2025 Topps Chrome Spongebob

[jdandns]

No one is making anyone buy any cards to begin with and no one needs cards to live.
With that in mind, what's the problem?

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by armyml

Not a knock on you or anything you've said at all, but I see the word manipulated being thrown around a lot in this thread. I don't disagree that there isn't shenanigans going on somewhere behind the scenes but I'm sure there has been manipulation going on ever since cards had value. It's part of this capitalism system we all play. I just think it's easy to say things are manipulated just because prices on wax is higher than people want to pay.(Pricing from 8-9 years ago essentially is what I see people wanting to pay).

Topps manipulating by having celebrities for endorsements- I mean they do own the licenses and are producing the product. Isn't that just Marketing & Advertising at this point? If I just paid another entity entirely(MLB, NBA etc.) a metric boatload of money I'd want to advertise and promote my product into the mainstream to get a return on my investment as soon as possible. Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. Are we all sheep to the point to where seeing Tom Brady in a Fanatics Short is going to trick us into buying cases of wax I wouldn't want otherwise? Do all celebrities care about the products they get paid to do commercials for? I'm sure old spice dude has had another scent on him at some point.

I guess I'm just curious as to what the goldilocks scenario is for everyone who thinks everything is being manipulated to the moon because of flippers and breakers? Have Fanatics pay half a billion for Topps then just set all box prices at $100 to make everyone happy? I mean Leaf still makes cards....could just buy that stuff instead.

The massive price jump of wax during the 2018-19 wax rotation should be what people analyze and look at as far as why the market in general has gotten so crazy and not so much what Fanatics is doing now. Fanatics is just doing what they do in the market that the 2018-19 jump created. Wax boxes doubled one day and 3 months later they were 4-5x back then. I just jumped back into the hobby that year and was buying NBA Prizm and Optic. I saw it all happen firsthand and one day the boxes were just unaffordable all of the sudden. From there everything climbed and it never stopped. At one point people were buying National Treasures basketball for $500 a box. That's the 2nd nicest NBA set behind Flawless. When I jumped in that $500 dollar box was $1200...then 16...then 24...32....now I think its 6500. And this is a Panini product not Topps/Fanatics. It's a market ecosystem issue not any individual company goin all Dr. Evil behind the scenes IMO.

I don't think the word manipulation was tossed around, that I saw(I'm "old" though, so, maybe it was), by anyone but me. Because that's exactly what's going on. Fanatics is selling 0.05% of their wax to the public and offloading semitruck loads off with breakers. From there, the breakers are making whatever ungodly amount it is, per box...so they drive up the secondary to sell to the gamblers, who, god bless them...are morons. That'd be manipulating the price of their product. I don't even think they put out MSRP anymore, that I see. It's just a "Hey, we offered 30 boxes to the 2,000 people wanting boxes, we did our part" company line. They know what they're doing. You'd have to either be blind, dumb or both to not see it.

You sell their product, so I get you coming in every thread, seemingly defending their business practices...but if you actually liked the hobby you're involved in and wanted it to be a healthy hobby, long term, you'd be pressing Fanatics to run things in a way that was not so manipulative.

I don't want 2018 prices for people. I don't even open wax anymore. What I think would be great is if Fanatics in particular would give people who DO want it an actual shot vs selling a small fraction to people who just want to flip it to breakers, who then make a crazy amount of money selling to lots of people with an actual sickness/addiction...and getting almost nothing in return, most of the time.

You raise a generation of new "collectors", which they are not...but we'll call them collectors for the sake of our conversation, on $1,000 Hobby boxes with $80 worth of cards in them...you raise them on money is all that matters in the HOBBY...you raise them on "How much is this worth" in every reddit post...you end up with a DEAD hobby in the long term. You end up with a select few well-off people as the only ones with TRUE access. Access to buy the inflated wax, the inflated singles...and they don't actually care about really anything hobby related, just their "investment"...and if it sinks, again, they don't care. Write it off, move on to the next thing.

My argument in all these threads is you need collectors and there are less and less of them every day. There are a ton of gamblers though, I'll give everyone that. There is tons of money flowing, while some of these sick individuals spend thousands of dollars to often times end up with virtually nothing.

I'd love for the hobby to be around in 20 years, or 50, whatever...long after I'm gone, but I have a feeling if we keep going down this road it won't be

PS. Yes, it is manipulative to people who aren't all that bright to have celebrities endorse their products. And to compare it to some random athlete using Old Spice in a commercial is just ignorant. A stick of Old Spice is $5. Go watch some of these breaks that are happening. People are spending $1,000 on slots and you'd be surprised how often some of them walk away with literally NOTHING, ZERO. Do some of those guys have the money to do that? Sure, I know they do...as I used to be one of them. I spent well over $1M on wax over my "collecting life". I also KNOW for a fact that the majority of the people in those breaks are going into serious credit card debt to feed an addiction and they're getting killed daily doing it.

So again, take a step back from the "I sell stuff for these guys" mentality and use your head to work out if this is sustainable for the hobby, long term.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by jdandns

No one is making anyone buy any cards to begin with and no one needs cards to live.
With that in mind, what's the problem?

Lots of sick people out there, with impulse control issues. Go read about it

[armyml]

Originally Posted by orion9578

I don't think the word manipulation was tossed around, that I saw(I'm "old" though, so, maybe it was), by anyone but me. Because that's exactly what's going on. Fanatics is selling 0.05% of their wax to the public and offloading semitruck loads off with breakers. From there, the breakers are making whatever ungodly amount it is, per box...so they drive up the secondary to sell to the gamblers, who, god bless them...are morons. That'd be manipulating the price of their product. I don't even think they put out MSRP anymore, that I see. It's just a "Hey, we offered 30 boxes to the 2,000 people wanting boxes, we did our part" company line. They know what they're doing. You'd have to either be blind, dumb or both to not see it.

You sell their product, so I get you coming in every thread, seemingly defending their business practices...but if you actually liked the hobby you're involved in and wanted it to be a healthy hobby, long term, you'd be pressing Fanatics to run things in a way that was not so manipulative.

I don't want 2018 prices for people. I don't even open wax anymore. What I think would be great is if Fanatics in particular would give people who DO want it an actual shot vs selling a small fraction to people who just want to flip it to breakers, who then make a crazy amount of money selling to lots of people with an actual sickness/addiction...and getting almost nothing in return, most of the time.

You raise a generation of new "collectors", which they are not...but we'll call them collectors for the sake of our conversation, on $1,000 Hobby boxes with $80 worth of cards in them...you raise them on money is all that matters in the HOBBY...you raise them on "How much is this worth" in every reddit post...you end up with a DEAD hobby in the long term. You end up with a select few well-off people as the only ones with TRUE access. Access to buy the inflated wax, the inflated singles...and they don't actually care about really anything hobby related, just their "investment"...and if it sinks, again, they don't care. Write it off, move on to the next thing.

My argument in all these threads is you need collectors and there are less and less of them every day. There are a ton of gamblers though, I'll give everyone that. There is tons of money flowing, while some of these sick individuals spend thousands of dollars to often times end up with virtually nothing.

I'd love for the hobby to be around in 20 years, or 50, whatever...long after I'm gone, but I have a feeling if we keep going down this road it won't be

PS. Yes, it is manipulative to people who aren't all that bright to have celebrities endorse their products. And to compare it to some random athlete using Old Spice in a commercial is just ignorant. A stick of Old Spice is $5. Go watch some of these breaks that are happening. People are spending $1,000 on slots and you'd be surprised how often some of them walk away with literally NOTHING, ZERO. Do some of those guys have the money to do that? Sure, I know they do...as I used to be one of them. I spent well over $1M on wax over my "collecting life". I also KNOW for a fact that the majority of the people in those breaks are going into serious credit card debt to feed an addiction and they're getting killed daily doing it.

So again, take a step back from the "I sell stuff for these guys" mentality and use your head to work out if this is sustainable for the hobby, long term.

It might just be you in this thread throwing the word around but I definitely see it in other threads as well. As I mentioned I wasn't attacking you personally, I just like to ask questions in threads like these where the complaint is high pricing. We are on the same page on a few things. I agree that a lot of product is being held back and given to breakers/Fanatics live and I think it sucks. I'd love to get 10 cases of product allocated instead of just one and have you guys have the boxes available on the website at a fair price, but that isn't the world right now.

I wasn't defending their business practices. I'm just saying wax prices got out of hand BEFORE Fanatics took over. Its easy to blame them now since they have a monopoly. Also not a fan of that either but Panini screwed the pooch on customer service and got too comfortable with their licenses so this is what happens. Fanatics is the big bad who is currently #1 in an already overinflated marketplace. Thats all I'm saying. They didn't start it. I definitely sell their product you are correct about that, but 75% of my business is in Pokemon/Magic. Not ashamed to admit I will bow to the Nintendo overlords.

The entire point of marketing and advertising is to sell products to the masses. The way you worded it made it sound like "dumb" people have to be protected from celebrity endorsements, flashing lights, and "gotcha" advertising. Thats how all advertising for everything is now all the time. This is the world we live in. Plus there are a few celebs who actually care about the hobby. All the baseball players that put out bounties for their 1/1 MLB Debut cards seem to care. Tom Brady I think opened a hobby shop? I've sold a lot of cards to players themselves online. Mainly WNBA players and hockey. I'm just saying there are celebrities out there into it so it's not quite right to assume anyone advertising our hobby is just out for a sell-out paycheck.

I agree with you that these prices are not sustainable in the hobby long term, but with that being said there has to be a way to lower prices yet keep the exposure. The hobby exposure wise is as healthy as it has ever been.

[greatgradegrate]

Originally Posted by orion9578

My argument in all these threads is you need collectors and there are less and less of them every day.

This is the point that just cannot be argued against in a compelling manner. The collectors are the only essential consumer in the trading card chain at the end of the day.

Doesn't mean Fanatics won't pivot to the collector if/when the compulsive breaking slows. They're just chasing the right now money which is shortsighted but understandable.

Anyway, good show, Orion.

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by greatgradegrate

This is the point that just cannot be argued against in a compelling manner. The collectors are the only essential consumer in the trading card chain at the end of the day.

Doesn't mean Fanatics won't pivot to the collector if/when the compulsive breaking slows. They're just chasing the right now money which is shortsighted but understandable.

Anyway, good show, Orion.

I don’t think the collectors left though… so I’m not sure how Topps (or any other company) chasing the wave of new money is shortsighted if things just return to the base line we all enjoyed after the dust settles. We are still here after all and the new money Topps is getting is just added to the preexisting base.

Myself and a lot of others here were around when nonsports was a blip on the radar. So at the end of the day, if/when the wave of new money subsides (and there is no guarantee it will anytime soon), if the market returns to what it was at least the companies can point to the good years they cashed in big money if/when the hobby returns to base line sales.

I’m an Orioles fan (Sunday plan season ticket holder) and I liken it to season ticket sales that ebb and flow depending on the team being playoff caliber or not. About once a decade (or longer) the team gets good and the team then goes out of its way to dangle the chance of playoff tickets to attract new season ticket orders. Sometimes it feels like existing customers take a back seat to chase the bigger, newer dollars (I.e. I’ve gotten shut out of preordering playoff tickets for certain games in past years because the team overcommitted to new money). This year that is moot bc the team stinks. Attendance is down but I and a lot of others around during the “lean years” are still here. While it’s kind of annoying, I don’t fault the team for trying to cash in when the going is good. It’s how a lot of businesses stay in business for a long time… cash in when the going is good to save up for the lean times (think of the ebb and flows of revenues for real estate agent friends you have as the local housing market ebbs and flows).

So at the end of the day, I don’t think Topps is doing anything bad chasing maximum sales revenues now and the worst possible scenario for them is the market returns to “just us” (which is doubtful, honestly), but until then it makes sense for Topps (and other companies) to cash in when the going is good.

Like was said upthread, collectors can just pivot from wax buying to singles buying. There are still a ton of ways to collect now without opening as much wax as we did when opening wax was cheaper. Still some great deals on singles… especially after the release flood and sellers have moved on to the next “hot” thing (which seems to be every other week or so).

And even online collectors fan groups aren’t leaving… they are just adapting to the times. For example, Marvel-centric collectors groups with podcasts are now pivoting to be a more general card collector theme. They aren’t leaving, they aren’t stopping collecting Marvel… they are just pivoting because they have less direct access to the producers of Marvel cards (Topps) for content than they had with UD… so they are pivoting to cover products UD (and other companies) put out in addition to still talking about Marvel. If in a decade, UD regains the Marvel license maybe they pivot back. Until then they adapt.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by orion9578

It seems like your counterpoint is always that things are just going to keep going up, too big to fail...something along those lines. I disagree...

Absolutely not. The trading card market and TCG markets are going to crash and crash hard. And when it does its going to bankrupt a lot of people. Here comes the but........BUT, that is a long ways away. I like to analyze things and I am a numbers guy. Everything that has factual data attached to it says things are hotter than ever and in more demand than ever. There are new sets (Spongebob is an example) there are new licenses (basketball, football) and many more things I could go into showing growth and continued upward trends. Records for individual card sales are being reached, records for total auction house spending is being reached every month. Etc etc

Now, I'm not a homer, I look at both sides. I see almost nothing showing we have peaked or are about to start heading back down. Most of the counter argument's are OPINIONS, and not actual market data. Examples:

-I think the market is not healthy.
-I think breaking is bad for the industry.
-Products cost too much.
-There isn't enough value in the boxes.
-I think there are too many parallel's.
-New people are not going to stay.
-People shouldn't buy into breaks because the return is too low.

Everything that gets complained about regularly are all individual perspectives. And the data says those perspectives are not the views the most people hold or the market would be correcting.

So to summarize, no I do not think the market is too big to fail or will go up forever. I think when it turns it is going to hurt a lot of people. But that can be said for any market. Stock market, housing market, Bitcoin, etc. When things take a dive it hurts. But back to cards in general, we have AT LEAST another year of nothing but full steam ahead. Beyond that its nothing but a guessing game. My honest opinion is that we push about 2 more years before it starts to turn. But outside factors can always influence that.

[finfangfan]

I think the biggest outside factor that could lead to a crash is people losing their jobs. For now, I think most of the collector base here is pretty financially secure to weather a temporary downturn. If we get into an extended recession or extended period of job losses, that is when people will start to drop out of card collecting and only spend on necessities. There is still a lot of wealth around now though.

Another factor is shipping costs. As the cost to ship cards gets more expensive for people outside of the US to participate, that money might start to drop out of the hobby.

[orion9578]

Originally Posted by armyml

It might just be you in this thread throwing the word around but I definitely see it in other threads as well. As I mentioned I wasn't attacking you personally, I just like to ask questions in threads like these where the complaint is high pricing. We are on the same page on a few things. I agree that a lot of product is being held back and given to breakers/Fanatics live and I think it sucks. I'd love to get 10 cases of product allocated instead of just one and have you guys have the boxes available on the website at a fair price, but that isn't the world right now.

I wasn't defending their business practices. I'm just saying wax prices got out of hand BEFORE Fanatics took over. Its easy to blame them now since they have a monopoly. Also not a fan of that either but Panini screwed the pooch on customer service and got too comfortable with their licenses so this is what happens. Fanatics is the big bad who is currently #1 in an already overinflated marketplace. Thats all I'm saying. They didn't start it. I definitely sell their product you are correct about that, but 75% of my business is in Pokemon/Magic. Not ashamed to admit I will bow to the Nintendo overlords.

The entire point of marketing and advertising is to sell products to the masses. The way you worded it made it sound like "dumb" people have to be protected from celebrity endorsements, flashing lights, and "gotcha" advertising. Thats how all advertising for everything is now all the time. This is the world we live in. Plus there are a few celebs who actually care about the hobby. All the baseball players that put out bounties for their 1/1 MLB Debut cards seem to care. Tom Brady I think opened a hobby shop? I've sold a lot of cards to players themselves online. Mainly WNBA players and hockey. I'm just saying there are celebrities out there into it so it's not quite right to assume anyone advertising our hobby is just out for a sell-out paycheck.

I agree with you that these prices are not sustainable in the hobby long term, but with that being said there has to be a way to lower prices yet keep the exposure. The hobby exposure wise is as healthy as it has ever been.

I didn't take anything you said as a personal attack. I don't take anything that anyone says about anything as a personal attack, even if it is. This is a message board. Sometimes people are trying to lash out and that's fine. Other times it's hard to get your point across via a keyboard and that's fine as well

I agree with several things you're saying. Wax prices were out of control, even before Fanatics. It's just gotten a lot worse in the very short time they've held said license.

As far as the marketing goes, I'm not insinuating that dumb people need protection...I know they do. Companies depend on uninformed consumers, they're easier to manipulate. One person randomly mentioning that their marketing is manipulative via a message board PROBABLY does nothing, but if even 1 person sees it and doesn't fall prey to them...I'll take it.

In the end though, they're just the supplier. My opinion is the true, "local" pusher that is the even bigger problem, are the breakers. They're taking an already inflated $500 box and scamming 100 people into paying $2,500 for it. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they aren't.

Originally Posted by premium1981

Absolutely not. The trading card market and TCG markets are going to crash and crash hard. And when it does its going to bankrupt a lot of people. Here comes the but........BUT, that is a long ways away. I like to analyze things and I am a numbers guy. Everything that has factual data attached to it says things are hotter than ever and in more demand than ever. There are new sets (Spongebob is an example) there are new licenses (basketball, football) and many more things I could go into showing growth and continued upward trends. Records for individual card sales are being reached, records for total auction house spending is being reached every month. Etc etc

Now, I'm not a homer, I look at both sides. I see almost nothing showing we have peaked or are about to start heading back down. Most of the counter argument's are OPINIONS, and not actual market data. Examples:

-I think the market is not healthy.
-I think breaking is bad for the industry.
-Products cost too much.
-There isn't enough value in the boxes.
-I think there are too many parallel's.
-New people are not going to stay.
-People shouldn't buy into breaks because the return is too low.

Everything that gets complained about regularly are all individual perspectives. And the data says those perspectives are not the views the most people hold or the market would be correcting.

So to summarize, no I do not think the market is too big to fail or will go up forever. I think when it turns it is going to hurt a lot of people. But that can be said for any market. Stock market, housing market, Bitcoin, etc. When things take a dive it hurts. But back to cards in general, we have AT LEAST another year of nothing but full steam ahead. Beyond that its nothing but a guessing game. My honest opinion is that we push about 2 more years before it starts to turn. But outside factors can always influence that.

Sounds like we're thinking roughly along the same lines. Guess I was mistaken when reading some of your previous posts, on this thread and others. My fault

In the end I just don't like how things are, and saying something is the only "power" I have. I'll just keep on collecting, like I have for years. I feel bad for anyone who really did miss out on what collecting actual does for a person. It can be an escape from an odd, anxiety producing...just on the regular...world. And to me, what the card companies have done, what breakers have done, and I guess what we(collectors) have at least partially done to ourselves is turned into yet another uncomfortable, expensive and just unenjoyable experience.

[nonsportguy]

Originally Posted by sauceboy

Will blaster boxes be available in stores? The lowest price for them that I see on eBay is $59.99. I shouldn't be tempted to buy one, but I am.

I was tempted too but personally I'm going to hold out for a while because I have a feeling they'll be available widely and maybe even at regular price or even lower if the market doesn't bite initially as much as everyone expected.

But ultimately, it's your money so you decide what you want to do with it. I'm sure there's people on here who bought a ton just to resell, so at least that would make them happy if you decide to pull the trigger now.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by orion9578

I don't think the word manipulation was tossed around, that I saw(I'm "old" though, so, maybe it was), by anyone but me. Because that's exactly what's going on. Fanatics is selling 0.05% of their wax to the public and offloading semitruck loads off with breakers. From there, the breakers are making whatever ungodly amount it is, per box...so they drive up the secondary to sell to the gamblers, who, god bless them...are morons. That'd be manipulating the price of their product. I don't even think they put out MSRP anymore, that I see. It's just a "Hey, we offered 30 boxes to the 2,000 people wanting boxes, we did our part" company line. They know what they're doing. You'd have to either be blind, dumb or both to not see it.

You sell their product, so I get you coming in every thread, seemingly defending their business practices...but if you actually liked the hobby you're involved in and wanted it to be a healthy hobby, long term, you'd be pressing Fanatics to run things in a way that was not so manipulative.

I don't want 2018 prices for people. I don't even open wax anymore. What I think would be great is if Fanatics in particular would give people who DO want it an actual shot vs selling a small fraction to people who just want to flip it to breakers, who then make a crazy amount of money selling to lots of people with an actual sickness/addiction...and getting almost nothing in return, most of the time.

You raise a generation of new "collectors", which they are not...but we'll call them collectors for the sake of our conversation, on $1,000 Hobby boxes with $80 worth of cards in them...you raise them on money is all that matters in the HOBBY...you raise them on "How much is this worth" in every reddit post...you end up with a DEAD hobby in the long term. You end up with a select few well-off people as the only ones with TRUE access. Access to buy the inflated wax, the inflated singles...and they don't actually care about really anything hobby related, just their "investment"...and if it sinks, again, they don't care. Write it off, move on to the next thing.

My argument in all these threads is you need collectors and there are less and less of them every day. There are a ton of gamblers though, I'll give everyone that. There is tons of money flowing, while some of these sick individuals spend thousands of dollars to often times end up with virtually nothing.

I'd love for the hobby to be around in 20 years, or 50, whatever...long after I'm gone, but I have a feeling if we keep going down this road it won't be

PS. Yes, it is manipulative to people who aren't all that bright to have celebrities endorse their products. And to compare it to some random athlete using Old Spice in a commercial is just ignorant. A stick of Old Spice is $5. Go watch some of these breaks that are happening. People are spending $1,000 on slots and you'd be surprised how often some of them walk away with literally NOTHING, ZERO. Do some of those guys have the money to do that? Sure, I know they do...as I used to be one of them. I spent well over $1M on wax over my "collecting life". I also KNOW for a fact that the majority of the people in those breaks are going into serious credit card debt to feed an addiction and they're getting killed daily doing it.

So again, take a step back from the "I sell stuff for these guys" mentality and use your head to work out if this is sustainable for the hobby, long term.

Spot on. There's no other way to call this other than manipulative. When you see an EQL, you know the fix is in.

[greatgradegrate]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

I don’t think the collectors left though… so I’m not sure how Topps (or any other company) chasing the wave of new money is shortsighted if things just return to the base line we all enjoyed after the dust settles. We are still here after all and the new money Topps is getting is just added to the preexisting base.

...

So at the end of the day, I don’t think Topps is doing anything bad chasing maximum sales revenues now and the worst possible scenario for them is the market returns to “just us” (which is doubtful, honestly), but until then it makes sense for Topps (and other companies) to cash in when the going is good.

We can't say how many longtime collectors exited in the last year. It's all anecdotal. Me and my collector friends are half-out as of right now, since Antiquities (we are mainly SW collectors). Will we be committing pre-break-frenzy dollars if current climate subsides? Maybe. Depends how long it lasts.

I get the mentality of "it is what it is," but I don't relate to it. "Chasing maximum sales" is not something I personally wave off or gd forbid perceive as a virtue.

And I don't stay in hobbies that get more expensive and less fun. That's what it comes down to. They only have to make a few minor moves per product, sacrifice a modicum of tangible short term dollars, to placate a collector like me long term and yet...

There's a lot of cross-arguing in this thread, between those that are essentially gesturing "get over it, take it and like it, or leave" and those that are simply pointing out how the whole house of (trading) cards is wobbly, despite current appearance, right?

But everyone agrees that paying more for the same/less absolutely sucks so that should be the ultimate takeaway.

[finfangfan]

I no longer bust wax to the extent I used to, and it’s definitely a bummer. However, there are still a ton of cool deals on singles so I choose to stay in the hobby. I budget most of my card collecting with my COMC sales. COMc sales have been strong this year and I have been able to use the COMC credit to get some cool cards.

I still spend money out of pocket for ePack and maybe the occasional retail box/blaster, but that is where I see my card spending has been most drastically cut this year vs previous years. Most notably, since UD lost the Marvel license earlier this year, there are fewer cards I have been buying on ePack. I pick up Halo here and there and some comics (the Collect Forever HUSH exclusive covers have been cool!). However, the nonsports side of the ePack website seems to have lost a ton of regulars lately. Overall hobby pricing might have driven some away, but I think a more likely reason is that a large chunk of the ePack nonsports audience were Marvel cards fans and they left when Marvel left.

[nonsportguy]

Is there any chance of a group break on here for this?

[PoPCulture]

Originally Posted by nonsportguy

Is there any chance of a group break on here for this?

I won’t say zero chance so I’ll say there’s a 0.00000000001% chance of a Topps break of any kind happening on here again. ifish73 is the only one that still does breaks on here and he does focus on nonsports but the only products priced low enough to fill case breaks in modern times are Rittenhouse and CZE releases. Also UD products that are 2 years old and on clearance but those are probably over now that the Marvel license is gone

[PoPCulture]

I see that the release date is 10/01/2025. They overshot the 25th Anniversary by exactly 17 months.

[nonsportguy]

Originally Posted by PoPCulture

I won’t say zero chance so I’ll say there’s a 0.00000000001% chance of a Topps break of any kind happening on here again. ifish73 is the only one that still does breaks on here and he does focus on nonsports but the only products priced low enough to fill case breaks in modern times are Rittenhouse and CZE releases. Also UD products that are 2 years old and on clearance but those are probably over now that the Marvel license is gone

The only break I ever did on here was with ifish73 for Rick and Morty about 6 or 7 years ago and that was super fun. He really managed it well too. I remember watching him live stream the break and I was super excited to see what he pulled for us all to pick from.

[PoPCulture]

Originally Posted by nonsportguy

The only break I ever did on here was with ifish73 for Rick and Morty about 6 or 7 years ago and that was super fun. He really managed it well too. I remember watching him live stream the break and I was super excited to see what he pulled for us all to pick from.

Yeah he does a great job and they are always fun there just aren’t many of them anymore. Topps pricing would make it virtually impossible to do a spot break the way that he does them. Fanatics goons will be doing 200+ spot Character breaks but that would never work here.

[crdbored]

According to one of the big retailers:

Look for 2 numbered parallels per box on average. Find 5 autographs or sketch cards per case on average.

At current price point of hobby, 2 numbered per box could be tough for the price.
Autos/sketches look like every other box.

Blasters look to be better value if it's 1 #d (or slightly under 1) per blaster.

[nonsportguy]

Originally Posted by crdbored

According to one of the big retailers:

Look for 2 numbered parallels per box on average. Find 5 autographs or sketch cards per case on average.

At current price point of hobby, 2 numbered per box could be tough for the price.
Autos/sketches look like every other box.

Blasters look to be better value if it's 1 #d (or slightly under 1) per blaster.

Yikes... long gone are the days of 1 auto & 1 sketch per box.. feels like a dream now

[PrinceVegeta]

Originally Posted by nonsportguy

Yikes... long gone are the days of 1 auto & 1 sketch per box.. feels like a dream now

If people buy they will continue to cut content

[finfangfan]

I will definitely buy blasters of these if I find them at my Walmart/target/gamestop. Looks like a fun release!

[Sickleclaw]

Originally Posted by nonsportguy

Yikes... long gone are the days of 1 auto & 1 sketch per box.. feels like a dream now

Yeah, it seems only cryptozoic does that now, as I recall the christmas story ones had one auto and one sketch per box.

[nonsportguy]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

I will definitely buy blasters of these if I find them at my Walmart/target/gamestop. Looks like a fun release!

Are blasters the same thing as the value box that was $40 on the Topps website? If so, I'm definitely in for at least a few if I can find any. I had 3 in my cart on Topps right when they went live, but it kept selling out each time I tried to submit payment and then it would just clear out my cart completely.. I was so sad lol

[HiltonL]

Originally Posted by nonsportguy

Are blasters the same thing as the value box that was $40 on the Topps website? If so, I'm definitely in for at least a few if I can find any. I had 3 in my cart on Topps right when they went live, but it kept selling out each time I tried to submit payment and then it would just clear out my cart completely.. I was so sad lol

Generally yes, but my experience with value boxes has been sometimes they have exclusives, and often they have no real chance at hits other than colored parallels. YMMV