Pack Secrets Revealed-talk me in from the ledge

helionaut

Modern card ebay scanners probably have seen that there are a couple people selling unopened packs that are guaranteed to have a GU/auto/whatever inside. Apparently, they're on the level, as they have perfect or near-perfect feedback, with many buyers telling what they pulled in the fb line. Now, one of them has decided to reveal his "secrets". I'm really very curious to see what knowledge would be revealed, and for only $8, I'm really tempted. I don't think I'd ever use these secrets, as there are only a couple card shops in town that I go to, and they mix up the packs within a box, so if there's a pattern to follow, it'll get foiled. I would be very disappointed to find that these secrets involve weighing, measuring, feeling, or opening every pack in the box but one.

As curious as I am, though, I can't stand the thought of just throwing $8 away. But if I do make this purchase, don't worry, I'll post them here.

envoy98

Well, I'll say this. You probably don't want to post them here, I think you would open yourself up for a flaming you may not recover from. I have seen people (kids) post these same things on the beckett boards and they get completely throttled.

I have spoken with admitted pack searchers, seen their posts and heard their "stories". It's not as tough as you'd think and the info is not valuable in terms of dollars. It involves some pretty lazy techniques, and in the case of auto's (topps/bowman in particular) you'll end up damaging cards more times than not. Plus, if someone at a local wal/k-mart saw you doing it you'd be an outcast forever.

Stay on the right-side of the law and live the good soapbox life!

TheRoach

Helionaut,

I actually paid for the same thing off Ebay about 3 months ago. I bought a few packs of Bowman Chrome Football that the seller said had "guaranteed autos" in each pack. I paid about $7 a pack for 3 of them. When they came, sure enough, each pack had an auto'd RC.

Anyway, on the back of each auto there is a small square hologram near one of the corners ( usually top left ). From what I understand, the people push all of the cards to one side of the pack and then carefully pull individual cards to the other side while rubbing/feeling for the slightly embossed hologram sticker. That is one way. That seems like a heck of a lot of work ( 36 pks per box ) for one auto that may just be a bum.

Using Mettler Scales is a definite possibility. I use them here at work, and they get down to hundreths of a gram. If packs that contain a game used or auto w/sticker are slightly heavier than the packs without, this scale will definitely show you the difference. I think in both examples I gave you, the person doing the searching definitely has an inside associate at a retail outlet that gives the searcher the boxes to search before they are put out for sale. This way they could take their time. I did hear of the X-ray method before.

The guy that I paid $5 for "trade secrets" just sent me an email shortly afetr I paid him. Real short and generic. I was pissed. All of his "secrets" were mere assumptions. It just seemed like he was giving me his opinions. Nothing really mind blowing either. Pretty lame info that you could probably assume yourself. He didn't even have to pay for a stamp!!

I honestly have never searched a single pack in my life othetr than maybe looking at the top card in see through packs. It seems like a lot of work. And with all of the crappy rookies that are loaded into the UD products these days, it doesn't guarantee anything good. I wouldn't want to get caught searching packs at the local retail store either. Pretty embarrassing one would think.




TheRoach

Ironmanfan

On the other hand, it may be well worth $8 just to see what they say...........

envoy98

Oh yeah, and $8 is a rip anyway. I've seen people post the same info for 2.99 BIN. It's probably all the same email or word doc anyway. One person buys it and resells it to a hundred other people. That's the real scam!

SoFLPhillyFan

helio-

Don't do it. Think of the ramifications.

You will never again experience the euphoria of buying a box and randomly ripping open packs to find that one great card.

Once the thrill is taken from you, you will only look for this cheap excitement found in gently massaging brightly colored and decorated foil. You family will wonder about all the small "paper cuts" on your finger tips....the tell tale signs of a chronic pack searcher.

You may spend your days wandering from one large box retailer to another, Wal Mart, Target, Toys R Us, they'll all look the same after awhile. And all will provide only the semblance of that first euphoric victory.

After being banned from all of the retailers in your area, we'll find you on a corner somewhere begging passersby to buy you a hobby box just so that you can search the packs and find the hot one.

For God's sake man, think of your future.

Don't give in to the temptation.

pandrews

<< <i>helio-

Don't do it. Think of the ramifications.

You will never again experience the euphoria of buying a box and randomly ripping open packs to find that one great card.

Once the thrill is taken from you, you will only look for this cheap excitement found in gently massaging brightly colored and decorated foil. You family will wonder about all the small "paper cuts" on your finger tips....the tell tale signs of a chronic pack searcher.

You may spend your days wandering from one large box retailer to another, Wal Mart, Target, Toys R Us, they'll all look the same after awhile. And all will provide only the semblance of that first euphoric victory.

After being banned from all of the retailers in your area, we'll find you on a corner somewhere begging passersby to buy you a hobby box just so that you can search the packs and find the hot one.

For God's sake man, think of your future.

Don't give in to the temptation. >>



Scumbi-esque!

NBAFan

I know a guy that used to do it back in the mid-90's. Nothing was great back then, just got the inserts. He took a micrometer and measured the thickness and he was very quick about it being around 75% accurate. Now all that stuff is garbage. I believe it was they year UD had the Red Hot Prospects or whatever the insert was with a player on the front and back with red borders and the other inserts available in that years product including TV Cells.

joestalin

The companies are at fault for this! They can fix this if they actually had the inteligence to know what
to fix. The companies are relly blind and clueless, of course they wonder why they are buying back
23 bent packs then maybe they will wise up...I really don't know why ANYONE would buy loose
retail pack today, and while I have bouhgh heritage, and I haven't seen any guarenteed autos out
of that product, I will continue to only buy from full boxes or buy the sealed boxes.

I was about to confront a guy at a recent card show I was at. It was obvious that all his cards were
from searched packs. The guy was dumber than a door nail, and didn't know anything about the cards
in that product or packs. Chances are if you pulled 10 autographs out of one pack then you know
a little bit about the product.....afterall you probably opened about 100 packs at least right?

My favorite weapon to use against the scums is the old "visit the security man" trick. Once you see
the pack searcher stationed at the card section, go to the security guard on duty and tell them that
there is a fat guy over there who is opening packs and bending cards.......then sit back and watch
the action. I also like to ask the searcher while he is doing his business

"which ones haven't you searched yet, Id like to pull something too!"

Its too bad that these scum are killing the hobby for some kids. You would like to feel that at any point
in the opening of packs that you have the same odds at any time. The companies need to back up
their products with true pack searching fixes...ones that work!

JS

NBAFan

Personally I wish UD would come out with a product with a guarenteed Auto'd Memorabila per box like Fleer Legacy did with Baseball and Basketball, even though there still were some redemptions. The way the companies are going, the cards they produce are killing the industry. GU and Autos are now so common it's pathetic because companies are putting them one per pack or box. Heck, some boxes have multiple autos. Where do the companies go from here to create something new?

kuhlmann

How about this! topps ud etc.. should start inserting 4 seats to ball games! redem at local ball park near you. so you pull it you have a free night to take your kids to the game. just a thought but i can see that becoming a big hit! what do you guys think?

NBAFan

Never would work, especially if someone would try to redeem them for sold out match ups. IE: Cubs/Brewers

They would have to actually buy tickets and insert them in packs/boxes and that could end up being a fan in New York pulling Giants/Padres tickets, which do that fan no good.

ctsoxfan

JS is right. The card companies should be wise to this, and especially in retail packs, they should be making a tamper-proof (and search proof) pack. There are many ways to do this, all of them would involve spending a few cents extra in the packing process, but I am sure collectors would pay for the security of knowing that their packs were not searched by the pack feeling scum.

I can't imagine any of this process contains any great secrets (feel the pack, weigh the pack, fondle the pack) whatever...it's not rocket science. The only good thing to come out of this is if you bought the "secrets" and posted them here. And everywhere. Just so fewer people would be tempted to buy them.

NickM

Some packs are so easy to search it's not funny.

In the early days of Pacific football, insert cards were added to the pack as an extra card. Buying the thicker packs was not a foolproof way of getting an insert card each time, as their checklists and special offers were also inserted as extra cards, and packs sometimes came out with more base cards than they should have, but if you opened nothing but the extra-thick packs, you would get insert cards in about 1/3 of them and extra base cards in another 1/6.

Several Upper Deck sets have had patch or similar inserts which make a pack twice as thick as average. Thankfully, most of those are hobby-only products, and it's so easy to tell the special pack from every other that they get sold separately.

There were some sets where the chase card came in the same place in every box - 2001 Upper Deck Hall of Famers was maybe the most notorious example, as the game-used card occurred in the bottom back on the right hand row every time. Once you've learned a trick like this, you don't even need to do anything destructive of the packs to pull the chase card.

Then there are die-cut inserts. If one of those is on the top or bottom of most packs, simple handling will reveal its presence.

I heard at the Hollywood Park show a pack searching horror story. A walk-in was trying to sell a Pacific Private Stock Michael Vick rookie (IIRC, they are numbered to 500) to one of the dealers. The dealer wouldn't offer anything for the card because it had significant back wrinkles. The seller was very upset, as his mother had purchased that pack and a bunch of others for him for his birthday, and that was the only really nice card in about 50 packs. The dealer explained to him that somebody had searched all the packs and damaged them in the process of pulling out every good card that felt different.

Nick

joestalin

Its obvious that the companies don't care....2004 SPA baseball includes buy backs! Nice idea but the card
and COA are put in a penny sleeve and then put into packs! Talk about easy pickings. I also remember the
brick days of UD GU, that was 3 or 4 years ago and you know what...it isn't much better today! Since I have
been bit*hing for a while here, I might suggest some solutions!

For any product that includes sticker autos:

1) Avoiding stickers or anything that raises a part of the card will stump the searcher. You know
what pack you will never see on ebay as "guarenteed auto"? 00 Fleer GOTG....if you know what
the cards look like then you will know why.
2) If you must use a sticker auto, then seal the cards in a way where they don't move (like how fleer
packed cards in the 80's) and don't forget solid color wrapping! I would say about 60% of retail
packs today have see-through wrap!

For any GU: They must make the decoys feel the same as the GU....how hard is that? You must also
make car thicknesses equal to the thickness of the base cards or its multiples.....either =2 cards or
3=cards or 4....... That way the pack thickness look all the same....also, what about unbendable
decoys in EVERY pack?

For any product over a certain price or high end products, just put them in a small box, which will
eliminate searching! How hard is this? Packs aren't 99 cents anymore...they jacked up prices then
the cards should be more secure.

Hey listen, anyone who has collected for just a small amount of time can tell you where the money cards
are, you just notice things like this when you are opening a full box, some exploit that info and search
at retail outlets where there is little to no resistance. Some even have the pelotas to do it at hobby shops.

I can post a lot of the blame for this on beckett...they say NOTHING about this problem ever. If they
had the balls to take this one it would improve the hobby much. The companies aren't going to make an
effort unless they have some "motivation"

JS

Stone193

<< <i>I really don't know why ANYONE would buy loose
retail pack today, and while I have bouhgh heritage, and I haven't seen any guarenteed autos out
of that product, I will continue to only buy from full boxes or buy the sealed boxes. >>


Being a longtime veteran of target/walmart/toysrus/sams etc. retail purchasing, I will say without a doubt to AVOID open boxes unless you see the guy open it and place it on the shelf. I watched a guy
fondling cards and I walked up next to him and looked at stuff, constantly saying "excuse" me till he got flustered and left. Get out the 'pack feeler police' and take this guy out of circulation!
Mike

ctsoxfan

A lot of the bigger stores aren't even aware of the problem. I caught a pack feeler a few months ago at a local Target. I confronted him, and he basically ran away from me, but I noticed he remained in the store. I explained what he was doing to a store manager, and by the time any action was taken, the guy had vanished. She (the manager) didn't really seem to care much about the situation.

helionaut

FYI, I am not going to buy this thing. While I am curious to see what this guy has figured out, I'm sure it's something along the lines of what I don't need, i.e. weighing, measuring, and feeling. Those are not "secrets." But I do wonder about these things. I know that in early 90s UD 36-pack boxes, in the front left stack, there will be an insert in the pack either 2nd or 3rd from the bottom. I'll give you that one for free.

envoy98

Here's another freebie. I figured this out while opening 3 boxes of SP Sweet Spot Classic. The cards with the autos or the "patches" are all bendable, the decoys are not. Only problem is, in the packs that have the decoys are the 1/box gu jsy cards. I figured this out cuz my fiancee kept asking to open some and she kept getting the patches and stuff so I started feeling the packs to see if I could tell and wouldn't ya know... I also noticed on SP Authentic basketball from this year, the auto and rookie auto were always in the same row. Doesn't do me much good since I always buy a sealed box, just in case some other slappy already knew that... There's a copule freebies for you. But if you open any product at all you figure that stuff out pretty quickly. It does appear that SPA Baseball is the same way, and the buybacks are easy to find if you want to look. They are only 1/case though. A lot of work to check 24 packs and not find one so you double check to see if you were wrong.