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I had to go to Target to get a few things and out of habit, I looked at the card section being surprised to find some Pretige Megboxes in teh wild.

And like a sucker, I  just had to buy some - despite the best pull out of a 2020 Prestige Megabox being a Jarratt Stidham autograph /25 

And what was the best pull?

A Jarratt Stidham autograph /10.

Fun fact, I have a redemption out for a 2019 Jarratt Stidham Phoenix RPS Rookie Auto Jersey Green Prime.  Go Panini!

Hey, look another numbered autograph - of Cole McDonald a 7th Round QB from Hawaii who has already been cut by the Titans.  How often do draft picks not even make it to training camp?

The other big pull was a Seth Roberts printing plate.  At least the plates look cool since they started printing the full back on the back - buy why is Seth Roberts (a veteran player who has never had over 500 receiving years and last year had 271 receiving yards) in a 2020 product?

Why are people paying more than $40 for this?

Remind me to have enough self control to not buy any more of these if I see them.

Man, ouch ... pure greed by Panini again. Capitalizing on the popularity of the product last year by watering it down this year.

I grabbed a Prestige blaster and a hanger this morning.

My mem card out of the blaster was Amari Cooper (not bad, could be worse) and I finally pulled Stafford's base card (?), not to mention my third Brady.

Still looking for Chase Young but I really can't justify buying more of this stuff.

Ridiculous shark update, by the way, in case you didn't see it in my 2020 rookies thread ...


Yesterday after WORK - key word, WORK, as in a job that I go to - I stop by one of my local Targets. The distributor lady is there putting stuff out. There is already a guy there.

So I'm thinking "shark" and already gearing up to deal with him.

But as I get to the card aisle he's waiting very patiently and actually having a good conversation with the lady. He's been collecting for 30 years and cannot believe how difficult it's been to find any product. I can tell he's not actually a shark because he's basically condemning them in this conversation with this lady.

(And, he doesn't have mustard stains all over his T-shirt; he appears to have showered in the last 48 hours; and there is no Cheeto dust on his face or hands that I can see. Ergo, three good signs he is not a shark.)

I see that the lady has emptied almost all of the big cardboard boxes with the yellow tape on them and there is basically nothing to put out but Score football and some kind of soccer.

I ask her about Chronicles basketball. The other guy chimes in that the Chronicles basketball drop "was last week."

Huh. Interesting. Much like Optic (other than one extremely random and lucky blaster) and Mosaic, I never saw a single pack of it.

Then, this guy that I assume is not a shark adds this wonderful nugget:

"I was at the Stockton store this morning and there were 20 people in line waiting for the card guy."

OK, two things.

This conversation was taking place at roughly 4:30 in the afternoon.

The "Stockton store" is a good two and a half hours from where I live.

Ergo, a logical assumption is that this guy is driving around all day, going to different Targets.

So, even if I take him at his word that he's just a collector like me and wouldn't/won't clear out the entire display, that's still one more person that I technically have to compete with and can't ... why?

Because I have a JOB. I don't have the option of taking my entire weekday and driving to the "Stockton store" and probably every store in between.

That and the "20 guys in line" nugget are pretty much the final straw for me.

It's over. It's caused me nothing but misery and frustration these last few months and I don't see it ending any time soon.

The good news is, other than the Zions and what not in that specific product (which, honestly, don't really look that good to me) the only other cards I would be interested in are like Andrew Wiggins' first Warriors cards for my PC, stuff like that.

I can easily pick those kinds of cards up like I did with Mosaic (first Kings cards of Bjelica and Holmes) for under $5 apiece with shipping.

And, I don't have to go to the store anymore and deal with sharks ... these singles will come right to my door.

2018 Prestige wasn't great - although the orange Luminous (exclusive to the product) looked great and they did something cool with the vets and vet autos - while there were some clear sticker dumps, they also put in several veteran defensive players that had not previously had cards before - so while good autographs were few and far between, you still had some value there.

But here, I don't think they have a lot of players who didn't have cards before - and its not even a true big set (although at 300 cards it is definitely a big set).

Interestingly enough, last years' set also had 300 cards - however, my thought that there is a lot more of this is indeed true:

2019:

"300 cards. Rookie short prints (SP) noted.
BASE XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Blue, Green, Red #/249, Purple #/100, Gold #/50, Bronze #/25, Platinum #/10, Black 1/1, Printing Plates 1/1.
ROOKIE XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Green, Red #/399, Blue #/299, Purple #/100, Gold #/50, Bronze #/25, Platinum #/10, Black 1/1, Printing Plates 1/1."

2020:

300 cards.
BASE XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Green, Blue, Red #/249, Purple #/100, Gold #/75, Orange #/50, Platinum #/25, Black 1/1, Printing Plates 1/1.
ROOKIES XTRA POINTS PARALLELS: Green, Red #/399, Blue #/299, Purple #/100, Gold #/75, Orange #/50, Platinum #/25, Black 1/1, Printing Plates 1/1.

In 2019, there were 186 numbered parallels of each card in the Megaboxes (55,800 total cards)

In 2019 there are 251 (75,300 total cards)

Just from that we can see that there are many more of this produced.

And the check lists make it clear that the odds of pulling good cards are much lower - the number of non-base autographs are much smaller (especially given the higher production)

It also seemed in 2019 that most of the lower round draft pick autographs were in blasters or hanger boxes - and if you got an undrafted guy in a MEga Box the other autograph would be great.

Just look at hte check lists - it is clear that 2019 was way better:

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/2019...r_1_310033

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/2020...r_1_337663

And to be perfectly honest, this draft class seems very top heavy - last year didn't have as big of names at the top, but there were a lot of very solid rookies - and they didn't seem to have as many UDFA in the checklist (I guess because they are going for more QB) - and it would be interesting to see the position and draft pick break down - it looks like they have a much higher number of UDFA/7th round picks this year but I did not do a count.

More of them produced and worse checklist guarantees worse results

Again, why are people paying more than $40 for this?

I posted in one of the threads about the insert values. Other than Mahomes (and really only the Heroes), the values are pretty pathetic. You have base cards of players that are $0.75 and an insert of that player is only $1. Many inserts are $0.75 (for a $0.60 base player). Not a whole lot of value.

I don't buy much retail but i'd never really run into supply issues when I did look for it. Enter 2020. Our LCS was out of football (all I buy) so i decided to pick up some retail instead. Target is really close to my house so I went there. Not only was there no football ANYTHING (not a box, hanger, loose pack) but NO SPORTS CARDS AT ALL! Wow...guess I gotta go to Wally World. I get in there...SAME THING! Not a single sports card in the store. Not even hockey or soccer. Just some non-sports junk. So is this how its going to be from this point forward? Then I'm pretty much done with retail at this point.

The dearth of retail product will pass in time. What's hot doesn't stay hoy and as more people buy and get poor returns on breaks demand will lessen.

bselje Wrote:I don't buy much retail but i'd never really run into supply issues when I did look for it.  Enter 2020.  Our LCS was out of football (all I buy) so i decided to pick up some retail instead.  Target is really close to my house so I went there.  Not only was there no football ANYTHING (not a box, hanger, loose pack) but NO SPORTS CARDS AT ALL!  Wow...guess I gotta go to Wally World.  I get in there...SAME THING!  Not a single sports card in the store.  Not even hockey or soccer.  Just some non-sports junk. So is this how its going to be from this point forward?  Then I'm pretty much done with retail at this point.

Yes, it's been awful everywhere. I've found exactly one blaster of new basketball cards since March.

That was one blaster of Optic that the card distributor at Walmart found in the bottom of one of his Pokemon boxes and handed to me after we has a good conversation about the losers that follow him from store to store and basically clear everything out as soon as it hits the shelves.

Then they go back to their mom's basement and list $20 blasters for up to 15 times that on eBay.

The morons that buy this stuff at extreme markups and the card companies that have jacked up their hobby box prices online during this pandemic are not helping, either.

I've been exclusively collecting retail for about 25 years and can no longer access any of the new stuff.

I have a job that prevents me from joining these losers in stalking the distributors all day so I can't compete.

I am in the same boat you are, and my only hope is that once this pandemic is over and the world goes back to work, maybe these losers will be stuck with enough product in their mom's basements that they will decide to try to get jobs and make actual contributions to society.

jplarson Wrote:The dearth of retail product will pass in time.  What's hot doesn't stay hoy and as more people buy and get poor returns on breaks demand will lessen.

This is what I've never understood ... it's retail.

If you think you're getting that jersey auto card of the latest hot rookie, it ain't happening.

That's why retail is inherently cheaper. You pay less, you get less.

I think you nailed it on the head, JP. Once this wave of buyers (likely newbies stuck at home during the pandemic) realizes they just paid $150 for eight packs of base cards and a couple inserts, they probably won't go back for more.

And if you do get a good card out of retail, it will be in one of those "retail exclusive" that have a hobby type product that are more expensive (although still relatively cheap compared to hobby) - for example, 2019 Prestige which was essentially a cheap hobby product - and even in a product like that, really good hits are relatively rare.

My general rule is that whenever there is a product that has both a hobby and a retail version, you almost never will get anything good out of retail. The only reason to buy retail is to get more base cards or if it is discounted.

ZSDOne Wrote:And if you do get a good card out of retail, it will be  in one of those "retail exclusive" that have a hobby type  product that are more expensive (although still relatively cheap compared to hobby) - for example, 2019 Prestige which was essentially a cheap hobby product - and even in a product like that, really good hits are relatively rare. 

My general rule is that whenever there is a product that has both a hobby and a retail version, you almost never will get anything good out of retail.  The only reason to buy retail is to get more base cards or if it is discounted.

Yeah, I mean, if it's one of those Target Longevity boxes or something, or retail exclusive like Prestige ... basically a hobby version of retail ... that's a different story.

I have pulled probably a half a dozen major autos out of retail (Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant, Anthony Davis, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr.), but only the Harper was from a regular blaster.

The Kris Bryant came out of a blaster as well, but that an absolutely loaded product in 2015 Elite (pulled jersey autos of Lindor and Buxton as well, and only busted four or five of these).

The Davis came out of a few random 2012-13 Prestige packs that had already been pack searched (nice job, by the way, idiots).

The Kobe Bryant was a complete and total fluke as a redemption card from a pack of 2010-11 Donruss that came in one of those now extinct retail mixers - the ones with like 10 packs for $11.99.

The Griffey and Jeter came out of two different boxes of 2009 Upper Deck Signature Edition, which were basically hobby boxes that ended up on Target and Walmart shelves for some reason. Upper Deck was losing its MLB license that year, so this product was basically considered a sticker dump.

Point being - really not to brag about my pulls - but that breaks down to pretty much one major auto pull in a regular blaster, in about 20 years of buying hundreds of blasters where there was no fluke or special circumstances with specific products.

Not a good success rate. These idiots that are paying huge markups for retail products online will quickly find out how generally worthless they are.

I mean, my Prestige mega box that I got at SRP for $40 felt like a real stretch, I can't imagine paying $60 or $80 for it ... I would have been majorly disappointed.

Then again, I'm smart enough to avoid these like the plague so it really doesn't affect me.

(Other than, you know, not being able to find any new basketball cards since March).