July Pick-Ups

[G1911]

Originally Posted by vintagebaseballcardguy

$40 per hobby box is pretty decent and actually much more realistic. I think this stuff is actually cool. Very nice cards. I am very much torn over modern products like this. I very occasionally buy new product with the idea of piecing together a set of whatever given product because I do watch modern MLB and enjoy it. However, after a while, it hits me that I could buy a solid vintage card for the cost of the blasters and hangers that I open in such a quest. If the cost were lower on non-hit products like Heritage, I might be a player. Nice stuff!!

I feel torn in the same way you are! I buy maybe 5-10 boxes of stuff a year. I enjoy cracking junk wax, but after seeing every possible card 3,000 times each (or so it feels), it's fun to satisfy the ripping the urge. My love is for vintage, but opening is fun too and I like to occasionally rip a box.

It's just never worth it, dollar wise. I just belatedly got in my 2021 Heritage hobby (3 boxes of base, 2 boxes of high number, 2 boxes of minors) to build my sets, from a distributor friend that passed them along below selling price. Even at my ~$35ish average price per box, I beat the pack odds and still lost financially. It's worth the $40 for the fun of opening up a box and I expect to lose, but I don't see how the people who pay 2-3x this price point and mostly pull the same stuff or less keep gambling. The base sets are fun still, but with so many invest focused rippers, base sets are almost free on eBay to just buy without worrying about collation issues. I pulled a black chrome refractor /72 of Buehler (which is 1:534 hobby packs, the print run is truly absurd since 2020), 3 relics (Alonso, Stanton and... Aaron Hicks) and 2 auto's (of rookies who are nobodies), 3 action's (should have got 1 by the odds). It's fun, I'm happy with the fun I get from it, but it's a terrible buy for any other reason.

2021 Heritage High Number are like $50 a hobby box on the open market and about the best buy there is right now for fun vs. cost, but there's about $15 worth in the box. The massive print runs have made it really hard to hit anything numbered in your box that's worth even $2. The price on retail is absurd; blasters are like $25 now and almost nothing but base. A hobby box is about the same per pack these days from Topps.