Thursday, September 27, 2018

Why buy retail?


Often times I ask myself why I ever buy my baseball cards retail, mostly because I have yet to come up with a good answer.

Case in point: I recently bought a $20 blaster of 2018 Topps Fire. There is no reason I should be buying a $20 blaster of 2018 Topps Fire. You only get 48 cards per blaster (over 40 cents per card), I'm not wild about the design, and most of these will be available for dimes the next time I'm able to hit a show.

This is what the sane part of me tries to tell myself -- and yet, more often than not, it's the compulsive side of me that ends up winning out and exiting the store with a blaster box nestled in my hands.




Topps Fire is what I call an accumulation set: my only real hope is to accumulate cards of guys I collect, which Fire and its star-studded checklist did indeed provide.

But is the promise of sheer accumulation a good enough reason to open a product? I don't know: if you're lucky you might hit a decent rookie whose cards you have little interest in paying more than a buck or two for on the secondary market (e.g. Acuna), but that's really the only cost-efficient excuse I can think of for buying retail, and it doesn't even matter to me that much because it's not like I'm a big rookie hoarder.

So yes, here's something like my 153rd different Cespedes and 126th different Trout, and while I'm happy to have them, standard run-of-the-mill cards like these are little more than accumulation fodder right now.




Unlike some other sets, Topps Fire doesn't even have specific stuff for me to covet because all the cards kinda blend together after a while (though I was surprisingly pleased by last year's Fire, I really wish this had been a one-off set).

I was fortunate enough to pull perhaps the only thing I actually pinpointed from the checklist with that Goose Gossage, because you just don't see too many cards of him with the Padres these days.




Fire's inserts fail to get me fired up -- instead I'm left to wonder what's with all the nuclear-waste-yellow tint this year.

Perhaps the possibility of an autograph is enough to get some people to buy retail, but not me: while pulling an auto was certainly a surprise, I can't say I got too worked up over one of some dude on the Phillies I'd never heard of.




Fire's eye-catching parallels are really the only distinct thing(s) about it, but again, the question: are they enough to justify the purchase of an entire blaster?




Probably not: but in the meantime, I should mention that I pulled this shiny Shohei (something called a Flame parallel), which in a small way made this blaster at least semi-worthwhile to me.

Really the main satisfactions I get out of opening retail exist in the abstract. The thrill of opening a pack wrapper, busting wax, scratching the itch, etc., etc. I guess sometimes it's more about the feeling of it than the cards themselves. In the end, it seems as though buying retail mirrors a lot of our habits as collectors: there's not much reason behind it, but yet we still do it.

Because nobody ever said collecting baseball cards was a sane person's business.

13 comments:

P-town Tom said...

Tucker Barnhart received insert treatment? Did I miss something during 2018?
That Goose card is pretty cool!

Fuji said...

Retail blasters are proof that card collecting is an addiction (to me). I know that I have less than a 10% chance of pulling my moneys worth, yet I still buy the stuff. Since I rarely see blasters at my local Targets, sometime I'll grab it just because it's there. Like that's some small victory or something.

Registered History said...

In all fairness, he was a Gold Glove winner last year. And we all know Topps likes to live in the past.

night owl said...

I've gone over and over this in multiple blog posts and yet some collectors are baffled that I buy cards off the retail shelves.

Why buy retail?

BECAUSE THERE ARE CARDS ON THE SHELVES RIGHT THERE. DON'T YOU SEE THEM?

Accessibility. You can't beat it.

Ben Schroeder said...

Congratulations. You got the exact same auto as me in your $20 blaster box as I did in my $70 "hobby" box.

Billy Kingsley said...

I buy retail because I am a set collector that can no longer afford a hobby box of every set...and retail usually has exclusive parallels.

Brett Alan said...

Everyone's talking about retail vs. hobby; I think the real question is unopened vs. buying by the card. For me, whenever I go to a show there are lots of cards I want for a dime or less, and even the hits are a better value when I buy them at shows or on eBay. Now, granted, there are plenty of hits that are out of my price range, but, realistically, how likely am I to pull them anyway?

You're paying a big premium for the fun of opening packs. And it IS fun, so what I will do is buy blasters when they're marked down, which Wal-Mart and K-Mart often do with older product, or if a dealer at a show has one at a discount. And occasionally I'll just scratch the itch with a cheap junk wax pack or a dollar store repack.

But I'm a big cheapskate at heart, so YMMV.

Scribbled Ink said...

Can we call Topps silly, worthless inserts sets "accumulation fodder" instead of inserts from now on? I love that.

Bru said...

Sigh. Same. But if that Verlander is available I’d be happy to give him a home.

Jongudmund said...

That's a nice card of Goose Gossage.

Defenders50 said...

It is interesting though isn't it. As someone who leans towards being a set collector, I'll fully vouch that the 1-2 sets I just bought off of eBay (to catch up on the last 20 years for nostalgia's sake) aren't likely to feel quite as cool as the 2015 Stadium Club set I pieced together (though not via retail) over many different purchases. There's something about putting a collection together that retail is supposed to appeal to.
And Topps knows it, which is why they collate they way they do to milk us for as much as they can.

Mike said...

The Goose is loose!!..worth it just for that and Ohtani!!

acrackedbat said...

the Flames parallels are HOT - my favorites. I'm short three cards for an unintentional set build. Good collation for a change, brought me to this point.