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A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
#1

A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
Friends,

This is a little long and technically the wrong forum - 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 ...


[Image: Blaster-Optic.jpg]


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 ...


[Image: Morant-Optic.jpg]


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 ...


[Image: Zion-Optic.jpg]


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!
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#2

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
Congrats on hitting some future NFL TE's!
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#3

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-02-2020, 12:57 PM)jplarson Wrote: Congrats on hitting some future NFL TE's!
If there was a guy that could do it, it would be him.

I was trying to think of draft "comps" over the last few years as far as what this would be like to hit the top two guys in the same blaster ... not necessarily the top two picks, just the most valuable cards at the time they were released ... maybe ...


Barkley/Lamar Jackson

Dak/Zeke

Luck/RGIII

Calvin/Peterson

Bush/Vince Young

Roethlisberger/Manning ...

Etc., etc.



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#4

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
Congrats! That is a cool story!
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#5

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-03-2020, 10:43 AM)savagenate Wrote: Congrats! That is a cool story!
Thank you, I was pretty stoked.

I'm assuming that's all the Optic I will find this year.

All it takes is one!
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#6

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
Was traveling in far SW Virginia last week - I stopped by Southern Cards in Bristol, VA to see what they had - were a couple of guys in there talking to the owner about how the retail stores there are all completed bought out of basketball products and the owner was saying that he couldn't keep any hobby basketball in stock because people were buying several boxes at once.

Apparently its becoming impossible to find basketball products anywhere.
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#7

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-09-2020, 09:06 AM)ZSDOne Wrote: Was traveling in far SW Virginia last week - I stopped by Southern Cards in Bristol, VA to see what they had - were a couple of guys in there talking to the owner about how the retail stores there are all completed bought out of basketball products and the owner was saying that he couldn't keep any hobby basketball in stock because people were buying several boxes at once.

Apparently its becoming impossible to find basketball products anywhere.
I can safely say Zion is the most popular rookie since LeBron, but I remember 2003-04 products being much more available than this.

It's crazy, I've never seen anything like it.

I feel very, very fortunate I pulled a Zion jersey card out of Contenders, as well as his base RCs in Prizm and Optic.

I also pulled the foil parallel of his "Arriving Now" insert out of Hoops a ways back ... I think those four cards are the best I will do.

I'll have to figure out a way to pick up a second-year auto next year, because I don't think I'm going to end up with a rookie auto this year.
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#8

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-09-2020, 01:30 PM)rjcj2017 Wrote: I can safely say Zion is the most popular rookie since LeBron, but I remember 2003-04 products being much more available than this.

It's crazy, I've never seen anything like it.

I feel very, very fortunate I pulled a Zion jersey card out of Contenders, as well as his base RCs in Prizm and Optic.

I also pulled the foil parallel of his "Arriving Now" insert out of Hoops a ways back ... I think those four cards are the best I will do.

I'll have to figure out a way to pick up a second-year auto next year, because I don't think I'm going to end up with a rookie auto this year.
I have the Prizsm Draft Picks base cards of him as well as a Blue Parallel that came out of a stray blaster that was around for months at a local Wal-Mart - and that will probably be all I get from him

I found some blasters of Contenders at my local Target - I got a couple even though Contenders tends to be a terrible value in Blasters in the off chance I might get a Zion - One of them had a Green On Card Auto of Ty Jerome which looks fantastic and can go into my local Virginia guys (UVA) collection - so that was nice.
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#9

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-09-2020, 04:46 PM)ZSDOne Wrote: I have the Prizsm Draft Picks base cards of him as well as a Blue Parallel that came out of a stray blaster that was around for months at a local Wal-Mart - and that will probably be all I get from him

I found some blasters of Contenders at my local Target - I got a couple even though Contenders tends to be a terrible value in Blasters in the off chance I might get a Zion - One of them had a Green On Card Auto of Ty Jerome which looks fantastic and can go into my local Virginia guys (UVA) collection - so that was nice.
That's awesome, those autos are really nice.
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#10

RE: A Truly Cool Hobby Moment for the Retail King
(03-11-2020, 10:04 AM)rjcj2017 Wrote: That's awesome, those autos are really nice.
Was quite happy with it - and made me feel happy that I picked up a couple of the blasters when I had the opportunity even though I normally don't get basketball.

It's kind of wild how retail basketball has gotten - 2019 Prestige mega boxes weren't like them and they had 2 autograph and 3 numbered (to 100 or less) parallels in each box - and a completely wild autograph list for a $40 retail exclusive product including Hall of Fame and star autographs - just about every box had at least one good autograph. Yet, you could still find them over a month after release.
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