the Packers are perhaps the best team to have!  I was hoping to see some Eddie Lacy pop out.

Show me that Eddie "Circle Button" Lacy #BOOM!

And I did!  Got myself a few nice Eddie Lacy base rookie cards and a Eddie Lacy Greats of the Game autograph redemption!  This is my first Eddie Lacy autograph and it's staying in the PC.

Lovin' these retro inserts!

And I also got a trio of nice Fleer Showcase inserts of Eddie Lacy, Jonathan Franklin, and Chris Harper (not pictured).

When my cards arrived in the mail I was very impressed with the shipping.  JD had put all the base cards in card sleeves, put my better inserts in toploaders, and put my Eddie Lacy base rookie cards in toploaders too.  The rest of the sleeved base cards were then stuck between the toploaded cards and sealed shut in a team bag.  The sealed team bag was then placed in a padded envelope.  The care in shipping and protecting these cards was excellent and was like night and day in comparison to the shipping by another breaker I've used before (that blog post can be found here).

Nice background.  Nice high-quality video.
All packs stay on the screen.

Overall I was very impressed with JD Jammin Sports Cards.  The box break video quality is high.  All the breaks are recorded -- as they should be -- and available for later viewing on Ustream.  Shorter recap videos are on YouTube if you just want to see the hits and other notable cards.  The packs of cards always stayed on the screen so there was no possibility of switching out packs or other foul play.  I'm not sure if a backup camera was used, but so long as the internet doesn't go out then it shouldn't be an issue (of course, when the internet goes out that's why you need a backup camera to maintain the utmost breaker integrity).

JD Jammin Sports cards has one of the nicest box break websites that I've ever seen.  He keeps his followers and customers informed of his upcoming breaks via blog posts and tweets.  You can earn "Jamminpoints" every time you buy into a break which you can then use to buy more stuff (supplies, cards, buy into more breaks) on his website.  He's definitely trying to build brand loyalty in a market place which is saturated with other breakers and where customer loyalty runs deep.  A new feature on the website are "pack breaks" where you can choose which pack of cards you want to buy from a hobby box.  This idea isn't novel but the execution he is utilizing is.  Each pack will be numbered with a sharpie before the break starting from the top pack on the left side and ending on the bottom pack on the right side.  When you buy your packs you choose which pack you want to buy based on the pack number. 

Would I break with JD Jammin Sports Cards again? 

Definitely.  He's one of the most professional box breakers I've every used. 

Box Breakers Should Always Ship Hits in Toploaders

In the card community there is this rule that cards are never shipped without being put into a toploader.  It's sort of like the unwritten rule of shipping cards -- but yet this rule gets written about a lot because (amazingly enough) it gets broken a lot.

The first time this happened to me was when I bought a Doug Martin autograph card off of eBay.  The dimwit seller put the card in a padded envelope and put it in the mail.  That's it.  No toploader.  Not even a card sleeve.  When I received the envelope and opened it up, the card had a huge crease right down the middle.  I was appalled.  I couldn't believe somebody would be this stupid.  Did this person really not think that the card wouldn't get bent in transit?  Or maybe this person ran out of toploaders?  What sports card collector doesn't have a few random toploaders lying around?  

Well, it's happened to me again.  This time the person who sent me the cards not in a toploader was a box breaker.  This person should know better.  This breaker has been around for over a year.  In fact, I've broke with them once before.  Last time I broke with them I didn't get any hits and when I received the base cards in the mail they weren't in any sort of special protection.  He had just put them in a team bag inside of a padded envelope.  They were just base cards so I really wasn't that upset or concerned, but I did make a mental note to myself of this fact.  I have participated in box breaks where the box breaker will at least put the base cards between two toploaders inside of a team bag to provide extra protection.  So the lack of effort on the box breaker's part was noticed.

It's generally okay to ship low value base cards in just a team bag
(although it wouldn't hurt to sandwich them between toploaders),
but hits should always be shipped in a toploader.

This time I had gotten two hits in a box break.  In the live webcast he even stated (to all the people watching) that the hits would be sent in toploaders.  Well, he lied.

The two hits arrived in a padded envelope, but were otherwise sitting naked, in a team bag and that's it.  No card sleeves.  No toploader.

Lucky for me, and by some grace of God, the cards actually hadn't been damaged in transit but this is beside the point.  The cards should have been in toploaders.  Why they weren't is beyond me.  I find it inexcusable how a box breaker could ship the hits naked, and not in any sort of protection like a toploader.  Because of this incident I will no longer be using this breaker.  I will take my money elsewhere.  I will not risk having any of my hits pulled by this breaker damaged in transit because he didn't put the card in a toploader.

I haven't named this breaker because I'm not really in the business of slandering other people (even if I am telling the truth), nor do I want to deal with the drama or the possible backlash of outing this breaker.  The fact that he is losing my business is enough gratification for me.  It's unacceptable that an established box breaker should ship hits without toploaders.  Absolutely unacceptable. 

Four Packs of 2013 Upper Deck Football

I made my first visit to the closest LCS to me.  I had been meaning to go there for a long time but I never really felt the need to since I could buy my cards online and have them shipped to me.  But one day I found myself in the area so I popped into the LCS to have a gander. 

The LCS was a nice little shop, stuffed to the brim with cards.  You would think that the place was a mess because it was so full of stuff but it was actually very well organized and neat. 

I wanted to pick up some 2014 NFL products but the shop was all sold out of its stock of 2014 Upper Deck Football.  I was disappointed.  That's all I really wanted to buy.  It felt wrong to leave the store without buying something since it was my first time to this LCS so I bought four 2013 Upper Deck Football packs.  They were $5.50 each.  That seemed a little expensive to me but having not done any research to compare prices I didn't know any better.  I wish I could say that I got something good out of those four packs but I really didn't.

Star Rookies
Brandon Ford
DeVonte Holloman
D.J. Swearinger
Justin Hunter
Le'Veon Bell
Logan Ryan
Margus Hunt
Terrance Williams

Premiere Prospects
Denard Robinson

Oh, and I got four really nice decoy cards too.  I was hoping for a hit, but I knew that I might not get one.  2013 Upper Deck Football has three hits per box and 20 packs per box.  Whenever you're picking packs from an already-opened hobby box, you're always running the risk of picking packs which don't have a hit in them.  It's very possible that these packs are the leftovers from a hobby box which already had its hits bought by another customer.  I knew this, but what can I say?  I have self-control issues.  I knew I shouldn't have bought any packs. 

At least the base card photography is nice.

And just to demonstrate how it's not worth it to buy loose packs from a hobby box, let's do some more mathematics. 

Right now on Steel City Collectibles, a hobby box of 2013 Upper Deck Football costs $79.95.  We'll just call it $80 even.  If you bought yourself a hobby box, after tax, the total would likely be around $85 to $87 depending on the tax.  Using the $87 box price, that comes out to $4.35 per pack.  Basically, by buying individual packs of cards I ended up paying $1.15 more per pack of cards than had I just bought myself a hobby box. 

What really punches me in the gut even more right now though, is that the price of $79.95 for a box of 2013 Upper Deck Football is its MSRP price.  Boxes for this product can be found and bought for as little as $40 to $50.  Even at the price of $50, that's a per-pack price of $2.50 and a lot less than $5.50 per pack. 

Moral of the story: Buying by the whole hobby box is much more efficient than buying by the pack.

The Inefficiency and Added Expense of Box Breaks

What got me back into the card collecting hobby after a long hiatus was this thing called "box breaks."  Box breaks are when multiple people come together to split a box of cards.  The cost is split among the participants, as are the cards.  Thus, the cost of buying into a break is a fraction of what a whole box would cost for one person, but you also stand a lesser chance of getting cards from that box too.

At first, box breaks sounded like a fantastic way for me to participate in collecting cards without breaking the bank.  I could buy into a few box breaks at a fraction of the price of a whole hobby box, and still have a chance at getting some cool cards.  It seemed like a win-win scenario.

Well, after participating in box breaks for over a year, I'm convinced it's not a win-win scenario. 

Part of the problem with box breaks is that they're just so damn addicting.  They're fun.  It's exciting.  You never know what team or what cards you'll get.  There's an element of chance, and randomness.  If you like gambling, then you'll probably like box breaks.  Once you start participating in box breaks it's extremely hard to stop.

Another problem with box breaks is that because they're so addicting I think it's a lot easier to spend more money on box breaks than had you just bought yourself a single hobby box and stopped there.  When you think about it, it's much easier to say to yourself, "I'm going to buy a couple of spots in a box break tonight and spend $20," than to say to yourself "I'm going to buy a whole hobby box for myself and spend $150."  But if you lack a lot of self-control, like I do, then you end up spending $20 here, $20 there, and soon enough you're spending $20 or more every night buying into box breaks.  Pretty soon you've spent way more money on box breaks than you would have had you just bought yourself one hobby box!

It took me a long time to learn this lesson, but before you buy into a box break you should ask yourself: how much am I willing to spend on this product?

If you're only willing to spend $40 on this product, then box breaks are the way to go. 
If you're willing to spend $200 on this product, then I think it's best that you just buy yourself as many hobby boxes as you can with that money.  You certainly shouldn't spend that $200 on box breaks for this product.  Why?

Within the cost to buy into each box break is the supplies and shipping cost for the breaker to ship the cards to you.  That cost is usually built into every single spot in a break.  This added cost effectively reduces your ability to purchase as many cards had you just bought a sealed hobby box and had it shipped to you.  Don't believe me?  Let's do the math.

Let's just say you're interested in buying a NFL product which is currently selling for $150 per hobby box.

If you go the box break route, the box breaker will likely be charging about $7 per spot for a random NFL team.  (Calculated by:  ($150 / 32) + $2.31 for shipping)  If you're willing to spend $200 on this product, then you could theoretically buy about 28.6 break spots.  (Calculated by: $200 / $7 per spot = 28.6 spots)  Let's round that up to 29 break spots.  In other words, you could technically buy 29 break spots such that you will own 29 out of the 32 NFL teams in the break. 

On the other hand, if you went the hobby box route, you could buy a hobby box for $150, pay about $10 to have it shipped to you, for a total of $160.  That's a whole hobby box, the box breaking equivalent of all 32 NFL teams (or spots) for only $160.  That's a price of only $5 per NFL team.  (Calculated by: $160 / 32 teams = $5 per team)  Paying $5 per NFL team sounds a lot better than paying $7 per NFL team.

Heck, with that leftover $40 out of the $200, you could then buy yourself five more $7 spots ($35) in a box break.  In total, you would have the equivalent of 37 box break spots for $195 in comparison to 29 box break spots had you just spent your full $200 on box breaks. 

Now does that make sense?

Time and time again, I see people spend hundreds of dollars buying into box breaks and spending more money on box breaks than they do the actual price of a hobby box.  This is inefficient. 

Basically, if you're willing to spend an amount of money on a product which is more than the cost of a hobby box, then you should just go ahead and buy yourself a hobby box of the product and avoid box breaks.  Alternatively, if the amount of money you're willing to spend on a product is less than the cost of a hobby box, then you are okay to buy into a box break as since that is the only way you would be able to afford a chance at getting those cards without buying an actual hobby box. 

Caveat: The above analysis is only applicable to random team box breaks or draft-your-team box breaks.  Pick-your-team box breaks are a different animal and if you're a team collector then buying into pick-your-team box breaks is infinitely times more efficient than buying multiple hobby boxes to try and get the cards for your team.

Beckett Grading Service Formula

I've been trying to figure out the Beckett Grading Service (BGS) "formula" in my spare time.  I've been looking at BGS graded cards on eBay and COMC.com to help narrow down the exact "formula" that BGS uses.

For the most part, it's fairly simple.  It goes like this:

• Generally, your final grade can only be 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade. 
• Exception: If two or more of your subgrades share the lowest subgrade score, then your final grade will be equal to that lowest subgrade.

An example of the general rule would be a card with Centering 9.5, Corners 9.5, Edges 9.5, and Surface 9.0.  The final grade is 9.5.

Another example of the general rule would be a card with Centering 9.0, Corners 8.5, Edges 8.0, and Surface 9.5.  The final grade is 8.5.

An example of the exception to this general rule would be a card with Centering 9.5, Corners 8.5, Edges 8.5, and Surface 9.5.  The final grade is 8.5. 

This general rule and its single exception will probably work for about 99% of BGS graded cards.

Things get a little more complicated, however, when one subgrade is drastically lower than the rest of the subgrades (i.e. a card with Centering 9.5, Corners 9.5, Edges 9.5, and Surface 7).  In such circumstances, the final grade can sometimes be more than 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade.  For more information about these cards, see this blog post. 

Finally, the subgrade requirement to get a BGS Pristine 10 is very stringent:

• To get a "BGS Pristine 10" final grade, you must have at least three 10 subgrades and any subgrade which isn't a 10 must be a 9.5.  (In other words, you cannot have any subgrades be a 9.0 or lower.)

For example, a card with subgrades of Centering 10, Corners 10, Edges 9.5, and Surface 10, would have a final grade of Pristine 10.

For example, a card with subgrades of Centering 9, Corners 10, Edges 10 and Surface 10, would have a final grade of Gem Mint 9.5.

Just keeping in mind the above general rule and its exception (which will work for what I estimate to be over 99% of BGS graded cards), you will be able to calculate what a card's final BGS grade should be depending on its subgrades.  This knowledge is especially useful if you are thinking about submitting your own cards to Beckett for grading.  By honestly estimating what subgrades your card will receive, you can calculate what your final grade will be based on those subgrades. 

First Blog Post

Just a place to put my thoughts.