Price vs. Value

newfiecomicguy1 said:
On the question of price vs value ask yourself this, realistically how often do you break even or feel like you recieved good value from your box.
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There certainly are a lot of breaks I've seen that are poor value, but I also think it has a lot to do with attitude. Many collectors expect to get huge return or a big pull for their money, so when that doesn't happen it's easy to get bummed. If people were more realistic about what is coming out of a box, I don't think we'd see as much disappointment.

Regardless, I still agree that most products are overpriced.
 
The one major problem that we all face is expectations of a product - whether that is from UD or ITG. Now, don't get me wrong - the price of the wax drives that expectation - and when the advertisements are all about the 1% hits that you can get - 99% are left holding the bag of unrealized expectations.

As a collecting community - we all struggle with the need and desire for new products, innovations and checklists but we don't really realize the amount of money that goes into that change - between player or ex-player agreements, jerseys, R&D, marketing, etc.

Then something new and original comes along with an (what we feel is) inflated price - and everyone is up in arms over not getting their bang for their buck on the product or you pull a player that hasn't been around much in previous releases but realize there isn't a huge market for Bob Nystrom. I think the one thing that we have to collectively realize is that busting wax, more often than not, is going give you negative returns. It is a gamble, and one that I take on myself more often than I should.

In the end, its a hobby - and one of the only hobbys around where you actually have an opportunity to make any money back. I golf a fair amount - and spend way too much money on that hobby as well but I always know that when I drop $100 on a round of golf that there is no way there is going to be someone standing on the 18th green with a $50 bill in their hand for me. Be happy that we can recoup some of the money that we do choose to put into it.
 
I stopped busting wax at Christmas time because of the same frustration that you indicated in the original post. I decided to pick up cards for my PC for a little while to see if there was much of a difference. I have spent about 25 to 50% less and my post in the Show and Tell page is what I picked up since Christmas and you can see the difference for yourself.


http://www.hobbyinsider.net/forum/showthread.php?t=189112
 
Last night an auction ended for 16 Champs mini jerseys at $83. Less than one box. Now, I know there were rookies, autos and the chance of hitting a femur or Woods auto but that doesnt make up for it. I am just going to buy the singles. Not break any.
 
I broke boxes of 3 products this year: UD1, Masterpieces Retail and Centennial.

Masterpieces Retail was 70$Can taxes in. Jersey was a no-namer white swatch. At least, I got a Messier base brown border parallel. There was maybe a 10% return on that break. But, I still have my base set in a binder here that I really enjoy to look at, and my Messier card.

UD1 was at 90$Can taxes in. My better pulls were a Turris YG and a Nash Clearcut Winners. I guess that if I sold the cards, I would have got like 20-25$.

Centennial, I broke 2 boxes. Got a dual (Lafleur/Richer), a triple (Damphousse/Muller/Leclair)a Henri Richard AU, 3 commons AU and 48 SPs. But centering on some of the SPs is bad. At 120$Can/box (taxes in), I guess I would be really near of getting my money back if I sold my singles.


I'm really picky on what I break now. I don't break for the possible return, I break to live a nice breaking experience. I don't see myself breaking much until maybe the 1972 stuff.
I want nice looking base sets and heroes from my youth.

To build my Pouliot collection, ebay became my friend. I got great steals on nice cards. If I went wax and trade only, I would never pulled tradebait highend enough to go for these cards.
 
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Price vs Value is only part of the equation.

If you can, add Fun into it - it helps put things into the propper perspective.
 
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hextall27 said:
In reality

Value divided by Price = Fun
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That's not necessarily the truth for all collectors.
i personally would rather pull a Esposito or Neely Auto rather than an Ovie or Crosby auto.
That's probably why i have stopped busting wax and am just picking up singles.
 
So, the factors going into cracking wax are Fun, Value, and Cost (Price).

Break-even seems to be Fun + Value = Cost.

However, some people seem to have Fun as a function of Value. If you're a business, a low value return can really hurt any fun factor.

Is there anyone who wants to try a more complex formula? :)

-m.
 
The whole thing reminds me of the episode of Family Guy when Brian's girlfriend asks, "How do I know if I'm Jewish?" Brian responds, "Are you Jewish?" "No." "There you go, sport."

"How do I know if I had a good break?"
"Did you have a good break?"
"Yes I'm happy with it."

"There you go sport."
 
This is how I see it: if you're not a rip and flip guy/gal purchasing in bulk, you'd better be doing it for the fun of ripping a box because the value isn't likely to be there.
 
pathshot said:
So, the factors going into cracking wax are Fun, Value, and Cost (Price).

Break-even seems to be Fun + Value = Cost.

However, some people seem to have Fun as a function of Value. If you're a business, a low value return can really hurt any fun factor.

Is there anyone who wants to try a more complex formula? :)

-m.
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The formula might work, but how do you monetize "fun"?

Back in the day (ie high school) I use to feel that an hour of fun was worth my hourly wage or less? So, if I made $10/hour, that is the most I would pay for an hour of fun. So, $8 for a movie was worth the fun, $50 for a 3 hour rock concert, not really worth it. Now, that I own a card shop, the biggest amount of fun I can afford based on my formula, is getting a $0.25 gumball from a machine, and trying to make the gum last for an hour! :D
 

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