BBCE National Review

gemint

@ReedBBCE said:
Do I think there's still a lot of pre-1970 unopened, to the point that individuals are hoarding them? No, and my reasoning is somewhat solid. While I was born in 1974 and started buying/selling in the late 1980s, I still think I can safely say that nobody was consciously putting away unopened product until the 1970s rolled around, and even then, how much could anyone possibly come across? If they found ten boxes of something, could they really afford to do so without selling most if not all of it? When prices started to jump in the 1980s and 1990s, why wouldn't you have sold then? And, given that most of these collectors who started well before the 1980s explosion, would most if not all of them be quite old or have passed away already? Why isn't that stuff or hasn't that stuff come to market?

This has nothing to do with the lack of supply that we have at BBCE. Your point about product never going on the website or it selling immediately is more spot on. I don't work out of the office, so sadly, I don't get to see all the cool stuff that comes in. Hell, I didn't even know about that 1958 Topps Football Wax Box we had at the National until I saw it in the showcase! Yes, a lot of the big stuff either ends up at auction or gets privately sold. I wish I could give you more info on those transactions, but I am never part of it unless a seller contacts me instead of Steve.

Thanks for the reply Reed. The reason I thought there may be hoarders out there is because there was still a fair amount of product around in the 90s. Besides Mark Murphy, there were a number of other sellers out there like the Perfect Card Company and HOF Sportscards who broke full boxes of 60s wax packs at every show. I know of one prevalent ripper who devoured three first series cello boxes of 1961 Topps among many others. Hank or Hal Steinbrenner (I never remember which one) is also an infamous vintage pack ripper. I just assumed there were other aggressive buyers at the time who put them away and didn't rip what they had. The auction catalogs in the 90s and even 00's had a large supply of pre-1970 for sale in every auction. And of course the BBCE website on the wayback machine looking back 10-15 years ago reveals a mouth watering array of 50s and 60s pack listings. Maybe most of that stuff gets ripped. I have a small stash of unopened back to 1960, so maybe what's left is littered throughout the hobby in small quantities.

Whatever the reality, it's fun to contemplate what's still out there.

grote15

@detroitfan2 said:

@ReedBBCE said:

@detroitfan2 said:

@ReedBBCE said:

@VintagemanEd said:
Man that was awesome! Reed was there many bad boxes that didn’t pass authentication?

Boxes don't pass authentication all the time. If you check our Facebook page, you'll see that on Tuesday night, I took a 1986/87 Fleer Basketball Wax Box back to the hotel to authenticate. The packs were good, there were three Jordan stickers and the sticker runs all lined up, and I even identified three Jordan RC runs as well, but we couldn't authenticate the box because it was clear the box was "put together", as the 36 packs were not original to the box. The telltale sign was the different shades of color in the wrappers.

Ugh, I am so confused! I was under the impression that a BBCE authenticated box simply meant that the box contained 36 (or whatever the original count was) authenticated packs, not that the packs were necessarily original to the box. I thought that was the whole beauty of the FASC designation. What am I missing?

Each product has to be considered on case by case basis (no pun intended.) With cards commanding big money these days, everything counts - condition, authentication, provenance, the backstory behind the deal, etc. 1986/87 Fleer Basketball is an exception to the "any 36 packs in a box makes it a box" rule for many reasons:

1. Clean boxes have sold for $70K+; if you are spending that kind of money, you want to know you're item checks off all the boxes - comes from a quality source, looks factory fresh, passes all authentication tests, etc.
2. The wrapper is transulcent - and that's good and bad. Good, because we can identify what cards may be in the packs, therefore ensuring the box is legit, and bad, because someone can identify what cards may be in the packs, and maybe remove all the Jordan rookies from a box.
3. The set is extremely small compared to the number of cards in a box; a perfect, legit box yields three sets. It cannot make any more sets, and because the collation of 1986/87 Fleer is so precise, a legit box should not yield less than three sets. Collectors who broke this product back in 1986 report that this fact is indeed true.

If we authenticated one of these boxes the way it was done back in the 1990s/2000s (sticker counts are correct and nothing more) someone like me - who has a lot of knowledge about this product and could over time, accumulate a bunch of loose packs - could build a 36 pack box with the correct sticker count (three of every player, and a fourth sticker of three random players) but make sure that every pack in the box would have crap (the "S" and "G" pack - they would be cards in the row from #34-44 and #100-110 - I think Isiah is the only star) or have like 12 Olajuwon rookies. Can you then imagine a breaker opening this box (with a BBCE wrap) and the PR nightmare that would follow for that breaker, BBCE, and Steve?

That makes complete sense, and I'm glad to hear it. The problem, of course, is where to draw the line, or even how to draw the line when considering the "case by case basis". I know I'd be much more likely to spend $1650 on BBCE's unopened 1978 Topps Baseball Wax Box if I knew I was guaranteed to get the distribution that was typical in 1978 instead of potentially getting a Bombo Rivera in every pack. I also know that it's virtually impossible to know with a 1978 Topps Baseball box if the packs were original to the box or not.

All that being said, as a buyer, that "line" is vitally important to me. I was stunned to learn a few years back that "unopened box" did not mean "unopened box" but instead meant "box of 36 unopened packs". It is also why to this day I am a bit surprised at how little information regarding the "condition, authentication, provenance, the backstory" is included in the description of unopened material on BBCE's web-site, whether the box is $100, $1000, or $70K+.

There is a way to at least get a fairly certain idea if a 78 Topps baseball wax box is original as one will contain an equal distribution of wrapper variations with each uniform layer in the box.

Very interesting thread!

Unknown

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ReggieCleveland

Reed, in the future, if you guys could do like everyone else and just leave your eBay stuff available for sale and let people know there will be a delay in shipping that would be awesome. I missed out on a card I really wanted because I couldn't buy it during the National and then wasn't online whenever you guys turned it all back on. I would have gladly waited a month delay as long as I knew I was getting it. Just food for thought. Thanks.

Arthur

ReedBBCE

@ReggieCleveland said:
Reed, in the future, if you guys could do like everyone else and just leave your eBay stuff available for sale and let people know there will be a delay in shipping that would be awesome. I missed out on a card I really wanted because I couldn't buy it during the National and then wasn't online whenever you guys turned it all back on. I would have gladly waited a month delay as long as I knew I was getting it. Just food for thought. Thanks.

Arthur

Arthur-

I know where you're coming from and I'm sorry you missed out on a card. We let everyone know on our FB page a few days in advance that our eBay store will be down, as we take a large amount of inventory to The National. You could have sent me an email or called me, and I would have gladly held the card for you. The reason why we don't leave the store active is we sell a lot of cards at the show - A LOT. It would be a nightmare and excessively time consuming to have to notify the office to take a card down when it sold or try to do it ourselves at the show. We sold close to 2,000 items that were in our eBay store during the show!

ReggieCleveland

@ReedBBCE said:

@ReggieCleveland said:
Reed, in the future, if you guys could do like everyone else and just leave your eBay stuff available for sale and let people know there will be a delay in shipping that would be awesome. I missed out on a card I really wanted because I couldn't buy it during the National and then wasn't online whenever you guys turned it all back on. I would have gladly waited a month delay as long as I knew I was getting it. Just food for thought. Thanks.

Arthur

Arthur-

I know where you're coming from and I'm sorry you missed out on a card. We let everyone know on our FB page a few days in advance that our eBay store will be down, as we take a large amount of inventory to The National. You could have sent me an email or called me, and I would have gladly held the card for you. The reason why we don't leave the store active is we sell a lot of cards at the show - A LOT. It would be a nightmare and excessively time consuming to have to notify the office to take a card down when it sold or try to do it ourselves at the show. We sold close to 2,000 items that were in our eBay store during the show!

Ahhh, yeah, that makes sense. I see where you're coming from. I actually sent a message on eBay but just got the "we'll reopen some time next week." I'm not on facebook. But I totally understand where you guys are coming from with the inventory. It didn't occur to me that you'd be bringing all the single cards. Thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

Arthur

ReedBBCE

@ReggieCleveland said:

@ReedBBCE said:

@ReggieCleveland said:
Reed, in the future, if you guys could do like everyone else and just leave your eBay stuff available for sale and let people know there will be a delay in shipping that would be awesome. I missed out on a card I really wanted because I couldn't buy it during the National and then wasn't online whenever you guys turned it all back on. I would have gladly waited a month delay as long as I knew I was getting it. Just food for thought. Thanks.

Arthur

Arthur-

I know where you're coming from and I'm sorry you missed out on a card. We let everyone know on our FB page a few days in advance that our eBay store will be down, as we take a large amount of inventory to The National. You could have sent me an email or called me, and I would have gladly held the card for you. The reason why we don't leave the store active is we sell a lot of cards at the show - A LOT. It would be a nightmare and excessively time consuming to have to notify the office to take a card down when it sold or try to do it ourselves at the show. We sold close to 2,000 items that were in our eBay store during the show!

Ahhh, yeah, that makes sense. I see where you're coming from. I actually sent a message on eBay but just got the "we'll reopen some time next week." I'm not on facebook. But I totally understand where you guys are coming from with the inventory. It didn't occur to me that you'd be bringing all the single cards. Thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

Arthur

I know a lot of collectors are not on Facebook, but I'm pretty sure you can still view our page and bookmark it for future reference. Not being a FB user just means you can't post or get alerts when a new post is up.

https://www.facebook.com/BBCExchange/

We post pics of new product releases in the retail store, my co-worker Joe writes a blog every week about all sorts of stuff off the top of his head, I post pics of cool stuff I see around the office whenever I'm in town, we share links to interesting hobby stories, but most importantly, it's where I post my updates from the buying trips - complete with commentary, pics, and more.