Rolling 2023 Bowman Chrome Autograph Checklist Thread

[notoriousrmb]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

If you don’t buy it, discounted prices will come.

It’s a complicated dynamic, but that is what the end result will be.

Fanatics will be forced to lower their “direct cost” as long as the demand goes away - you will see “direct discounted prices”.

That biggest demand is coming from breakers.

You keep ignoring the biggest piece of the discussion - shops cannot afford to not buy. Fanatics will cut their allocations and they will be out of business. It's not like a shop owner will just say OK, I'm skipping the next 3 releases and prices will drop. That isn't how the industry works.

Shops have tons of overhead, they need product to survive. Now that Panini is on the way out, they need Fanatics' new product even more.

You just repeat "breaker, breaker" and don't see all the other buyers Fanatics has that have no choice but to buy at their price. Who are these breakers that are selling all this product you claim they are buying?

Let's take Platinum breaks - looking at their website, they have recently sold 15 cases of Bowman Chrome, that's the big one. A couple of half cases of Allen & Ginter. One case of Immaculate baseball. One case of Cosmic Chrome. Three or four cases of Platinum, hard to tell on that one.

Take a look yourself: https://www.youtube.com/c/Platinumcardbreaks/videos

Platinum has historically been one of the biggest breakers, where is this massive demand you claim breakers are providing? Show me another breaker that is running through hundreds of cases and supporting these prices on their own. Actually, should be able to give quite a large list of these guys, right?

[johnlocke36]

While I agree shops can’t afford to not bug you also need to consider the result of what happens when customers can’t afford to buy which is turn will lead to shops also not being able to afford to buy.

Eventually shops will go busto, close shop and topps will bit me able to move as much product at such absurd prices.

[theredmenace]

Could just be my area, but our LCS runs personal and group breaks all day long in the backrooms. Their in-store wax prices are usually 15 to 20% over BO/D&A.

[Grave252]

Pre-release, Real Breaks said they would have 3-400 cases of Bowman Chrome. Two weeks post release, they just cleared the 100 case mark. They have essentially stopped doing PYT and Random team breaks, and instead have resorted to five case PYP breaks that take 2-3 days to fill. They are a huge buyer of Topps/Fanatics products. If they are sitting on 200 more cases of this stuff...then yikes. So far minimal pricing adjustments within their breaks. It's been a while since I have seen a Bowman product sell so poorly.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by notoriousrmb

You keep ignoring the biggest piece of the discussion - shops cannot afford to not buy. Fanatics will cut their allocations and they will be out of business. It's not like a shop owner will just say OK, I'm skipping the next 3 releases and prices will drop. That isn't how the industry works.

Shops have tons of overhead, they need product to survive. Now that Panini is on the way out, they need Fanatics' new product even more.

You just repeat "breaker, breaker" and don't see all the other buyers Fanatics has that have no choice but to buy at their price. Who are these breakers that are selling all this product you claim they are buying?

Let's take Platinum breaks - looking at their website, they have recently sold 15 cases of Bowman Chrome, that's the big one. A couple of half cases of Allen & Ginter. One case of Immaculate baseball. One case of Cosmic Chrome. Three or four cases of Platinum, hard to tell on that one.

Take a look yourself: https://www.youtube.com/c/Platinumcardbreaks/videos

Platinum has historically been one of the biggest breakers, where is this massive demand you claim breakers are providing? Show me another breaker that is running through hundreds of cases and supporting these prices on their own. Actually, should be able to give quite a large list of these guys, right?

Blez up to 29 cases.
Layton up to 33 cases
Real breaks up to 80 cases
Pristine worldwide 30 cases

I took two minutes looking at YouTube and I don’t even recognize half these people, plus a dozen more breakers up to 10 cases each.

And that’s doing a two minute YouTube search in the last week!! I can’t believe you don’t think breakers play any role in any product pricing.

Who opens flawless football and basketball? Only breakers

Who opens national treasures? Only breakers.

Who opens immaculate? Only breakers.

Who opens noir? Only breakers.

Who opens 30+ cases of dynasty? Only breakers.

What does your local shop do to their flawless, national treasures, immaculate and noir allocations? They flip them to breakers. No customer is coming in to the shop and dropping $10k on a briefcase of flawless to open and enjoy for themselves.

Don’t forget in 2010-11, panini tried to force store to maintain their srp for products. $120 for basic products Nothing sold, no one wanted to pay $120 for panini basketball, no one wanted to pay $120 for donruss threads, etc etc.

The shops didn’t go out of business - they fought back, they got pissed, and those excess boxes got dumped into the open market for $40-$50.

This can happen to fanatics. Like I said, casualties may occur along the way, but it’s survival of the fittest, the strong retailers will survive.

[Boredlawyer]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Blez up to 29 cases.
Layton up to 33 cases
Real breaks up to 80 cases
Pristine worldwide 30 cases

I took two minutes looking at YouTube and I don’t even recognize half these people, plus a dozen more breakers up to 10 cases each.

And that’s doing a two minute YouTube search in the last week!! I can’t believe you don’t think breakers play any role in any product pricing.

Who opens flawless football and basketball? Only breakers

Who opens national treasures? Only breakers.

Who opens immaculate? Only breakers.

Who opens noir? Only breakers.

Who opens 30+ cases of dynasty? Only breakers.

What does your local shop do to their flawless, national treasures, immaculate and noir allocations? They flip them to breakers. No customer is coming in to the shop and dropping $10k on a briefcase of flawless to open and enjoy for themselves.

Don’t forget in 2010-11, panini tried to force store to maintain their srp for products. $120 for basic products Nothing sold, no one wanted to pay $120 for panini basketball, no one wanted to pay $120 for donruss threads, etc etc.

The shops didn’t go out of business - they fought back, they got pissed, and those excess boxes got dumped into the open market for $40-$50.

This can happen to fanatics. Like I said, casualties may occur along the way, but it’s survival of the fittest, the strong retailers will survive.

We get it, man. Please stop proselytizing about group breaks. No one is reading these walls of text. Just go teach macroeconomics at Hermano Tarjeta Community College.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by Boredlawyer

We get it, man. Please stop proselytizing about group breaks. No one is reading these walls of text. Just go teach macroeconomics at Hermano Tarjeta Community College.

I’m just responding to one member specifically who does not believe that breakers play any role whatsoever in contributing to the price fanatics charges for its products.

He believes breakers are a tiny player in creating demand for product.

I don’t agree with that.

[marterburn]

.......

[Chrominator]

proselytizing - now that's a word you don't see too often (or ever)

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by johnlocke36

Yea that’s the issue. I think I’m actually a buyer at this price point but no reason to as 0% chance they aren’t going down more in 2-3 months.

This is interesting, because I agree with you.

Now it just becomes a game of chicken. How far do we let it fall before striking? Then what % of bankroll gets thrown at him? He's a little more volatile than average, but I still think I'd be OK tossing 10-15% at $225. That would put him as a likely #1 on my list. If he drops to $150 then maybe as much as 25%. If he cracked $100 we'd be in Gallo territory and I'd be buying up every single item that came available. I'd still run out of cash pretty quickly even at that low price, but I'd be damn happy with whatever I would end up with!

[notoriousrmb]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

I’m just responding to one member specifically who does not believe that breakers play any role whatsoever in contributing to the price fanatics charges for its products.

He believes breakers are a tiny player in creating demand for product.

I don’t agree with that.

I can't believe we are still dong this, never once did I say breakers don't play any role. You continue to put words in my mouth that simply aren't true. Find one post where I say breakers play no role, just one where I apparently make this point.

I'll repeat it again (and I really should stop engaging with this insanity, so this is on me at this point), but breakers are not the SOLE reason for these prices. There are many, many other factors at play here.

1) Fanatics spent a ton of money on their acquisitions, they want to recoup that.
2) Fanatics (and Panini!) saw what people were willing to pay in 2020 and believe they can still get that.
3) The LCS must buy product to stay in business, Fanatics has cut out most distributor accounts so they have very few other outlets to acquire product.
4) Breakers!! Yes Breakers!! OMG YES they buy things too!
5) The general public - people who can't buy from DealerNet or still think Topps.com is still a great pre-sale option.
6) Online sellers like the owners of this website! They make deals to get bulk product too, their prices are in line with the rest of the market and are certainly not getting massive amounts of discounted product like they had the opportunity to pre-Covid.
7) Fanatics distribution method of slowly releasing product into the market to keep pricing high.

For the 4,394th time - my whole point is you are stuck solely on breaking and that is NOT the only reason for the high prices. These are all reasons for the current wax pricing! We get it, you hate breakers, you hate breaking...open your eyes and see there is more to the industry than breakers.

[SupermanBrandon]

Any guesses as to what percentages of the average release goes to breakers vs LCS vs individuals, etc?


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[notoriousrmb]

Originally Posted by SupermanBrandon

Any guesses as to what percentages of the average release goes to breakers vs LCS vs individuals, etc?


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Pre-Fanatics takeover? Probably 60% to breakers, 30% to shops (online and brick and mortar) and the rest to the public.

Post-Fanatics? 20% to their supported breakers, 25% to shops, 10% to other breakers, 45% held to sell on their websites direct.

There are 4 very different eras at play here which a certain poster doesn't get.

The pre-Covid era
The Covid boom
The post-Covid slow down
The Fanatics take over

Each of these had very different methods of allocation and demand. During the Covid period, wouldn't surprise me if breakers were responsible for 90% of product being moved. No longer the case with the way Fanatics allocates product now.

Of course, these are just educated guesses on numbers. No one outside of Fanatics knows for sure where all the product is going.

[bub838]

Originally Posted by SupermanBrandon

Any guesses as to what percentages of the average release goes to breakers vs LCS vs individuals, etc?


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I'd love to know how much is just sitting in warehouses.

[hermanotarjeta]

It doesn’t matter to me what the allocation break down is, no one will ever know.

My point is that one singular group is paying the most to get product - and that group is the breakers.

Even if they are only getting 20% of the product that you claim, they will still end up with 60% of the product, buying from the other allocants and driving up the prices on everyone in order to do so.

Of course breakers aren’t the sole purchasers of product - I NEVER said that. I buy product solely from stores. I’m not a breaker.

This entire time my ire against breakers is because they drove up product prices on the whole industry due to their demand and they ENABLE the card companies to charge more direct.

You completely ignore who is opening flawless and national treasures. It’s breakers either via direct allocation or buying from other allocants in the secondary market.

I understand your point, we are arguing about two different concepts here.

The breaker participants are supporting the breakers because they are collectively willing to pay higher for cases. That is driving up direct and secondary market prices primarily, not as the sole source, but they do set the market price as the highest bidders.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by SupermanBrandon

Any guesses as to what percentages of the average release goes to breakers vs LCS vs individuals, etc?


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Any guesses as to what percentages of high end releases eventually end up in breakers hands, no matter who the initial allocation goes to?

[brothertona]

I'm just not understanding this idea that breakers are bad, breakers are the reason there is demand for your cards and for product in general. I'm sorry that it's made product more expensive - it's also made singles prices much higher and put more money in mom and pop shops across the country.

[johnlocke36]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

This is interesting, because I agree with you.

Now it just becomes a game of chicken. How far do we let it fall before striking? Then what % of bankroll gets thrown at him? He's a little more volatile than average, but I still think I'd be OK tossing 10-15% at $225. That would put him as a likely #1 on my list. If he drops to $150 then maybe as much as 25%. If he cracked $100 we'd be in Gallo territory and I'd be buying up every single item that came available. I'd still run out of cash pretty quickly even at that low price, but I'd be damn happy with whatever I would end up with!

Yea not sure where bottom will be but im holding out for 150ish range. Will be some big names in bowman draft so hopefully when that fomo hits his prices drop even further. If they go sub 150 then will look to pick up some of the bigger ones if priced accordingly.

Was planning to buy a ton of schanuel and Langford (pre draft plan) but will be priced out of both those guys now so May as well poor it into more Salas

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by brothertona

I'm just not understanding this idea that breakers are bad, breakers are the reason there is demand for your cards and for product in general. I'm sorry that it's made product more expensive - it's also made singles prices much higher and put more money in mom and pop shops across the country.

Breakers have made it virtually impossible and irrational for individual box openers to open products like NT and flawless.

Also, as singles prices have dropped, box prices don’t drop at a similar rate, granted there are card retailers, box flipper bois and long term box investors who play a role in that.

Also, does bowman draft really need to be $425 factory direct? No it doesn’t, but the breakers will support that price.

[brothertona]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Breakers have made it virtually impossible and irrational for individual box openers to open products like NT and flawless.

Also, as singles prices have dropped, box prices don’t drop at a similar rate, granted there are card retailers, box flipper bois and long term box investors who play a role in that.

Also, does bowman draft really need to be $425 factory direct? No it doesn’t, but the breakers will support that price.

Who wants to open NT/Flawless? Those aren’t products worth opening? Same with Dynasty/Immaculate and every other high end offering from Topps/Panini. Even if it wasn’t for breakers those products aren’t great breaks. As an individual box opener I want Topps Chrome or Bowman and the problem with Topps Chrome wasn’t breakers- flippers, Monty club destroyed those not breakers. I don’t think anyone would want to open Bowman Draft if it was $100 a box- they didn’t when Houdini was breaking it at that price. No-one wanted Bowman when it was that cheap. The classes are better, players are better prepared when they get drafted. It should be more expensive as if you’re buying the draft picks you’re buying a lot less variance.


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[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by brothertona

Who wants to open NT/Flawless? Those aren’t products worth opening? Same with Dynasty/Immaculate and every other high end offering from Topps/Panini. Even if it wasn’t for breakers those products aren’t great breaks. As an individual box opener I want Topps Chrome or Bowman and the problem with Topps Chrome wasn’t breakers- flippers, Monty club destroyed those not breakers. I don’t think anyone would want to open Bowman Draft if it was $100 a box- they didn’t when Houdini was breaking it at that price. No-one wanted Bowman when it was that cheap. The classes are better, players are better prepared when they get drafted. It should be more expensive as if you’re buying the draft picks you’re buying a lot less variance.


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Everyone wanted to open NT at $500/box and flawless at $1250/box. That’s how prices on those got driven up to $5000 and $10,000/box respectively.

Breakers and their degenerate customers.

There’s a reason dynasty doesn’t sell for $375 anymore. It’s $900 because of breakers.

You couldn’t lose money on bowman draft jumbos at $100/box. I don’t know what you are talking about.

[zakcollects]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Breakers have made it virtually impossible and irrational for individual box openers to open products like NT and flawless.

Also, as singles prices have dropped, box prices don’t drop at a similar rate, granted there are card retailers, box flipper bois and long term box investors who play a role in that.

Also, does bowman draft really need to be $425 factory direct? No it doesn’t, but the breakers will support that price.

Breakers only exist because the product got too expensive. They're a byproduct of greed from the card companies and all your ranting from the pedestal is misguided. And because the formula of breaking worked so well it snowballed in to a monster that now controls the market. Topps/Fanatics/Panini are happy and a new economy exists now for the hobby that seems here to stay. Get used to it man.

[theredmenace]

Originally Posted by zakcollects

Breakers only exist because the product got too expensive. They're a byproduct of greed from the card companies and all your ranting from the pedestal is misguided. And because the formula of breaking worked so well it snowballed in to a monster that now controls the market. Topps/Fanatics/Panini are happy and a new economy exists now for the hobby that seems here to stay. Get used to it man.

When you say the product got too expensive, what timeframe are we talking about? Breakers have been around for a long time, at least 10 years.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by zakcollects

Breakers only exist because the product got too expensive. They're a byproduct of greed from the card companies and all your ranting from the pedestal is misguided. And because the formula of breaking worked so well it snowballed in to a monster that now controls the market. Topps/Fanatics/Panini are happy and a new economy exists now for the hobby that seems here to stay. Get used to it man.

You got that flip flopped.

Breakers allowed companies to get more greedy.

Breakers drove the demand for flawless cases to $20,000.

The cases aren’t nearly worth that much, they started at an srp of $2500, but 30 guys were willing to pay just a bit more each time to get that average buy in random to $700/spot at “today’s prices”. The companies of course are going to take what the market demands.

Flawless used to be about $100/spot. The degenerate gamblers are now willing to go up to $700/spot, a $600 increase per participant, but an $18,000 increase in price for the whole case.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by theredmenace

When you say the product got too expensive, what timeframe are we talking about? Breakers have been around for a long time, at least 10 years.

The first break I personally remember was at my local card shop in 2001 or 2002 when Upper Deck Ultimate Collection came out at $100 a pack. None of us regulars were going to support that price, but coming together to spread out the risk was an option.