Break-even odds for high end packs (Exquisite, etc)

goodriddance189

has anyone done any research on the break-even odds for packs of ultra high end stuff, such as UD Ultimate or Exquisite? lets say you buy a $100 pack....what are the approximate odds of selling the cards and turning a profit?

iamthegreatcornholio

Good topic, I have done a lot of research on 2003 SP Legendary Cuts baseball. I estimated that 1/2 of the price of the box is spent on the 1/12 chance of the "chase" card inserted 1 per case - If you get the case card you make a lot, and if not you lose most of the time. Also, if you completely bust the case you will lose in the long-run because some of the cuts are worth less than $100. I learned a valuable lesson, that many unethical sellers on eBay bust the cases till the hit the "case" card and then sell the rest. Really these "cold" boxes are only worth about $50-$60, but they charge the full $80-$100, and that's how they make their money

Brian

ctsoxfan

I will say this - I bought 3 boxes of Ultimate, from 3 seperate cases. Total outlay = $1275.00 ($425 a box). I lost my ass on this expenditure, the only card I got worth mentioning is a Bosh Ultimate RC ($150). I have the rest on Ebay right now (keeping the Bosh), and the lot includes a Kobe jersey, a T-Mac auto, and a Payton auto. But, I'll be lucky to net $200 for them all. I don't know what this means as far as break even point, but I would have been better off buying a case of Exquisite for a few hundred more.

NBAFan

I will never buy any more ultimate collection again. Even hitting the James auto didn't change my mind. Selling prices ranged from around 1200 high (a few were higher) to around $700. I would never take that risk again. $525 for my box and even though it will bring a profit, the chances of dud boxes are too great to risk that again.

helionaut

I just posted this in another thread, would probably be better here.

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.

2001 Legendary Cuts was the back-breaker for me. I swore off buying UD boxes because of that. $135 for a box, and I got a McCovey jersey, a Buckner bat, a Fregosi bat, and about 70% of a base set. I wrote UD a letter complaining that while I could live with a McCovey jersey, Buckner and Fregosi were not "Legendary" and BTW, why don't they have enough cards in a pack to at least theoretically be able to complete a set? I got back a form letter stating how sorry they were with my unhappiness but since there was nothing "wrong" with the product there wasn't anything they could do.

They realized that as long as the hobby's focus was on the autos which come so rarely, they could justify the outrageous costs for 11 out of 12 boxes in the case being "dead." This is the pattern for all such developments in the hobby. If there is only one card in the case that holds the majority, or at least a significant portion, of the value of the case, the odds are that you aren't going to be happy. It is very tricky, though, to figure out how to spread value evenly and still keep the value appealing to all. Heritage this year did it, and I think that's about it so far. Even the base brands from the card makers are tough to enjoy. UD's boxes are too expensive all around, and Topps, Fleer and Donruss put out serviceable but very unexciting products in the low end.

goodriddance189

helionaut, excellent data, thanks for sharing.

envoy98

I second that. Nice post Helio...

envoy98

Oops. One other thing... I purchased 1 case of Exquisite(ly painful) basketball...Pd 1350, will recoup about 900 and I pulled a $500 Dwyane Wade... That's my experience. I've seen quite a few "packs" opened and read about a few dozen more breaks. They "hit" cards seem to be coming about 1:6...So I figure I'm ahead of the odds and should quite now. Just like I did with Ultimate. I bought 2 packs and pulled a Walton auto RC and a Jordan auto. (Thanks Roach!)

It's hit or miss but I think it's mostly miss...