Are VENDING boxes any good ?

dazedandamazed

When I was younger back in the 80's, I heard many times, that "vending" cards were factory rejects that werent good enough to be put in packs.

If you think of the concept that pulling 3 cards out of slim slot, you know getting mint cards is not in the works regardless.

I realize there have been some vending case busts, but I wonder if anyone noticed printing defects galore on them ?

Maybe the older collectors know of this to be true or myth

But compare BBCE prices on wax box vs. vending box ... 1/2 the cost for vending ... I realize the individual packs helps the value for resale, but consider losing 2 cards per pack (wax & gum) ... a card is still a card to a box buster

Thoughts ?



To add, you never know what you will get with topps vending boxes, which would further lead you to think its true ... just a random order of bad sheets thrown in ........ I know fleer did it differently

OAKESY25

I have busted a few and have had some great successes.. I don't think the factory reject thing
rings true.. I would rather get a vending box that I know is unsearched then a wax box

I will be busting a 77 vending box soon

dazedandamazed

What was told to me was the SURFACE of the sheets were examined to be sub quality ... perhaps not all the cards, but enough to throw them in the vending pile

I dont know if its true or not, but looking at the prices had me thinking about it again

WHY such lower prices ???
more cards
no wax
no gum stains
1/2 the cost between a 1983 topps vending and wax case

hhmag70

Buying wax costs more because of the "aged" gum, kinda like a vintage wine.

corvette1340

I've had great success busting vending. For the money it's the best, imo. The cards overall might be slightly less in condition , although that hasn't been the case for me, but if you factor in the lower cost (at least half the price of wax or rack and sometimes much much less), the odds of getting GEM MINT cards is greater in vending. What I mean be that is the amount of cards you can get to go through for the same price outweighs the slightly better quality of wax with regards to getting GEM MINT examples.

I have a '77 baseball box, a '80 baseball box, and 2 '78 basketball boxes on the way.

dazedandamazed

<< <i> ..... if you factor in the lower cost (at least half the price of wax or rack and sometimes much much less) ... >>




Have you wondered why they cost HALF as much ??? The wax wrappers & gum ???

Sportsamerica

People enjoy opening "packs". Vending can get damages (thin cardboard packaging), and can be searched (if you don't know what you are looking for). I would only buy vending from trusted sources.

Like other said. I have had good luck with GEM MINT coming from vending.

TheCARDKid

I'm kind of leery about vintage vending (pre 1984 or 85).

I busted an 83 topps vending box from the bbc a few months ago. Almost 80% of the box was terrible! Corner dings. They were all ex condition. I pulled a sandberg that was marginal (maybe near mint). And I barely pulled a boggs, about the 10th card from the end of the box.

I've also had marginal success with 85 topps, 84. I think I busted 2 84 vending boxes, no mattingly. My preference overall is rack, cello, wax, vending.

Has anyone busted any 70-75 vending? There have been a lot of boxes from larry fritsch. 71 topps baseball. 68 baseball. 71 topps basketball. I wonder what the results of those were.

grote15

There are a couple of reasons why vending is cheaper than wax---the demand among unopened collectors is far less for vending boxes than wax or cello packs, and the condition of the cards (despite the gum and wax) is usually better in wax as the cards in vending boxes are more prone to corner dings due to the way they were packaged. I don't believe the "factory reject" story, though, as you can certainly pull gem mint cards from vending if you get a box that has been properly stored over the years. Also, I think buyers are more skeptical about vending because the cards are not factory sealed like wax packs are, and thus the likelihood of getting a box that has been searched is higher, too.

PowderedH2O

I've had success with vending boxes as well. On my last submission I busted out a box just to get to the minimum number of cards to get the lower rate. I picked 7 cards out of a box and got 5 10's and 2 9's. I had another 35 cards that were of the same quality. I'd say it ain't a bad way to go.

diamondman

Vending boxes were made for dealers only, that wanted to build sets and sell them and in the early days vending boxes were also used in the vending machines were you got 1 to 3 cards for a nickel or a penny depending how old you are.

In all the vending cases I busted (1984-1995) the overall quality of the cards were no different than wax, rack cellos ect ect.

Vending boxes/cases after 1973-1992 had all the cards, 1973 and before & 1993 to ? vending cases/boxes came in series.

the vending cases 1974 to 1992 were made usually early in the press run and shipped to dealers in November & December , so sets could be built and sold for xmas presents, because factory sets sometimes didn't make to the market before dec 25 and the factory sets that did make before xmas were all sent to chain stores (Sears,K-mart,walgreens, walmart, JC pennys, ect ect). The dealers always received their factory sets, wax cases,racks,cellos ect ect in Late Feb & March so the vending cases were cheapest and the quickest for the dealer to try and compete with the big boys and the only way for dealers to have sets to sell before xmas.

the vending boxes are more fragile and easier to damage and also packed as tight as possible, vending boxes were not made for long term storage or for resale to the public.

The cut card cases are the ones that have the reject sheets & reject cards, as cut card cases were produced last and more often than not cut card cases usually only had 4 or 5 different sheets (A-F) instead of all 6 sheets and were sold at end of production and mainly used for vending machines.

just what i remember, but i don't remember much anymore.

thunderdan

Those 76 baseball vending boxes that Steve (BBCE) sold to Felicia were AWESOME! It's a hit and miss, though, in my my experience.

ThoseBackPages

would one be "better off" buying a sealed case?

corvette1340

<< <i>would one be "better off" buying a sealed case? >>



I would have to say the answer to that is yes. That way you know that each box hasn't been mishandled at some point over the years. Unfortunately, sealed cases are pretty rare and when you can find them obviously the price is way more than buying a box or two. I busted a case of '83 Topps a few months back and had a blast and had great success. When I say "great success" I mean that I actually made a little money over the cost of the case, which is super rare to do. Usually busting any vintage is a losing proposition but the main thing was that I got to go through 24 boxes of 27 year old cards. The entertainment value was top notch. Pulling a lot of gem mint cards that included several pop 0's and stars was just icing on the cake.

dazedandamazed

<< <i>The cut card cases are the ones that have the reject sheets & reject cards, as cut card cases were produced last and more often than not cut card cases usually only had 4 or 5 different sheets (A-F) instead of all 6 sheets and were sold at end of production and mainly used for vending machines. >>




Maybe thats what it was

Pittfan

On the early 80's vending boxes I have found that there seems to be two different runs put in the same box. I have noticed that half the box has nice quality cards and the other half always seems to have miscuts, roughcuts or just lesser quality cards. Anyone else notice this? Just opened a 75 vending box last month and found that half the cards had a really bad run of red print dots on the cards.

kingbeeswax

I opened a few. The best was a 1964 Beatles Color vending that was graded GAI 8 and the cards were mostly amazing condition. A 1981 Topps Baseball was half OC, 1983 was ok but cards from wax boxes looked nicer from that year. 1984 was ok but first 20 something cards had a corner ding and that included the only Mattingly. I will try a few more out someday but I prefer wax packs for overall condition.