Is Topps Ripping You Off?! 100 Box Rip Test
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2023
- 2023 Topps Sterling was released about two months ago. This set is one of the most high end sets that Topps releases. In this box you will get two baseball cards that are either signed or 1/1 relics. In this video I break down the odds of making your money back, how much money you should expect to make if you open this product, and if I think Topps is ripping you off on this baseball card set.
Link to my work:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
If it wasn’t for breakers, companies like Topps and Panini would be forced to lower prices.
Breakers ruined this hobby for the general consumer. Period.
I'm amazed that more people don't realize this. People can't afford a whole box, so they buy into breaks hoping to hit big. Topps sees breakers marking the product up, so they mark it up next year. That cycle repeats until people stop buying into breaks.
100%
@@andy72 Correct and even if breakers didn’t “mark the product up” it still means that boxes that would normally not move do to high prices are still being sold. Simple supply and demand. There’s no current incentive for these companies to lower prices.
No they would be out of business completely.
Topps absolutely loaded that box, and a class action lawsuit should be brought against Topps. Shame on them ripping off their customers
Can’t prove anything, just like when Back Yard Breaks had a private case break for Topps Triple Threads before it came out and they pulled the product hit, coincidence I think not.
Lol just like they couldn't prove Kaboom were in a box via the serial number. Serial numbers are how they track boxes. There are scanners that the company uses to scan the serial number. I work at amazon and we have similar technology. No barcode, just a little sticker we scan
LOL FOR WHAT???
@@Kybonebecause the guy who runs the company brings a “random box” for a famous person to open for promotion before product release and they open on camera for an ad one of the biggest hits in the whole list of cards you can pull. It’s so obviously rigged bro
Good luck finding a lawyer to pick that one up.
You just got blacklisted by Fanatics lol. Good for you. Love what you do. You're a real collector and actually watch the game. Most UA-camrs don't.
Yea that “fairness” app they’re using just dropped his chances of purchase down to 0 for any of the top releases.
Great video! Best decision I made about two years ago was stopping opening boxes or doing box breaks. It’s fun but I looked at my collection and it was full of cards I didn’t want. Started just buying singles of my favorite players and now I love my collection. Couldn’t have afforded them if I kept opening packs. The difference between box prices and singles prices is so vast and until that changes I’m sticking to singles.
Any box over $200 is crazy to buy in my opinion
Only for people.
Basketball collector: there are boxes under $200😮
I have always ALWAYS suspected that Topps sends out their best “hit” boxes to either big name celebrities or big channels that rip open boxes. Everyone else gets crap left overs that helps Topps makes money.
Topps, panini, they're always ripping us all of constantly!
they simply dont care people are willing to gamble wait till the hobby gets regulated just like a casino or other gaming entities
Not me I haven't bought a box in years instead I buy older products
If we stopped buying prices would drop
Only buying singles at the moment. Pretty good deals to be had on cards if your willing to take the time and look for them. Opening boxes is a huge part of the hobby, but not for me if your stuck with a bunch of base and 5$ autos after spending over $100 on a box.
They aren’t ripping anyone off. It’s supply and demand, there are too many dummies providing the demand. Those fools deserved to lose their money. A fool and their money are easily parted…Topps and panini know this.
What you just did in this video is what everyone has been thinking over the past 2 years
Thank you for taking the time to inform the general public about the financial viability of these kinds of products. While I still enjoy watching these UA-cam videos on card collecting I have basically stopped opening wax and pouring money down the drain.
Thanks for all the research you do. I’m like you. My ripping days have been over for years. I just buy singles. Far better value.
No one should ever open packs looking for value back. It is just about the thrill of finding something great. So people should buy packs expecting to get less back than they paid, but have the chance to get a huge roi. Buying singles online isn't fun for me. But I do like the feeling of finding a card I want at a flea market, LCS or card show, but since they aren't common near me, the way I can enjoy the hobby is buying a few packs every once in a while.
But I would never in a million years pay $1,000 for two cards without knowing exactly what they were. That's just WAY too high a risk.
So true😊
Yes keep doing this type of vids for upcoming releases or past releases very helpful to know print runs boxes in existence the numbers the percents the odds and ever else rly appreciate the time u put in the vids and the math as well.
Really great breakdown Scottie! It would really be interesting to see how the average hobby box value opened you receive vs. The price you paid for the box has changed over the years. That percentage I bet has really dropped over the last few years.
If you think that is bad, imagine doing the same breakdown with Dynasty. I saw so many people hit like $30 dollar cards and it is the same price point, only one card per though.
Nice content as always Scott. I really commend you for the amount of time and effort you always put in. It is always noticeable!
When this year's dynasty released at around $1k I thought there was a good chance that it would be the tipping point and these breakers would be forced to take a loss... But not only did breaks sell out initially, they continued to sell even after people could see the vast majority of boxes didn't return the price of admission. It's crazy how people continue to fork over their money.
Thanks for taking the time to do the breakdown of all those boxes. I know you are not giving financial advise but your example is an eye opener
I love this video! This is a great idea and I'd love to see more of these personally! Thank you for getting the dirt for us!
Really great video Scottie, thanks for shining a light for collectors like this. Much appreciated for all the work!
This is a really great thing you did. Thanks for putting int he work to help inform us.
I really appreciate the amount of research put into this and data presented. Liked and subscribed.
I don't think they are ripping us off. Anybody that would gamble a grand on two cards is ripping themselves off.
Great breakdown. I wish more people would realize this. Stop paying breakers. Stop paying for overpriced boxes.
Nice to see the sports card game is still a racket
It’s been a racket since the adults ruined the hobby in the late 90s.
Love this, been collecting for a min now, and have really just started when singles and random retail packs when I was a kid. Got into breaking a couple of years ago and wanted way too much chasing things, I'll buy the singles that I want and will only buy into breaks as a 'lottery tickey' style purchase,I really appreciate your videos and ty so much for your breakdown.
Good plan. I hate when people just bash breaks and say buy singles. Buy singles for cards you can afford and want for your pc. Buy into the occasional break for a shot at something huge and buy wax to rip personally for fun.
Thank you for all the work you put into this video
I watched jabs break that case with the Ryan 1/1. The other cards were BRUTAL. Worse, he made it a team break, so 30 people had a stake and less than 8 got cards
He does some really questionable stuff like that.
@@NoahMcleany What's wrong with that? He's not forcing anyone to buy in right?
The Topps "opening" IMO was a promotional setup the hot athlete with the hot product. We never see cellophane or the paper collar on the outside of the box. As soon as the lid opens, they see the card, meaning it wasn't in a mini box. Makes me question if some of the chase cards were even in the product available to the public. What else do they hold out of product?
Thank you for the in-depth analysis Scottie. This is really great work! Would love to see the same research on Topps Luminaries.
Even if that Topps box was just an incredible coincidence, Rubin or his team should’ve been smart enough to open another one to avoid the appearance of cheating. They weren’t smart enough.
Thank you! So many people sugarcoat boxes. I hear everyone say, "That was a great box!" Um, not it wasn't it's garbage! But breakers don't want to hear the truth because their job is to sell, sell, sell.
Great breakdown - I understand that breaking is a big part of the hobby and here to stay, but clearly it affects the pricing on any hit-oriented product for the worse.
This. Like Scott said, if this product was half the price (like it used to be!), it would be a much more fun, fair rip for the average collector.
Scottie, excellent content. It's hard to argue with the numbers and the takeaways. There are so many people gambling on boxes and card companies are capitalizing. I wonder how we will look back on this card era in 10 years. Will some of us look like suckers?
I really loved this. Been wanting to do something similar ever since 2021 Select Football. It's the untold secret not a single breaker or most hobbyists want to talk about since their income is supplemented by breaking/breakers in some manner. Aftermarket prices are still where they were in 2020. Basketball is one Wembanyama injury away from imploding. Panini is milking as much money as they can now and it's going to leave the next few draft classes in ruin. Topps knows that the high-end product has the best margin so that's why Sterling, Inception, Museum Collection, Triple Threads, Tribute, etc are all spiking in price since they've turned into a breaker-exclusive product essentially. Random teams/leagues/hit/etc all exist to mask the true cost and true ROI of a product.
Great video man. What we all thought but awesome to see it laid out.
Great video, the time you took to break it all down was awesome, super thorough! Love to see odds on Bowman Draft Jumbo boxes.
Yes! And just like this product, those prices have BALLOONED in the past 4-5 years
Definitely like this type of video. Great info. Please do more this way. Hopefully videos like this might make their way to the all these companies and they will see they need to lower the prices. The demand is surely dropping as i see product on their websites for weeks if not months before they sell out.
In past years, you'd at least get 40% to 50% of the value of the box back, in recent years, you can get literally 10% of the box price back, and with missing hits/topps replacements, sometimes you don't even get that back
Awesome analysis and you really did a great job on this video!!! These high end boxes are almost always a losing proposition. Yes, they loaded the boxes for their marketing video!
I really appreciate you doing the math here. The effort does not go unnoticed.
Thanks for making this. It's really good info. I would love to see results for 2023 Topps Flagship.
Problem is cards went from collecting to investing to now straight up gambling. Truly some states that outlaw gambling should look into this before allowing these products to be sold within their state.
Absolutely, the second you are forced to buy them at gunpoint
@Alyssa27110 You would be surprised I knew a guy who bought a case of national treasures basketball chasing zion and his salary was less than 40k a year. He borrowed against his IRA and of course he didn't hit zion nor morant. To me I told him he was stupid and this is straight up gambling. I wasn't there but let's just say the dude was depressed who were around him because he got back 40% on his purchase.
But if you're a real fan of the Mariners, pulling that Ichiro card is a priceless moment. The investor perspective is killing the hobby for fans of the sport and the teams. Collect what you love because you love it. I'm completely stoked every time I pull a card from any of my favorites.
The "investors" are who drove prices through the roof. I used to prospect because it was affordable and you could make good money. I got a bellinger 15 bc rc auto for 20 bucks a month before he was called up, sold it for 300 a few months later. Thanks to these new people, that's no longer an option. Hell, you're paying more for alot of these prospects than for already established guys. I'm just ready for all the new suckers to lose their ass and leave the hobby so collectors can once again control the market.
I went balls deep into the hobby and bought a ton of boxes. Now I learned my lesson. I mainly hunt down singles on eBay and what not
Great video, I bet you put a ton of time into this. 😮 thank you
I have been in the hobby as a Collector, Dealer since the early 1980s when I was a kid. I have always said since I was a teenager that box breaking was not a good investment. I used to run a card shop in North Carolina back in the early 90s back when every kid in America it seemed collected baseball cards. I made good money until the bottom began to fall out of the hobby later in the 90s. But thats another story. But the point in my comment I wanted to share is that back in the 90s, we use to have these young guys come into the shop and they would go in together and buy entire wax boxes as we called them in those days of a product. I remember watching some guys go in together once in 1990 and buy 4 wax boxes of 1990 Topps at retail price which wasnt much by todays standards as cards were 45 cents a pack in those days but a box of 36 packs was a lot for kids that were 17, 18 years old working part time jobs in those days. Ben McDonald was the big name everyone wanted then. The 1st overall pick in the amatuer draft the season before who had already made his major league debut with Baltimore. Every kid was looking to pull his 1st round draft pick cards which at the time were selling retail in my shop for about $2.50 each. These guys thought that if they bought 4 boxes that they could open all the packs. Then take all the Ben McDonald rookies they pulled and sell them alone for a profit on what they spent on the entire 4 boxes. They told me back then that they had some how estimated they should be able to pull 8 Ben McDonald rookies from each box of 36 packs as long as they got boxes that had specific cards on the box bottom that Topps used to put on the bottom of wax boxes. Apparently some dealer at a flea market had convinced them that if they purchased wax boxes that had George Brett on the bottom of the box that those boxes would have at least 8 Ben McDonald rookies in them if not more. In those days Fleer and Score did have print runs where a collector could have better odds of pulling specific cards from a box based on How the cards were packaged as those companies had a specific order they followed in packaging. But Topps on the other hand did not do this at all. Topps was totally random and you were just as likely to get 4 Ben McDonalds out of a single wax box as you were to possibly not even get a single one out of a wax box. There was no set order by Topps. So anyway.....these guys had me go in the back and dig through my stock of 90 Topps wax boxes and find them 4 boxes that had a George Brett card on the bottom of the box. They then took the boxes and sit down after paying for them at a table in my shop and began opening them. It wasnt long until they were pissed. The first box I believe they got 1 Ben McDonald rookie. Im not sure on the rest but all together they got exactly 5 of his 1st round pick cards out of 4 total wax boxes of 36 packs each. Even at $2.50 each they wasnt going to make back what they paid me for the wax boxes to begin with. To make matters even worse for them. They decided to hold on to the McDonalds and a few other star cards the Ken Griffy Jr rookies, the Gary Sheffields so on that they divided between themselves and they gave me all the rest of the cards back and said they didnt want them to give them out to little kids or something in the shop. What was funny. In those cards they gave back were other 1st round draft pick cards. Most of which wasnt worth that much then and never became worth much, except there was of those other 1st round draft pick cards that they didnt value at all that turned out to be a lot more valuable in a few years than the Ben McDonalds. Frank Thomas. None of them were no names on front, but I clearly remember there were several of the Frank Thomas ones they had simply disregarded with what they considered commons at the time. But my point in sharing the story. Box breaking, pack ripping is no different than playing the lottery and buying scratch offs. Yes you might get this or that. But there is a better chance than not that when you finished breaking those boxes. The value of what you get is not going to add up to what you spent. It was that way in the 90s and its that way today.
thanks for the content Scottie, love your vids.
Holy cow! Comprehensive breakdown-appreciate all of your work.
From a % (not notional) pov isn’t this probably consistent with most box breaks? Median/average might be getting 30-50% of your $ back?
Would be a great deal of work but interesting to compare different products box break value vs box.
Thanks again for sharing.
Great info! Continue the breakdowns
Thanks for the great work man. You’re a blessing to the hobby. Really eye opening how they treat their fans and supporters. I’m just getting back into things this year after some time off I absolutely love ripping lol but I realize at this point after a substantial amount of money it’s like playing the lottery. Yea I’ve hit plenty of parallels and numbered cards along with a few autos but if they are all for smaller name players, barring a miracle, they are only slightly more valuable than the absolutely trash base cards. You’re far better off, without a doubt, just narrowing down the cards you want or prospects you’re interested in and waiting it out until you get a good deal on eBay or just buying the actual boxes on good years and sitting on them for 3/5 years until prices skyrocket and flipping the box. I love it but it’s modern day highway robbery.
There's a reason why I love to see breakers go out of business
Love your analysis. It is very succinct, logical and cuts to the heart of the matter; save your money and purchase the single cards. Buy what you love!
Great content and research here Scottie. Well done sir !
you are one of the best channels out there for card collecting ... great video again
Think change is coming but in the form of more expensive and elite product
..good stuff as always👍
Great video! Love the breakdown and valuation.
Really enjoy these, thanks for the work
Great work! Odds were right in line with what I was guessing.
Thank you Scottie for this presentation. I always stick with Topps chrome or bowman best or heritage minors. Great value for an affordable price.
Great idea of analysis and execution. Really enjoyed this content.
You bet it was a set up, not a bit of doubt in my mind. I went thru this some 8 years ago, lesson learned. Thanks SB.
Great video. It sucks more at this price of admission but its really what Topps, etc does for every product. I mean getting 20% of what you spent on it, is normal. Not to mention with them having the only license, I feel they will keep over charging because they are it as far as licensed stuff.
They keep ripping you off because you refuse to support the unlicensed brand. Because for some reason we would never know what team Wander Franco was on if it didn't have a little logo on it.
@@jeffvonbergen291 can they even produce his cards? It's not about knowing what team someone's on, it's the absence of logo's and players currently in the association. Yeah, you know if I'm paying the same or even close for a box I'd rather look at a logo on a battling helmet then air brushed blue or black, etc.
@@jeffvonbergen291 they* being NOT Topps in the case of making Wander cards.
Thanks a bunch for the research and compilation brother
Great video as always. I really appreciate you breaking this down. I buy singles as well.
Thanks for the breakdown man I miss the good ol days of collecting
Great research and presentation, i love this video. Thanks Scot!
Appreciate you for doing this. Looking at it from a business perspective, it's hard to blame Fanatics, and I can't see anything changing when margins like these are attainable. Very important video, especially for the true collector. Thank you.
That Warren Spahn game-used Relic look like it was polyester and not wool like they used in the 50s and 60s ...
Bowman draft and regular bowman would be great! Thanks for the video! Love it.
Great analysis!
This is incredible research. Well done Scottie B.
Great video. I love it when people actually put in the work and research a product.
now for my rant of the day...
It’s both comical and frustrating when I see people get pissed because a product isn’t what they expected. Especially so for people that buy into breaks without so much as reviewing the checklist, and then getting pissed when their player has very few or only SP cards. I guess it’s easier to complain about something afterwards than to do the proper research beforehand…
Hilarious that people are getting pissed at Topps about this. For everyone that doesn’t know, Topps is a FOR PROFIT company. They're charging $1000 a box because people are willing to pay it. If you don’t want to pay it, that’s fine, If the product goes mostly unsold, I’m sure they’ll say, “maybe we should do this differently”. However, it’s more likely someone else IS willing to pay the $1000. And guess what, if they sell out this year at $1000, then next year it may be $1250, BECAUSE THEY CAN DO THAT. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
Something else that everyone seems to have forgotten is that Topps can’t control how much their cards sell for on the secondary market. I’m sure they envisioned the Ichiro 1/1 auto selling for a lot more than $438…. and it should have imo. Unless you’re completely delusional, you must know that selling your cards at auction may conclude with a lower-than-expected final sale price. A lot of these cards may have sold at a higher price through Buy It Now or best offer. But it may have taken a little longer to get that right buyer willing to pay a high price. If you would rather take a chance at auction than wait for that right buyer willing to pay a price you’re happy with, than that’s on you (the seller) and not Topps.
I’d end with a sarcastic comment telling you “If you don’t like it, call your congressman” but I assume you’re too busy putting in your preorder for Topps Chrome.
Now I'm off to go buy some Powerball tickets. I figure 5 tickets and I'm practically guaranteed the jackpot, right?
Scottie B, Great work as always, I really enjoy you videos, very much like the content and your research. It's no question a racquet, boxes seem rigged, content is staged and we absolutely roll the dice and crap out buying wax. It's still fun to buy a lottery ticket (box) every now and then, we just don't expect to win very often, if at all. Happy 4th!
Junk wax never left, this is just a different level and era.
"Not guaranteeing value" should be reasonably regulated through consumer protection programs. Imagine a company that can state something that ridiculous on their product then sell it for $1k, $10k, $25k? Just to find $89 worth of garbage. The price points they set indicate that what's inside reasonably justifies it. A regulation that forces these companies to reasonably ensure each box contains cards valued at 75% (or w/e is deemed to be fair for the company and consumer through unbiased research) of the cost they set at the time of manufacture. That way they can't just fill 80% of the print run with complete air because they don't have enough product of value to put in that many boxes. Topps should be forced to operate within reasonable margins. That's usually how competition in a free market protects consumers from run away trains like this. But when there's a monopoly formed through exclusive licensing like this, we can't rely on a self regulating market. Therefore, outside regulation and oversight should be employed until such time the market can balance itself.
They are hand picking these cards in high-end sets. They know that they're sending out $90 worth of cards in a thousand dollar box. That shouldn't be legal. "Not guaranteeing value" should only be reserved for the larger volume boxes that aren't priced to the moon. We've been conditioned to accept that we're likely throwing our money away buying wax and that shouldn't be accepted when there's significant money exchanging hands. Yeah, you buy an eight dollar hanger of Heritage from Target and pull dust, fine. That's a reasonable risk. The set is huge. There's a ton of product. There's a ton of cards in the set worth more than 8 bucks. You fill 80% of your boxes with known cards that won't ever reach a reasonable return, you should be regulated like any other consumer product. Because it's obvious you won't regulate yourself.
this is the truth
Thanks for exposing Topps/Fanatics. I would be shocked if that box wasn’t loaded. It must be great to put really awesome cards on the checklist if you know you are going to get them back anyway in one of your advertisements! Keep up the great work!
That’s wild. Imagine hitting two home runs and still losing money 😆 I’d be okay with it in that instance, but it sounds funny saying it out loud.
You should do this type of video for 2022 topps finest! I bought a box that was a "hot box" per se (3 autos and all 3 were color) and I might've gotten 5% of the value back if I'm lucky. Definitely not buying a box for a while after I pull a Trey Amburgey auto from a product called "Topps FINEST".
Topps for sure loaded that box. Can't have high profile people in a marketing gig like that take the L.
Thank you for this one Scottie! We all need to be smarter and educate ourselves because the unfortunately there is a lot of nefarious stuff happening in the hobby right now.
Love these breakdown video's so thank you...appreciate the timje you had to put into this. Why anybody sells through auction especially e-bay, I don't get it. I've always thought that about 30% ROI (not book value) is around the norm overall. BTW - Serling stinks re appearance - I don't care what relics / auto's are in this product. Thanks again!!!
I can't stress to you how much I LOVE baseball cards. I love collecting them, buying them, selling them... but short of demon possession, I can't imagine gambling this much money on a product like this.
I saw a video in which someone pulled an Ohtani patch auto and a Trout patch auto... how could you hope for a better box? they said their comps didn't come close to breaking even.
Outstanding video. I love to gamble, but this can't even be considered gambling. Buying one of these boxes is just flushing money down the toilet.
In poker we call it "drawing dead" lol.
Love your analysis and breakdown. The hobby is really becoming too unaffordable for so many and it’s sad to see. I have even tried my luck with group breaks on whatnot and have paid $60 for a spot and hit a 2021 Patrick Mahomes Downtown, and also paid $220 for a random team on a half case break on 22’ select and got the broncos and received two base rookie cards from the entire break.
Great analysis showing that even if you beat rhe odds and got a good case (with a value of over $1,000) you still lost money after reselling/auction fees ... Although i feel bad for the dudes that rip a case and end up with $200 in value, that is exactly why they call it gambling -
They 100% loaded that box for the soccer player, it's not even debatable
I think a video like this on panini flawless would be interesting. Expensive product but the cards seem worthless?
Thanks for the excellent content videos. Topps is just squeezing every penny out of the hobbyists before they're gone.
If fanatics is breathing, they're ripping someone off 😂
Wow! Nice work and very interesting. Thank you for doing all the work for this video.
Of course they loaded that box for the marketing event. Imagine pulling a Christopher Morel and a David Wright auto/relic in that occasion?
Thank you for making this video. I used to make similar videos showing what a ripoff (and potential scam) the mystery repacks were. I quit due to a variety of issues including marriage, moving, and the market becoming too expensive. I really enjoyed your analysis of what Topps is doing.
Also, that Jackie cut was absolutely a planted box for marketing and I'm glad I'm 99% out of collecting.
TLDR: Yes they are. Ive been trying to sound the alarm on this stuff for many years. No one would listen. The most common thing I hear from collectors is "I don't buy boxes for profit" ok sparky...
The exact reason dude's like Stryker can pull 4 autos, 6 numbered cards and five heavy lumber cards out of one fat pack. Makes poor saps like me go waste much needed $ thinking I'd find a hit or two. Also, how does Stryker get all psa 10, when we all get 8s 🤷🏻
Great analysis! Keep up the great work!
I have so many cards that no one even knows I have. 1 of 1s, Mantle and Jordan Rookies. I’m not getting them graded because I don’t want anyone to I have them. Been collecting since the early 80s when my dad gave me his collection.
Yeah I really like these types of videos! I’m a compulsive ripper, can’t stop😢
Awesome breakdown Scottie. I had a feeling Fanatics was going to turn the hobby upside down. They've always been a money grabbing company. That box was 100% staged 👊⚾
I feel stupid for being optimistic about them
Just like a slot machine, some spins nothing, but here you actually get something on losing 'spins'.
easy answer yup i saw that jabs break as well barely 1k /5k roi yes nolan was nice but not at that price point at all buy singles for pc if anything from this type btw that was a loaded box they opened to promote/hype it up all hobby companies have been doing it that way for quite a while as a consumer if i see that my thought isnt oh wow i can hit something huge too i think of it as ok the best stuff is found no reason to buy it like that mtg lotr 1/1 one ring
Terrific analysis. Although, as a collector, I don't understand folks feeling they got ripped off when they got baseball cards autographed (cut or not) by HOFers or future HOFers. Aren't people buying these boxes because they want baseball cards? Is everyone just a speculator? Am I the only collector?
That's one of the problems, few actual collectors, And a massive amount of players/gamblers. When they move on from the hobby and find alternative sources to dispose of their income, this whole mess fanatics has made, they'll go bankrupt. They don't care about collectors! They just print & sell with reckless abandon.
I used to collect Nolan Ryan and Ivan Rodriguez back in the mid to late nineties. I collected because I liked the players, not to make money. That being said when I opened a box or bought a PC card it was nice to know that it held some value too. Especially now that I don't actively collect.. I paid more for both players than they are worth today. And thats after 20+ years of inflation.
Yes, they're extracting maximum $ out of you by any means possible. And then you send the cards to PSA for additional extraction. Bring back cards in bike spokes.
Love your content! Very informative