X-raying unopened packs
 

It looks like people are figuring out ways to determine what is in unopened packs using x-rays and CT scanners.

https://www.cllct.com/sports-collect...n-sports-cards

Guaranteed it's been going on a lot longer than this.

X ray
 

Saw on TV show - Goldin collectable king

They scanned an a sealed box with first edition I-Phone to confirm

Researchers at MIT's Camera Culture Group have developed a system that uses terahertz radiation (T-rays) to scan pages and read text through multiple layers of paper. The system first finds a specific page by sending a pulse of radiation through the layers, and then uses spectral information to locate printed letters.

Or, for those of you who have a pair of these in your attic:

I remember visiting the Hall of Fame when I was a kid and they had sealed Cracker Jack boxes that they'd X-Rayed and had the X-Rays on display. I feel like one had a Walter Johnson in it but it was a long time ago.

If not mistaken I believe Jon Canfield discussed this back in the early 2000’s. I am sure technology is more advanced now days.

Yes but how does this development affect the pack breakers? The ramifications imply that at some point in time the technology will be there to see every card in a pack. What a scary thought.

Going forward can’t the card companies use the same blocking technique that you can buy to protect your credit cards from being picked up in an airport. Can’t they block the xrays from seeing what’s in a pack by building that protection into all of the wrappers? That will probably increase prices but could alleviate the issues going forward.

They probably could but would they care? I don't think so. Increased prices might encourage them if they could do it cheaply enough so their profits would increase.

The hit in modern packs is usually in the middle of the pack. I don't think this technology will ever help anyone who isn't opening a pack with only one card inside. Or who is more interesting in seeing cards other than the top and bottom card.

Pre-2000 while I was working in hydraulics we had a customer who made truck sized scanning devices for governments/airports/military.

The owner of our company visited them to drop some stuff off, and got a short tour of their shop including a smaller xray backscatter scanner.
It was clear enough to read magazine covers inside a briefcase. And that was their old prototype machine.

Another 24+ years of work on that could probably do a lot more.
One archaeology outfit has read text that was written on metal foil that was too fragile to unwrap.

A card pack would be pretty easy.

Based on what people are asking for unopened packs, they are already assuming the best card in the set is in it.

It seems like the kind of thing that would be prohibitively expensive. Even if you could see through the packs, you'd still be tasked with buying enough product that you have a pack worth opening.

Or you could just resell the unopened packs with nothing great inside them so there is very little expense in scanning/x-raying truck loads of unopened material. The new big hits go for beyond silly money.

Get the guys from MIT who can already do this to let you "borrow" their equipment for a few months and great thing could happen.

That wouldn’t recoup much. Individual packs are not highly sought after by modern collectors. The assumption is that they’re left over packs from after the hit as it is. Novice collectors might think they have a shot at a hit but experienced collectors already know the scam.

For example, a box of 2024 Topps a chrome jumbo has 3 autographs and a $400 price tag. You won’t recoup $400 from selling the unopened packs and the chances of you making your money back by x-raying hits is just as slim as getting a good card in the first place.

There's also the issue of configuration. If you buy a case of a product, the likelihood of the hit pack being in the same spot for every box in the case is very high. If you watch a lot of breaks, you'll always see the breaker pull the hit packs from the stack and open them last. That's another reason why it is always assumed by anyone who collects modern in a more than casual way that any individual pack for sale has nothing in it.

xray
 

reminds me back in crazy days of 1980s 90s card packs, I recall the elusive chase card was inserted in certain packs....and people would get wise and start weighing the unopened pack to determine the pack with the extra card or slightly heavier insert card

OH the good old fun days..when you could cheat..and there was no NET 54 to call you out ! LOL

In the past it wasn't as difficult or expensive as it is now to track down vintage one cent packs. Over the years I've owned several 1959 Topps unopened One Cent packs. I was never tempted to open them because if you pressed the wrapper against the card and shined a very bright light on it, you could always make out enough of the name on the card to figure out who it was.

This is still very common with the blaster boxes. I have been at the grocery store (Meijer) and witnessed a fellow with all the blaster boxes from the shelves of some Topps release in the produce section using the customer scales to pick out the heavier boxes for purchase. I have seen this a couple times, likely as recently as last summer.

wow
 

Wow !!!

I was in a show in Pa and these two guys were asking all sorts of questions about this. Thinking that they were slick


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Went into a store in the 80's to buy some rack packs of cards. There were only a few out so I asked the clerk if there were any more in the back. She told me there were, but she couldn't put them out until the store manager went through them all and pulled the racks he wanted to buy. Met the manager a little while later and I told him what he was doing wasn't fair to other consumers. He felt it was a perq of the job. We later became friends and actually set up at card shows next to each other. But.......I never looked for rack packs from his store again.