Best wax packs to open for $100

TheCARDKid

If you had $100 total to spend, which packs are the best to open from a risk reward point of view? I'm familiar with vintage packs (say pre '80). But I'm not as familar with more modern post 1990 material.

Maybe there are some bargains lurking in the corner somewhere....

envoy98

Donruss Elite seems tough to beat the last couple of years. Some really nice pulls and a reasonable pack price. You could probably get (2) 20 pk boxes for $100, or close to it. I would shoot for 1 '03 and 1 '04 box. I think Dacardworld.com has the '03 boxes for about $50 and the 04 boxes for about 80-90. I haven't checked though, so don't quote me on that.

ctsoxfan

Which sport are you looking for? I assume baseball, but if you want a good football box, I like Playoff Contenders. The box might set you back $115-$125, but you get 4-5 rookie autos per box, and there are some high value cards in the 2003 series (Leftwich, Palmer, Boldin, etc.). Even a bad box will net you 4 auto rookies, and Playoff Contenders are considered the best (along with SP Authentic) football rookie cards to have.

envoy98

True CT, Contenders is a good product. Still hit or miss but when you are guaranteed 4-5 rookie autos, it's tough to go wrong. There is a lot of speculation in that set. I remember pulling Warner and Brady and Pennington out of packs and being kinda PO'd. Little did I know!

Bowman Rookies & Stars basketball is a good one too, but the price is up way too high now.

ctsoxfan

Envoy, you mentioned my favorite basketball product of the early season, Bowman R & S. I opened several boxes of that earlier in the season (and still have 5 unopened which I kept that way as the price shot up). I have noticed box prices on that inch down a bit as SP, SPx, and Ultimate stole a lot of the thunder, but I still love that product. I pulled a Gold Chrome Carmelo Refractor (# to 50), and several nice Lebron Chrome rookies, which might be his best non-auto r/c produced. There are also refractors, and auto rookies of Wade and Bosh in there. Good call!

KallMaloneSay

2001 Bowman Heritage baseball has some great rookies that don't have a lot of true RC's like Blalock, Morneau, Chase Utley, Jake Peavy, Marlon Byrd, Jerome Williams, and John VanBenschoten. The Short Prints aren't too tough to get and you do have an outside chance of getting an AUTO of Bonds, Clemens, or Yogi Berra. These packs are really cheap right now (maybe $55 a box on ebay) and they should only go up.
Jason

KallMaloneSay

Oh yeah, Pujols and Ichiro RC's too!

envoy98

That actually isn't a bad box. Good call KallMalone.

Another nice thing about Bowman R&S BK is that most of the cards grade pretty well too. I pulled 2 PSA 10 Lebron Chromes out of it. Never got a really good gold refractor though. Wally Szczerbiak, Garnett, Gary Payton and such, but no rookies. I ripped 5 boxes of the stuff for $80/box. Now it's up around 130-160. Still a great break and a fun rip. Fleer Platinum BK is actually a fun rip too, so is Topps Chrome Bk.

Baseball, I have to say the best long term risk/reward probably lies in Bowman DP&P. Kind of a boring rip though IMO. ONe auto every 1 1/2 boxes... a bunch of people you may have never heard of. But if you hit that gold refractor... in a couple of years it might be a several hundred dollar card.

I say buy what you have fun with. For example, I bought a few boxes of Fleer Tradition and Fleer Platinum basketball because the rookies all came out in great shape in Tradition, and there were a couple of each in some cases and it was cheap. With Platinum you got a multi colored patch of somebody guaranteed in one of 4 packs. Just go to the store and buy the 4 jumbos at $5 each and you'll double your money in many cases, or at least add a cool multicolor patch to your collection for $20. YOu could even be a cheap a$$ and buy one at a time until you get the patch and then stop.

If you want great risk and potentially great reward, sp signature, leaf limited and timeless treasures are all good for that. You might hit a lou gehrig cut auto/bat/pants card #/4 or you might get a Jose Canseco jsy #/88 like I did. Now for $90 thats risk/reward!