A few days ago I found myself idly browsing a group breaker's site and strongly considered buying the Astros spot in a Topps Tier One break. Luckily, someone bought the spot while I was contemplating whether or not to buy it. I watched the break in question and no Astros hits were pulled, so I'm glad I lost out on the spot.
I still had the card itch, though, so I decided to see what I could get on eBay for less than the cost of the break spot. I decided to limit my search to cards from 2023 Topps Tier One, and wanted to focus mostly on Yordan Alvarez cards. I was able to locate the lowest-priced Yordan on eBay, and added it to my watch list. A little while later an offer came in from the seller for an even lower price, and I made the purchase.
I also found a Yordan bat relic card at a decent price and bought it via the Buy It Now feature. Theoretically I still have about $20 left vs. the break spot price, but I am going to leave it where it's at for now. Group breaks are fun, but they are a form of gambling and the house usually wins. I find that most of the time when I join a group break I wind up subsidizing someone else's hits and not having anything to show for it, and that makes me feel a little icky. If I'd bought that Astros spot I wouldn't have had anything in my mailbox, but instead I have a couple of nice Yordan cards.
Buying group break spots is a way to get a chance at a big card, but all too often you wind up being a loser. Buying singles lowers the ceiling on the cards you can get, but it raises the floor. I am happy with my choice in this case.
ReplyDeleteI don't care enough about modern products to join a break, but even if I were interested in them, I think I'd still have a hard time buying into one knowing that I could end up with nothing. Going and buying something you want elsewhere just seems like the better way to go.
ReplyDelete99% of the time you are better off buying singles, but that 1% can be tempting from time to time. I've found that I can usually kill the itch by watching a few breaks on YouTube and seeing that anything I would really want isn't pulled very often.
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