2023 Upper Deck Marvel Masterpieces - Dan dos Santos

[sfgiants4life]

btw...I haven't opened any physical MM boxes since 1993. All of the recent MM sets I purchased through epack. Every other year I keep on saying this will be the year I open some physical product but...I guess the wait continues. Count me in for epack.

[MMguy]

Weren't the boxes up at $899?! WHY?!

I was hoping to get 1 or 2 boxes, this is the only set of Marvel cards I have been actively collecting, but for $899...no f'ing way.

And ePack is just...not that appealing to me.

[sfgiants4life]

Originally Posted by MMguy

Weren't the boxes up at $899?! WHY?!

I was hoping to get 1 or 2 boxes, this is the only set of Marvel cards I have been actively collecting, but for $899...no f'ing way.

And ePack is just...not that appealing to me.

Were you going to keep it sealed or open it up? I wanted to open some physical MM since I never did it with the new sets. I feel like it kind of sucks to open up so much epack but never open any physical.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by hobbystuff

Wasn't MM20 $250/box?

I believe it was. In just 2-3 years, we have come from 200-250 a box for MM to pushing 1k, a four-fold increase. And Im not convinced the market value of this box is even capped at $900 since it sold out in minutes at the price. Marvel card market cant be too soft when that's going on.

Physical and epack are utterly different beasts at this point....physical does derive a lot of its value from the box as a collectible unit in itself, capable of being flipped.

With perhaps around ~13.5k total boxes, and who knows what the epack/physical split is, perhaps 60/40, or maybe even 75/25 (speculation here), we could be looking at only 3000-5000 physical box range. And then a lot of those get opened (well...if anyone is gonna open now that some have sold at $900). But either way, there wont be many physical boxes of this out there in short time.....it becomes scarce and valuable.

[DynaEtch]

As a side note...

First standalone female character on the front of a Marvel Masterpieces box.

I do like the box art...it was a good choice.

So if this releases in a couple days, and anyone is actually opening it....would love to know if there are any errors in the product....make sure to post them if you see any. (I kinda wish UD would just let a few errors happen and slide through to make things interesting)

[MMguy]

Originally Posted by sfgiants4life

Were you going to keep it sealed or open it up? I wanted to open some physical MM since I never did it with the new sets. I feel like it kind of sucks to open up so much epack but never open any physical.

I was going to open all the boxes I bought; but, that looks like it won't happen. Physical brings back childhood memories; ePack takes all the fun out of it.

[TimBuckTwo]

FOMO is strong with this group.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by MMguy

Weren't the boxes up at $899?! WHY?!

Because there are people who will buy it at that price.

[1992UDFootball]

If boxes cost much more than 2020 MM on epack not only will I be spending significantly less on 22MM, if anything at all, it may be time to finally back off of epack period.

Already not a fan of all the parallels and the ambers being crammed into the product to bloat it out as it is.

[sfgiants4life]

Was 2020 mm $250 at release for physical boxes? I thought it was more. If it was $250 I would have thought I would have bought a box or two.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by sfgiants4life

Was 2020 mm $250 at release for physical boxes? I thought it was more. If it was $250 I would have thought I would have bought a box or two.

Per the 2020MM thread on here,

Physical 2020MM box presales opened up at $199, then went up from there ($225, then 250). By the time epack came out, physical boxes were going for like 300-325.

Epack was 249.99 a box.

Btw in the thread there were complaints that at 200 or 225 a box, people couldn’t see the value in it. Now boxes are going for 900+ a few years later, it’s crazy.

[fabiani12333]

I think $899 was always the price DA wanted to sell at. But they sold some boxes at a much lower price to give the impression of an organic increase in prices.

At $899, boxes are no longer consumable for the average buyer. It would be stupid to open a box or two with the average price of a card being $25.

In terms of future price movement of physical boxes, it's unclear how the market will respond to this release. The artist, Don dos Santos, is relatively unknown in the hobby, and new artwork can generally be hit-and-miss. It would make more sense to be bullish on the price of boxes if the artist had name-recognition and established popularity. In this case, investors and flippers are banking on the MM brand as opposed to the artist's brand.

My guess is boxes won't increase much more unless physical production is very limited -- which I'm suspecting might be the case. I also don't think consumers will be chasing pink Gallery cards or other added parallels, which have diluted and muddled MM. Unlike Marvel products with PMGs, it's hard to know at this point what cards are most desirable and being chased.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I believe it was. In just 2-3 years, we have come from 200-250 a box for MM to pushing 1k, a four-fold increase. And Im not convinced the market value of this box is even capped at $900 since it sold out in minutes at the price. Marvel card market cant be too soft when that's going on.

The dramatic increases in prices can't be a good thing long-term for the Marvel card market. It's basically upscaling the market and making it more exclusive.

[MMguy]

Steelcity now has the box at $1,000

That's it, I'm out, this will be the second MM set I don't open just like the 1996 set.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by MMguy

Steelcity now has the box at $1,000

That's it, I'm out, this will be the second MM set I don't open just like the 1996 set.

That's nearly $28 a card.

[mumnuts1]

Originally Posted by MMguy

Steelcity now has the box at $1,000

That's it, I'm out, this will be the second MM set I don't open just like the 1996 set.

I saw that. let the boxes sit there. Problem is, some big $ guy will come along and grab those boxes at $999.

[TimBuckTwo]

For me I hope to score at LCS. If not then it will be epack city only.

[mumnuts1]

Originally Posted by TimBuckTwo

For me I hope to score at LCS. If not then it will be epack city only.

Call your LCS today. Allocation for this product is almost non existent. My LCS received 1 box. 1 box -it's some kind of joke. He said upper deck just didn't make a lot of this product? All I Know is this product is extremely hard to get your hands on.

[notoriousrmb]

Originally Posted by mumnuts1

Call your LCS today. Allocation for this product is almost non existent. My LCS received 1 box. 1 box -it's some kind of joke. He said upper deck just didn't make a lot of this product? All I Know is this product is extremely hard to get your hands on.

UD is making less and less physical product. Overall print run is going to be the same as before, but most of it will be on e-pack so UD can keep all those profits in house.

That's one reason box prices are so much higher - anyone wanting a physical box will have to pay more as supply is so much less.

[mumnuts1]

Originally Posted by notoriousrmb

UD is making less and less physical product. Overall print run is going to be the same as before, but most of it will be on e-pack so UD can keep all those profits in house.

That's one reason box prices are so much higher - anyone wanting a physical box will have to pay more as supply is so much less.

So physical boxes will be limited and scarce because most product will be in e-pack. Makes sense for Upper Deck, but that's going to drive physical box price way up due to scarcity. Breakers must be having a fit not finding product.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by notoriousrmb

UD is making less and less physical product. Overall print run is going to be the same as before, but most of it will be on e-pack so UD can keep all those profits in house.

That's one reason box prices are so much higher - anyone wanting a physical box will have to pay more as supply is so much less.

It's rather smart on UDs part.

Make physical amount small. This drives prices way up because box is scarce and allocation is small.

Then, when it hits epack, they can justify a huge price, mirroring physical (knock it a little below secondary market physical box, but not by much). They also get the major benefit of selling most of it on epack, which is easily the better margin for them.

Picture a completely different scenario....no physical at all, UD just pops it up on on epack at $1k a box. People would be in an uproar. The way that it's done above sort of eases the transition into the higher epack price, people expect it since physical is selling so high.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by mumnuts1

I saw that. let the boxes sit there. Problem is, some big $ guy will come along and grab those boxes at $999.

If the online retailers only care about making the most money on products, they should start with much higher prices and work their way down. If there are whales willing to pay any price, why have them pay less than they're willing to?

Starting with lower prices just seems like a tease to average collectors and hobbyists. No one will blame retailers for charging the most they that they can. What gets annoying is the perception that customers have a chance at getting a few boxes at lower prices, when in reality it's very unlikely.

[DynaEtch]

The big question is how much physical there is. Any of the bigger sellers want to chime in with allocation they got in this compared to 2020/2018MM? Maybe that can give some clues to how much less of this went physical than those.

If it's like only 3000 physical boxes, this box is basically a valuable collectors item out of the gate. A decent chunk will be opened even after the first week as people get their presales...that doesnt leave a lot of boxes left.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

Starting with lower prices just seems like a tease to average collectors and hobbyists. No one will blame retailers for charging the most they that they can. What gets annoying is the perception that customers have a chance at getting a few boxes at lower prices, when in reality it's very unlikely.

This 100%.

The blame is not on steel or any of the retailers. The only thing to blame is the market and that people value the box that much so that they buy it. I mean that's just how it goes....people value the box that high, what can you do.

The box is slowly being sold at $1k, checking add to cart numbers, number is going down.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

It's rather smart on UDs part.

Make physical amount small. This drives prices way up because box is scarce and allocation is small.

Then, when it hits epack, they can justify a huge price, mirroring physical (knock it a little below secondary market physical box, but not by much). They also get the major benefit of selling most of it on epack, which is easily the better margin for them.

Picture a completely different scenario....no physical at all, UD just pops it up on on epack at $1k a box. People would be in an uproar. The way that it's done above sort of eases the transition into the higher epack price, people expect it since physical is selling so high.

If there are people and entities willing to pay $1k for a 32-card box, then there should buyers willing to pay those prices on ePack. Upper Deck doesn't need to play those kind of games. There may be an initial uproar over $75 ePacks, but a prestige product like MM will sell out eventually.

And if it doesn't sell out, it wasn't going to sell out regardless of what games Upper Deck plays.

I just lament the fact that MM is no longer accessible to average collectors.