[Haze28]

With the amount of wax I have bought in 2012 and the many sets I decided to build I started to notice a trend in the cards I pulled and where I was finding the rest of the cards I needed to complete sets. In the products that I bought multiple boxes of, Topps Chrome, Topps Update, Bowman Chrome, Gypsy Queen, Allen & Ginter I was seeing many , many duplicates and never seeing certain cards. As I traded and purchased my needs I started to notice most of them were coming from the same regions.

Most of the cards for the Topps Gold set that I am almost done with that came out of Update that I either traded for or bought came from the west coast, a majority of the GQ and A&G stuff that I have traded for or purchased came from the east coast. I haven't started filling my needs for Bowman Chrome and Draft yet but I go to a couple local shows every two weeks and I see the same cards as I have pulled at the shows and am finding very little help for my sets locally.

Has anyone else noticed this? Maybe I am reading too much into it but when I talked to a guy at the LCS and he said others have complained about the same thing. I don't think I will be buying multiple boxes of these products locally anymore. I may buy one from the LCS and then buy online from blowout or D&A.

[nyyankeesfan28]

Never thought about that, but, now that you mention it, it is happening to me as well.

[pjpitbull]

never looked into it. But they know exactly where the cards are going and whats in them boxes.
There not stupid. Thats how they make money. Hot players and cards here and some over there. They get ya like that to keep buying this stuff up lol

[doublexthebeast]

I've always thought this to be true. I know last year I busted 5 cases of 2012 Bowman(4 Jumbos and 1 Hobby). I bought 1 jumbo and the hobby from a big internet retailer, 1 jumbo from a different retailer, and the other two jumbos from Ebay from a respectible seller. 90% of the best hits came from big internet retailer. Now i know that isn't much of a test but the other thing that was odd was that in 5 cases I got 0 Jackie Bradley Jr. Autos, 0 Xander Boegaerts Autos, and 0 Danny Hultzen autos. I did however get 2 Yu Darvish Auto's(1 Blue Refractor and 1 Gold Refractor), 5 Anthony Rendon Auto's(2 Refractors and 1 Orange Refractor), 5 Oscar Taveras Auto's(3 Refractors). All of my cases came from dealers in the Eastern part of the country. One of my friends bought all of his from a dealer in California and he basically hit the complete opposite players that i did. Very strange how it all works. But after the first 2 or 3 weeks the cases can get sold multiple times on Ebay, so the only real way of testing this is to pre order a large quantity of cases from different areas. I'm going to try and bust 15-20 cases this year so I may be able to test it

[RobbinsDynasty]

I have seen this a couple times from the wax I have busted. Especially topps series 1 and 2. Bought a case of series 2 a year or so ago and most the hits were from teams based from the midwest. multiple cubs and twins GU's.

[DrMitchJ]

It would be interesting to collect that data in a population based report and then give it to Topps and say ...we're on to you, so Cut it Out!!
The only collation pattern I noticed was certain packs of cards always had the same 'random' cards. I can't remember specifics, but I do recall that in 2012 Topps series one, every time I got a Mariano Rivera card, I also got a David Wright card ... same thing with Michael Young and Chris Young.
I'm sure there are others like that.

[nyyankeesfan28]

Same here, DrMitchJ. It seems more prevailent in base Topps. Also, when I buy a Jumbo box, the last three packs or so is all duplicates in the half before or after the inserts. Not only that, they are in the same order as a previous pack.

[Phillies_Joe]

Best cases go to the large buyers.....serial numbers tell what is in the box. Check up on who are the HUGE WHALE pullers.....always the same folks....who just so happen to be Topps best customers. All I know is that from my LCS (buy boxes half of the time from them because the owner is really cool, rest online) last year, and it didn't matter what product, all I was pulling in my relics & Auto's were Rangers & Reds....also, absolutly nothing spectacular. Just so happened that MLB opened a hobby box on TV from series 1 last year and low & behold....a 24k gold Henry Aaron.......

[Haze28]

Best cases go to the large buyers.....serial numbers tell what is in the box. Check up on who are the HUGE WHALE pullers.....always the same folks....who just so happen to be Topps best customers. All I know is that from my LCS (buy boxes half of the time from them because the owner is really cool, rest online) last year, and it didn't matter what product, all I was pulling in my relics & Auto's were Rangers & Reds....also, absolutly nothing spectacular. Just so happened that MLB opened a hobby box on TV from series 1 last year and low & behold....a 24k gold Henry Aaron.......

That just plain sucks. I have noticed some of the same guys having monster hits but I just assumed they open an insane amount of product. I have noticed that since the LCS that I go to has started expanding and moving a ton of wax the hits have gotten better coming out of their shops. I guess that is good for me lol.

[Phillies_Joe]

Great for you! Again, odds do increase with amounts sold....however, you cannot tell me Topps doesn't know what is going where and to whom......oh well...thats why I stick to base and paralles only. Do love seeing the massive relic/auto's, but if I don't get them in person, have no meaning to me and my collection.