UD Exquisite - The "mystery box" of card collecting

iamthegreatcornholio

The only reason I haven't bought one is because it is basketball and even still it calls me, but the tales of others fortunes and misfortunes remind me of the classic tale of Peter Griffin and the mystery box....

"Salesman: Hold on there! You can have the boat, OR you can have the mystery box!

Lois: What, are you kidding, we'll take the bo..

Peter: No, wait a minute, Lois, a boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything! It could even be a boat! You know how much we've wanted one of those!

Lois: Then let's just...

Peter: We'll take the box

(in car on the way home)

Lois: (Mocking Peter) We'll take the box. You gave up a boat for free tickets to a crappy comedy club!

Peter: Lois, relax! Jeez, you're acting like this is the first time I've ever done anything stupid! You remember that time we could have got that boat?

(flashback)
Peter: No, wait a minute, Lois, a boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything! It could even be a boat! You know how much we've wanted one of those!

Lois: Then let's just...

Peter: We'll take the box
(back in car)

Lois: Peter, that was ten minutes ago!"

It's probably only funny if you've ever seen Family Guy, but boy is it true....

Brian

EagleEyeKid

I remember that episode. Gotta luv that show. Wife bought me the 7 DVD collection last Christmas. Haven't gotten to it yet, but I've seen about half of it. Think it's the first season set.

I'll stick with the cheap boxes......$5 - $10 old boxes are still always fun. Like tonight....boring Friday nite after sitting in traffic.....91-92 UD Czech Hockey case is tonight's pick for me. Yeah they're overproduced, but still fun.

NBAFan

The best one is from UHF during the Wheel of Fish game show.

I'll Take the box, the box.

Let's see what's inside the box? Nothing! Absolutely Nothing! Stupid!!! You're so Stupid!!!!

Kabir75

I have that show on DVD man it cracks me up

Can't wait till they have new episode in Jan 2005 on Fox

pick6investments

I am torn whether to buy one at sportsfest this friday. I want to but know better. I bet I buy one and get about 100.00 worth of cards.

NBAFan

Buy one, it's a one time experience you will never forget. Hit or Miss, you'll never buy another one probably.

I broke down and bought a box of Ultimate Collection for $525 and I never thought I would do that.

First pack had Billups base /25, Dwayne Wade Patch RC, Paul Pierce Buy Back Winning Materials /27?

Second Pack had a Garnett Auto which later I found out to be an SP

Third Pack had an Oscar Robertson GU card

Last pack had a Lebron James Auto RC


So basically unless you hit a huge rc, or a very low star auto or gu you will have a hard time making your money back.

helionaut

If you do a search on ebay (I searched NBA cards for "exq* -case* -box* -bx* -pack*"), at this moment 3721 past auctions appear excluding boxes and packs. So between 745 and 3721 packs were opened and their contents sold on ebay. I suspect it's more like a couple thousand since there are so few base singles in relation to patches and such. If you narrow that search to items that closed at $500 or more, you get 142 items, but 13 started at $500+ and did not get a bid. Actually, the top card, a $4850 Yao Ming auto isn't from Exquisite, but from SP Authentic. I didn't look at all of them to see where reserves weren't met, or which ones were lots versus singles, or which ones weren't really Exquisite, and my search might have excluded a few depending on what they had in the title, but I think this is a good rough indication. If we estimate conservatively and say 1500 packs were opened and the cards sold on ebay, there's about a 9.5% chance of finding a single card to recoup most if not all of your costs.

I think it's interesting that the ratio is so high. In my experience with what used to be called high-end product (Legendary Cuts, etc.), the odds of recouping your costs from a box were much lower than that, like around 2-3%. If more than 1500 packs actually had been opened, the percentage would naturally go down. I guess it's most surprising since the vast majority of cards end up selling for less than $100, and the bottom end is so low, like base card singles selling for just a couple bucks and even the rookie auto/patches selling for $10 or less. There have only been 621 auctions ending between $100 and $499. All the value really is in the one big card.

BTW, that $4850 Yao Ming card was rnm. I wonder how much that guy wanted for it. I would take $4850 for it in a heartbeat.