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.