I started getting back into this a little bit within the last year or so after heavily collecting in the late 80's. I used to buy a couple of NFL blaster boxes for my kids every once in a while over the years when you could get them at retail. I'd buy a couple boxes and give packs away to kids as prizes when they filled out their bingo cards at our Superbowl party, etc.
I was cleaning out the basement and going through old cards I had including 3 x 5,000 card boxes that were full of mostly 87-88-89 Topps commons (at the time). Spent some time sorting through those to find any Glavine / Maddox / Johnson rookies and ended up with about 10-20 and the rest of the cards just went into recycling.
I don't know if the hobby just started overcorrecting for the overproduction from that time period with all these limited numbered cards? Or maybe there was less demand so they had to tighten up supply and this was the way to do it? But seems like with Covid and everybody having extra time on their hands people started looking into their old hobbies and demand jumped up again and the prices went up with it.
In the basement cleanout I sold off some old non-card collectibles while the collectibles market is hot and made around $6,000. I took about 10% of that and have been using it to play around a bit in the card market again. The kids and I have been more into football so have been buying the cheapest boxes (Donruss Blasters) so we could open up for fun. After doing a few and not really getting many hits I just started buying boxes to hold. Seems like the boxes are worth more than the cards you get out of them.
I had even bought a 2017 Donruss football blaster to get a piece of the Mahomes hype for about $150, I think they doubled to around $300 since I picked it up a couple months ago. There's a good chance if I open it, I won't get a Mahomes and will lose $ on the purchase so probably better to hold and sell later to the card gamblers. It's like trading for draft picks instead of players, people value the potential more than the cards.
I'm thinking the same thing with 2020 Donruss football blasters. I think there's a reasonable chance one of the QB's or WR's could hit and drive the price up more. (Justin Herbert's been good for that already, hopefully Burrow can come back strong too after some have forgotten about him after the injury, who knows with Tua at this point or even Hurts, etc) I've been keeping an eye on eBay and buying boxes that go under the average selling price, targeting around $30-$35 shipped. (Better deals if you buy 2-3 in a lot.) If they don't hit, than could always just sell anyway or open up later with the kids. I doubt they'll go down much in price unless the whole hobby dries up again.
I've done a few breaks but have yet to even have anything sent to me, just haven't gotten any hits. I've done them on
Clubhouse Breaks because they're pretty easy to use and seem to have a good variety of products and break methods without going overboard. But I'm starting to realize I'm probably wasting money on these breaks (and opening boxes) instead of just buying the cards I want.
I started just picking up rookies from the 2020 Donruss football set in the canvas variation on eBay just because they're a little rarer than base but not numbered so they're not super expensive to collect. Gives me something to collect and keep an eye on to see if any of these guys / cards hit over the next few years.
