[rjcj2017]

Friends,

This is a little long but a great story if you have a minute!

I've posted lately about how some retail sharks have moved into my area and are buying everything up as soon as it hits the shelves.

So, I had the day off work Friday and decided to expand my horizons a little bit.

I checked the stores outside my area for penny sleeves, toploaders and Optic basketball.

First, a WalMart about 20 minutes from my house - nothing.

Next, a Target another 10 minutes away from that - nothing.

Next, another Target another 20 minutes away from that - nothing.

Next, another WalMart another 10 minutes from that ... my last stop, and it had always been pretty good to me.

They had three packages of toploaders, so I grabbed them. No penny sleeves.

There was an Optic display/vending box, but of course it was all cleared out.

It just so happened that the distributor was in the card aisle at that moment ... he noticed me looking at the empty Optic display and said that he had guys literally waiting for him at his other stores.

"One guy owns a card shop and bought about $900 worth of Optic yesterday," he said.

I mentioned that I missed the good old days when a collector like myself could walk into a store, buy a blaster or two of a product and call it good.

(As we're talking, a soccer mom stops by and asks if he has any Optic.)

I look at the cards for another couple of minutes, decide if I really want to settle for something I didn't want, and decide to just call it good with the three packages of toploaders.

Just as I'm about to head over to checkout, the guy says, "Hey bud, I just saw this, it was buried under the Pokemon stuff," and hands me this ...





Exactly one blaster of Optic!

"Now take that and get out of here before you get trampled," he says with a laugh.

I thank him, pay for my stuff and head out to the car.

It's a long ride home so I decided to bust it right then and there.

First pack, I pull this guy ...





So I'm thinking, "OK, that's cool, that's my big pull right there. The likely Rookie of the Year, you can't go wrong with that."

I mean, there's only seven packs in the box, four cards per, and an insert in every pack, so really only 21 base cards.

Plus, there are 50 RCs in the set, so it's going to be tough to pull anybody else very good.

Then, two packs later ...





The very reason all of these packs and boxes are nowhere to be found ... Zion!!!

I couldn't believe it. I was stunned.

I was so happy that I actually took the pack back into the store and showed the guy what I pulled ... he was pretty stoked for me.

I thanked him and told him he made my day.

I've had a lot of big pulls and good times over the last 33 years of collecting, but this was an all-timer.

Thanks for reading!

[magneto2]

The Retail King has returned! Congrats man! First for finding this product and second for getting both rookies in the same box!! Did you buy a lottery ticket after? Cause you should!

[rjcj2017]

The Retail King has returned! Congrats man! First for finding this product and second for getting both rookies in the same box!! Did you buy a lottery ticket after? Cause you should!

LOL ... I can't even take credit for this one, honestly ... the guy handed it to me, and it was the only one, so it's not like I used my Retail King super powers to pick it out or anything.

I mean, the two things that boggle my mind are 1) being in absolutely the right place at the right time completely by accident, and 2) the odds of getting Morant and Zion in the same blaster.

The funny thing is, if any of the other stops would have had penny sleeves and/or toploaders, I would have called it good and not kept going.

I really wasn't planning on finding any Optic anyway with all the aforementioned sharks in the water.

[cjgiannini]

Basketball has been sooooo disappointing this year. I haven't found any basketball at any of the Bay Area Targets all season. Hoops, Donruss, Contenders, Prizm, Optic, nothing. I've settled and bought some blasters on eBay (paying the normal price I would have paid at Target so it's not like I was overpaying and got a really nice Barkley auto redemption hit) but it's ridiculous that you can't walk into a store and find any retail, especially with hobby box prices being astronomical.

So congrats on finding something AND getting what you wanted out of it.

[btrav13]

These guys in the Sports Card Investor discord chat have entire rooms dedicated to finding retail versions of this stuff and buying every bit of it on the spot. I see tons of posts about people cleaning out entire displays.

Apparently there is a company called Excel Marketing who stocks the sports cards in retail. A couple months back a female employee posted pictures on Facebook of her with dozens and dozens of Prizm basketball blasters and mega boxes...that her boyfriend followed her store to store and bought immediately as she stocked them...and in the picture she was wearing her Excel branded employee shirt and a name tag...I think it got blown sky high on the BO forums.

I've yet to find a single Optic anything in retail this year at all. So congrats! Two amazing pulls.

[rjcj2017]

Basketball has been sooooo disappointing this year. I haven't found any basketball at any of the Bay Area Targets all season. Hoops, Donruss, Contenders, Prizm, Optic, nothing. I've settled and bought some blasters on eBay (paying the normal price I would have paid at Target so it's not like I was overpaying and got a really nice Barkley auto redemption hit) but it's ridiculous that you can't walk into a store and find any retail, especially with hobby box prices being astronomical.

So congrats on finding something AND getting what you wanted out of it.

Thanks man ... Hoops and Donruss were pretty easy to get around here for a while.

I got lucky on Prizm and must have found it right before the Bubbas got to it.

Same with Contenders, it didn't sit around for more than a day the two times I saw it.

Optic, though? As I said, I've only seen one empty vending/display box ... in like seven stores ... three in my area and the four I ventured out to last week.

It sucks for sure. I'm pretty confident it won't be like that next year, because the draft is supposed to be pretty weak.

---

These guys in the Sports Card Investor discord chat have entire rooms dedicated to finding retail versions of this stuff and buying every bit of it on the spot. I see tons of posts about people cleaning out entire displays.

Apparently there is a company called Excel Marketing who stocks the sports cards in retail. A couple months back a female employee posted pictures on Facebook of her with dozens and dozens of Prizm basketball blasters and mega boxes...that her boyfriend followed her store to store and bought immediately as she stocked them...and in the picture she was wearing her Excel branded employee shirt and a name tag...I think it got blown sky high on the BO forums.

I've yet to find a single Optic anything in retail this year at all. So congrats! Two amazing pulls.

Thank you my good man.

That's awful about the Excel lady ... bad enough when it's the sharks, 10 times worse when it's an "inside" job.

The vendor that scored me the Optic blaster said that the card shop owner that cleared out the shipment in his other store ($900+) told him that the reason he was doing it was so that he could sell it in his shop, because the card shop owner's distributor wanted to charge him $400 per hobby box.

So, a definite trickle down effect there.

On one hand I want to tell the card shop owner, "hey, that's not my problem, leave retail alone" ... on the other hand, I get (to some degree) that he's got a business to run.

Personally, I would never buy secondary retail (other than singles) ... too many factors.

For example, I hit Zion and Morant in my one blaster. It's very possible that those could be the only Zions and Morants in that entire shipment.

Let's say there were nine other blasters in that allotment, and the card shop guy bought them all.

He sells all nine in his shop to the same customer, and let's assume he's marking them up to at least $30 for his time and trouble.

Guess what, that customer spend almost $300 after tax on nine dud blasters, because neither he nor the card shop owner knew that I got the one blaster with the Zion in it.

I could be totally wrong ... there could be a 1/1 Prizm auto of Zion in the other blasters for all I know ... but I doubt it.

The whole thing is completely frustrating. I consider myself extremely lucky to pull the Zions I have to this point.

[rjcj2017]

Bumping this back up because I did not mention in my original post from March (LOL) that I pulled two other Rated Rookies in this lone blaster box.

Besides Zion and Morant, I also pulled Cameron Johnson and ... wait for it ... Tyler Herro.

Eat that, sharks.

[magneto2]

Bumping this back up because I did not mention in my original post from March (LOL) that I pulled two other Rated Rookies in this lone blaster box.

Besides Zion and Morant, I also pulled Cameron Johnson and ... wait for it ... Tyler Herro.

Eat that, sharks.

That is awesome!!  I didn't even find one box of this this year.  In fact I saw it at my hobby shop for like 80 and said no thanks!  Hobby boxes for retail mind you are 850!

[rjcj2017]

That is awesome!!  I didn't even find one box of this this year.  In fact I saw it at my hobby shop for like 80 and said no thanks!  Hobby boxes for retail mind you are 850!

I was handed this blaster by the distributor as an absolute fluke or I wouldn't have found any either.

Other than that, zero Mosaic, zero Chronicles.

Beyond pathetic.

[rjcj2017]

these are cool

Agreed, thanks!