[jbissell]

Hello all,
I think this probably is relevant for this forum. If not, please accept my apologies.

When I want to buy my kids some packs of baseball cards, I tend to buy from my LCS, as I grew up with the belief that there was a difference, and that hobby packs bought at a card shop on average gave you better cards than buying from Wal Mart or Target.

Now granted, I have a Wal Mart practically next to my house, and I will get occasional packs there out of convenience, but its definitely more fun to me to drive the 6 miles to the LCS and just talk baseball with the owner.

The question for you all is: Is there truly a difference between Hobby and Retail packs other than the Wal Mart blue borders or Target red borders?

Thanks,
John

[snappyjoe75]

hobby boxes u are guaranteed a hit. even if the box is open and buying just a pack. the retail, sometimes u win, and others u lose. my thought is that for the price of 3 blasters, u can pick up a hobby box and get that auto hit. hope this helps. thanks

[jbissell]

hobby boxes u are guaranteed a hit. even if the box is open and buying just a pack. the retail, sometimes u win, and others u lose. my thought is that for the price of 3 blasters, u can pick up a hobby box and get that auto hit. hope this helps. thanks

Yep, that confirms my suspicions. Thanks for the quick response

[edlockhart]

I choose hobby for 2 reasons: 1) Supports the local small business 2) No scummy pack searchers. I never buy loose retail packs, though I have picked up a blaster from time to time.

[natejeffries]

Let's put it this way, I bought more than $70 worth of Bowman Platinum retail packs recently and got one numbered card and no autos. If I had bought a hobby box for the same price, I would have been guaranteed three autos!

[BGS_Graded_Card_Guy]

I have three LCS within 20 minuts of my house so I tend to buy Hobby mostly. If I'm at Target and they have a blaster, I've been known to pick one up every now and then. I'm usually angry I spent the money on the blaster since I have horrible luck pulling anything decent from them. I still think it is because Dr. Mitch is getting all the good retail pulls

Lately I've been buying complete cases of products like Bowman, Chrome & Draft. It should be noted that even though 90% of the time, I'm still disappointed in what I busted open (no huge pulls) I at least have the guaranteed autos/hits to trade away for things I want for sets I'm building. But I do enjoy busting wax so it is always fun at the very least. Good luck!

[Hofcollector]

I have three LCS within 20 minuts of my house so I tend to buy Hobby mostly. If I'm at Target and they have a blaster, I've been known to pick one up every now and then. I'm usually angry I spent the money on the blaster since I have horrible luck pulling anything decent from them. I still think it is because Dr. Mitch is getting all the good retail pulls

Lately I've been buying complete cases of products like Bowman, Chrome & Draft. It should be noted that even though 90% of the time, I'm still disappointed in what I busted open (no huge pulls) I at least have the guaranteed autos/hits to trade away for things I want for sets I'm building. But I do enjoy busting wax so it is always fun at the very least. Good luck!

If your buying prospect based products, your most likely to have a few gems sometime down the road as well.

[joba the clark]

Huge difference, Hobby odds are way more in your favor to pull something decent. With that being said, I have gotten some great cards from Walmart and Target, but the amount of money I have spent in retail vs. LCS....Your LCS wins 90 times out of 100.

[BGS_Graded_Card_Guy]

If your buying prospect based products, your most likely to have a few gems sometime down the road as well.

Matt, I'm finding that a lot actually. I am still loading all my stuff into Org that I have purchased in years past and I came across a huge box full of auto, inserts etc that I didn't think much of at the time but are true gems today. Need to just hunker down and get everything in my garage loaded finally (still 20+ 5k boxes to go..sigh) and stop buying new stuff. But Bowman will be out soon so I highly doubt I'll be able to resist the temptation.

[ne12bc12]

I agree with everything said, better odds at the LCS.