As Marvin Gaye once pined, “Life Is a Gamble.”
If you know that obscure song (more of an ambiance piece) from the Trouble Man soundtrack, kudos to you and your good taste in music.
But it’s true. Life IS a gamble. The phenomenon of re-pack products for trading cards has pushed its way to the forefront of the hobby over the last few years and surely tests that cliche.
If you want my personal, honest opinion on these right off the top, well, “JUST DON’T!”
There, done, article over.
But what’s the fun in that?
I hear all of you out there already yelling at me, saying these are nothing new and you’re not wrong. Hobby re-packs are absolutely NOT new. They’ve been around since I started collecting way back in the mid 1980s (and probably before that). When I would go to local card shows at the nearest Ramada Inn or United Church of “FILL IN THE BLANK”’s basement, there would be many dealers with tables filled with generous supplies of little brown lunch bags, neatly folded around a stack of random cards and taped shut.
What was in them? Who knows? They were called Grab Bags then, and there was a thinly veiled, non-legally binding promise, that a hidden, potentially hobby life-changing gem could be inside. Did I ever buy one of these mysteries? Maybe a few. I don’t really recall exactly. But even if I didn’t, I know I was certainly tempted. And don’t even get me started on the carnival-style number wheels.
Fast forward to around 2011 or so. While looking at the shelves of trading cards at my local retailer, amid the blasters of O-Pee-Chee and Upper Deck Series One, were these mostly dull blue boxes, with background image that I hoped was Keith Tkachuk but considering the face cage, was probably just some unassuming junior hockey player with similar uniform colors to the 1990s St. Louis Blues. The boxes were just appropriately dubbed “Hockey Trading Cards.”
The Fairfield Company had been around for a while at that point but was new on my radar as I wasn’t easily swayed by their elementary box design that could occasionally be found hidden among actual manufacturer products. Largely, Fairfield seemed to have focused exclusively on the repack model, amassing an endless stockpile of loose packs and cards over the years that they would ingeniously distribute throughout their products (in all the major sports too). Gather together just enough eclectic cards and packs for curious entertainment value, wrap ’em in a box with the promise of a “hit” or two and voila! Hobby chance takers will dive in, no questions asked. It’s like printing money because who doesn’t want that pack of 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee with packs of 1990-91 Bowman, 1990-91 Score and a few packs of ‘91 Ultimate Hockey?
But repacks, while certainly still existing in that archaic form described above, have evolved. I’m not talking about evolution to the next level with slightly better packs and a couple more non-base cards. I’m talking Final Boss level evolution, where the packs potentially have high-end hits, sometimes from high-end product, often graded, and potentially rare.
Why the evolution? Tastes have changed, and toleration of something that was previously laughed at is now a high-level money-making opportunity. The pandemic period put the hobby front-and-center in the laps of all the long-retired Junk Wax Era collectors and entrepreneurial purveyors of the grind/hustle culture. When the expectations, and sometimes the results, of breaking wax product went from folks being content pulling a few dollar cards for their binders to would-be day traders demanding to make cash ASAP, these simple retail re-packs became a peasants’ game. Someone was bound to up the ante and they did.
The Anatomy Of 2024 Re-Pack
Inventory
Keep in mind, I’m not an expert because this isn’t my sphere of influence. I’m only a hobby observer and I have eyes. But it’s easy to assume that re-packers need inventory. Despite tons of rumors, it’s come to light over the last year or so (and you will find frequent discussion in hobby social media circles) that there are quite a few companies out there that pay folks to travel the country finding trading card deals in order to bolster large inventories for the re-packs they produce. Buyers, on behalf of the re-packers, are authorized to sometimes pay 70-80% or more of actual comparable prices in order to obtain inventory. How? Margins. Plain and simple. If you can sell quantity over quality, it pays off.
They aren’t buying all the best cards out there either. The bulk of most of these inventories is largely now considered to be of the “junk slab” nature.
Junk slabs are generally referring to cards that are past their prime on pricing, may have bottomed out in the market, or frankly just never should have been sent for grading in the first place. A buyer suddenly willing to pay 80% comp prices is exciting for any seller because who doesn’t want to clear out their inventory for top dollar?
We’re even now starting to see a horizontal symbiosis between larger and smaller re-packers. For example, some small-scale operations have been seen setting up at shows every weekend across the continent to obtain their own inventory, only to then sell out themselves to the bigger ventures. But the point remains, as a seller, it’s hard to turn your nose up to something you may or may not agree with when they’re buying out your inventory at top dollar on Sunday afternoon at 3 pm – or sometimes during set-up, before a show even starts.
Marketing
After all of this seeming dead card inventory gets pulled from the market, the re-packer “randomly” inserts cards into whatever packaging they use. Whether it be envelopes, custom boxes, bubble mailers, etc., the shinier the better.
Re-pack product lines have become extensive, with different “tiers” of pricing based on potential perceived value. They even get labeled with names to give the hobby chance takers goosebumps like “Fire Pack” (or other flame related names), or various explosion euphemisms, or some type of “Banger” pack, or something named after a natural disaster.
Is “Negasonic Apocalyptic Star Crusher” pack off the table? Who wouldn’t want one of those?
One of the cornerstones to successfully pulling this off is marketing. This is why re-packs have become hugely popular with the hobby influencer types that have large followings via social media. A built-in audience for advertising makes pushing this kind of product much easier. But what if you need more eyeballs? Include a few “chaser” cards in the packs.
Chaser cards are high value cards that are designed to entice the gambl…er…potential buyer to basically spend more than what’s been predetermined to be the average price for pack.
Confused yet? Certainly, there are re-packers using fixed pricing on their product. Some popular groups offer packs for prices on their website showing $500. Some go to $1,000, $1,800, or $2,500. Far cry from the “$5.99 for 100 random cards plus “hit”” or the “10 packs + Bonus for $19.99” I mentioned earlier.
But I think that’s more of an exception at the moment. More often than not though, live stream “breaks” for these re-packs allow the chat rooms and audience interaction to dictate the price. The re-packer sets a floor value and people will bid the packs up, logically based on knowing what has/hasn’t already been pulled. So, I guess if you show up to a room/stream late, you instantly become the target audience.
Money
I have watched a few of these breaks on both Whatnot and Loupe and while there is a lot of what the kids call “energy” in the rooms, I can’t help but wonder if the vast majority of folks in there know what is really going on. As some of these prices rise, knowing what top and bottom is as well as what’s been pulled, you can quickly see how much money can be made off of running this type of product sca…er, sale.
I’m sure you can go find plenty of other examples people have made of this but here’s my crude (probably bad math) example of how this could be pretty lucrative.
Let’s say I offer up a re-pack break that has 50 Skull Destroyer Packs. Within the 50 packs, I’ve inserted 10 chaser cards to get potential buyers salivating. So, I announce that there is a minimum (floor) value of $25, meaning at the least, you would get a $25 card.
Who determines that value? Well, me of course.
There’s also a max (ceiling) of $3,200 and the entire break averages $225 per pack. So, there’s your math.
Can you win? Maybe. Can I win? Abso-freakin-lutely!
I open my stream and start once I get a few folks watching and “hyped-up” for buying.
Things start to heat up with a decent flow of people and now packs are going in the $280 range. To backtrack a bit, I went all in for this a couple weekends a go at a local show, paying 80% comps for my inventory. At an average of $225/pack, that means I basically paid $9,000 to obtain these 50 cards. Now I’m selling at an average of $280/pack. So, if that’s average, quick math would tell you that’s $14,000. When all is said and done, I’ve recouped my buy-in plus pocketed $5,000, unloaded 10 decent cards and about 40 previously deemed “unsellable” ones. If I do this once every week for a year, that’s over $260,000.
I’m just a guppy in a sea of barracuda so you won’t be seeing me going out and spending over $450,000 a year on card inventory. But you get the idea. Sure, I’m not factoring in shipping cost, packaging, advertising, “overhead,” blah, blah, blah. I did say this was a “crude example.”
The point is, you can scale this because my small-time example pales in comparison to the groups that are actually out there with $5,000, $7,000, and $10,000 re-pack ceilings.
You Can – But Should You?
In all these numbers, one thing we haven’t even discussed is whether re-packs like this violate regulations, are permissible on the platforms they use, or are even legal. I don’t think there would be too much discourse in saying that it’s unorganized gambling at its core. So is opening wax, but I’ll just leave that discussion for another day.
We have the prize (the card), we have the chance (you can win value from $25-$3,200), and participants pay for it, so we have the consideration. That, by definition, is gambling.
Functionally, it isn’t that much different than a raffle, or razz for you hip hobbyists, and while states differ in definition, in many jurisdictions across the county raffles are illegal.
Re-packers could probably avoid that gray area by making some kind of No Purchase Necessary (NPN) offering like the trading card manufacturers do, but I’m not sure we’ve gotten to that point yet since it’s clear that many platforms turn a blind eye to the practice.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have policies in place though. eBay – everyone’s favorite, and most popular selling platform for trading cards – basically just outright “bans” repacks. To them, and by definition in their policy, repacks are “win by chance” items. If it’s “by chance,” it’s gambling and gambling isn’t allowed on the platform. On the eBay page that explains their Chance Listing Policy, they say:
Listings that offer an opportunity to win an item by chance or contest are not allowed. This includes mystery boxes, giveaways, lotteries, sweepstakes, random drawings, raffles, and contests.
Case breaks, box breaks and pack breaks may only be sold by pre-approved sellers under the following conditions:
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- When the buyer makes their purchase, it must be clear which slot they are selecting and no element of chance can be involved to determine which slot the buyer will receive
- Buyers receive the entire pack, box, or slot they purchased
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Activity on eBay is required to follow this policy, the eBay User Agreement and all applicable laws, as well as respect the rights of third parties. If it doesn’t, eBay may take action consistent with applicable laws and the eBay User Agreement, and may even be legally required to do so. Such actions may include, as an example only: Removing the listing or other content, issuing a warning, restricting activity or account suspension.
Plainly, anything that is described as being a mystery all mean the same thing, so if it is a mystery to the buyer, it’s not allowed.
Yet, just do a quick search on the platform and you’ll see hundreds, maybe thousands of auctions on the platform advertising this very thing because there are always workarounds. Don’t call it a Mystery Pack. Go back to the Grab Bag moniker instead, or Super Colossal Apex Flame Pack. It doesn’t matter as long as the seller follows the rules described in the “chance” policy. If a seller informs potential buyers what items are included by giving even the most rudimentary generic list of what may be, they can basically do whatever they want. Many re-packers have clearly taken advantage of the loophole or just take to their own platforms instead…my site, my rules, no loopholes.
Fanatics Live allows Mystery Boxes and repacks as long as they get opened on camera and the seller discloses all the information required in their rules. That means both ceiling and floor, the average price, and a checklist for the box/pack being offered, whether it’s being resold or was made by the seller.
Ironically, “clarification” is made later by saying any abuse of the program or attempt to manipulate bids will get you banned from the platform…AND…
“…GAMBLING is prohibited on Fanatics Live, including duck races, spins, rolls, raffles, roulette wheels, and third-party randomizers…”
These are all mechanisms the re-packers clearly and frequently use in their streams.
Min/Max/Avg is also a requirement on WhatNot as well. In fact, they have similar rules to Fanatics where all things must be opened on camera, they don’t tolerate “shill” bidding, and even address the fact that pricing should be “truthful.”
Obviously, this boils down to trust and like my example above, the seller (me) sets the pricing on what perceived value is. While WhatNot may discourage sellers from misleading buyers about value, it’s difficult to enforce when marketplaces are frequently manipulated in very much the same exact ways (namely shill bidding). In dispute cases, we’ve already seen that even when sellers are found to be guilty of nefarious practices, the punishments rarely have long-term effects on their future opportunities to get back on the saddle to do it again.
Even hobby heavyweights like Brian Gray, former CEO of Leaf Trading Cards, have gotten into the repack game, showing his support of the practice. He announced earlier in 2024 his “Fortune Ice Dragon” packs that included a limited production of 66 boxes of Panini football case hits. His announcement came accompanied by his disclosure of both a $150 floor and $6000+ ceiling, to be broken live on YouTube Live and Whatnot, for the low, low price of $650/box. Brian has also been outspoken on social media about the need for transparency in this space, calling out quite a few sellers with less than virtuous intent.
Did I mention each box had one hit card? It goes further than cards too, as Blowout Cards, D & A Card World, Steel City Collectibles and other large hobby sellers have been selling memorabilia mystery boxes in the very same fashion for years. Even Upper Deck has their Monumental boxes that show up at large sports shows every year and more recently, the UDA Buckets and UDA Threads boxes that I’m sure everyone on X is absolutely not sick of seeing ads for.
Every Choice Is a Risk
Personally, I see the current state of re-packs on a whole as problematic.
Since it’s clearly a game of chance, a huge issue that resonates through the entire process is that there is no firm regulation. There are no rules except those of individual selling platforms which seem to be blatantly left vague, full of the loopholes discussed, and are infrequently enforced.
If a seller isn’t utilizing a selling platform, the rules become even more sketchy as they essentially cease to exist outside of jurisdictional legality that would have to be challenged to be enforced. There are no clear checks/balances between buyers and sellers and in many cases, dishonesty in favor of profit is valued well more than what might happen if the curtain gets pulled.
We have even seen many times when actual consumer feedback, which should provide an impartial look of actual experience, gets manipulated, diverting from the potential underlying scam that may be afoot.
We have to look at the question of intent. If you are buying for some perceived hidden value rather than fun or thrill, you’re already sunk. Those retail re-packs that were once for casual collectors or those seeking some fun time waster that could net them a few potential keepers can’t hold a candle to the bloated cash-grabs we’ve somehow allowed to become so popular.
Scams exist. Plain and simple. Especially with the presentations guaranteeing that you WILL win.
If re-packs were advertised exactly how they exist, with a clear understanding of what will be pulled, the gap between the carnival wheel and a sure thing shrinks.
But that may be the linchpin to drawing more people in. If you give them a sense of what is purportedly available and ultimately give some sense of reassurance that they’re not going to get completely skunked, re-packs in theory become a sexier option than say spending the same amount on opening any of today’s extremely overpriced wax that rarely is seen as profitable.
Hobby Smart
Whether you find re-packs good, bad, or otherwise, is going to surely depend on your perspective. On the selling side, running re-packs exposes a lot of opportunity for a reputable seller to unload a lot of unwanted product by honestly seeding desirable cards throughout their packs as they advertise. By honestly, I mean these are randomized with impartiality and the value cards actually fall at the promised and mathematically calculable rates. The more transparency there is from the start, the better chance folks may participate, become repeat customers, and the views surrounding re-packs may shift.
For a buyer, it can be a tough spot for many that might not always use their best judgment when participating in the hobby.
Walking into a casino or using any of the hundreds of sports betting platforms pose the same potential issues. The difference is regulation. Although many of the policies in place on selling platforms appear to protect consumers by placing the onus on the seller to educate the masses, they’re bare minimum, and sometimes boilerplate protections for only themselves.
I’m certainly the last to preach about how you should or shouldn’t spend your hobby dollar and I’m not a life coach here to dish out platitudes and words to live by.
I would only encourage those wanting to jump into this world as either a buyer or a seller to do your own research, your own discovery, and your own due diligence before determining what level of risk vs. reward you’re willing to take.
Remember, the house always wins.
Tim Parish is a writer-at-large for Puck Junk. Follow him on X/Twitter @therealdfg.
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