March Loot Locker

I ordered another Loot Locker in March. Just like in February, I ordered the Triple Play Locker, with a little extra stuff compared to the basic All-Star Locker. In addition to baseball lockers, they offer basketball, football, and hockey lockers. The draw with Loot Locker over a repack box is that all of the packs in Loot Lockers are from Hobby boxes. For people who don't have a local card shop, or people whose local card shop isn't all it could be, this is a decent alternative to a monthly card store trip to pick up a handful of packs and supplies.

The cards ship in a 400-count box, so even the packaging is useful to a card collector.

You get a couple pieces of candy, as well as some top loaders and penny sleeves.

This month's packs included 2 each of 2017 Panini Optic, 2018 Panini Donruss, and 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen. According to my calculations, my February Locker included $28.64 in packs. My method is just to take the box prices from a major card retailer's site, divide them by the number of packs in a box, and multiply by the number of packs in the Locker. Let's see what I counted up for this month's packs:

2017 Panini Optic: $89.95 / 20 = $4.50 x 2 = $9.00

2018 Panini Donruss: $87.95 / 24 = $3.66 x 2 = $7.32

2018 Topps Gypsy Queen: $119.95 / 24 = $5.00 x 2 = $10.00

$9.00 + $7.32 + $10.00 = $26.32

That really feels like it's a pack shy of what I'd expect from this box. The value on last month's box felt about right. This one has $2.32 less in calculated value, and it really felt like there was less there than last month's box did.

Another pack of Donruss would have been very welcome here, but an additional $3.66 might push this too high. Their model has been to include three products in each Locker, but I calculated about $1.50 for a Hobby pack of 2018 Topps Series 1 last month. That could close the gap without going over. Maybe last month just gave me an inflated sense of what I could expect to get in a Loot Locker.

I obviously don't know what Loot Locker's costs are on these things, so I can't really say what a true reasonable value band is for the included packs. They have to include the cost of the cards, supplies, shipping, candy, packing peanuts, ink and paper for shipping labels, payment processing fees, website hosting, labor, the cost of prize packs for the randomly-inserted extra packs, taxes, and maybe a little profit.

Not much came out of Gypsy Queen. I guess the J.P. Crawford Fortune Teller insert was the biggest hit. I also got a Lance McCullers Jr. base card for my only Astro of the entire break.

I got a couple of nickname variations, a Diamond King of Bryce Harper, and a shiny Stat Line parallel of Buster Posey numbered # 102 / 228.

The Optic packs didn't yield a whole lot of interest for me. The highlights were probably a Prizm Diamond Kings card of Dexter Fowler and a Prizm card of Ryne Sandberg.

That does it for this Loot Locker. It was kind of a disappointing month. It felt a little light on packs, and the packs I got didn't yield much of interest to me. The lack of exciting pulls probably accentuated the feeling of disappointment. I'll probably keep ordering Loot Lockers, but I may try dropping down to the All-Star Locker at some point. I like what Loot Locker does, and I think they provide a good service to collectors without card shops to visit. I feel like it's good to support them where I can.

February Loot Locker

I ordered another Loot Locker for February. I went with the baseball locker, and instead of the basic $20 + $5 S&H locker, I upgraded to the $30 + $5 S&H option. The main difference between the two is that you get a little bit more stuff in the $30 locker. There is also a $50 locker with a different product mix. It usually includes higher-end stuff than the basic boxes. The product mix for the month is usually posted as a pinned Tweet on the Twitter page for Loot Locker.

All of the stuff is packed into a card box for shipping. It's got a locker-themed sticker on one side along with all of the branding.

Here are the card packs that were included in mine. There are 3 packs of 2017 Panini Donruss Optic, 2 packs of 2017 Topps Chrome, and 2 packs of 2018 Topps Series 1. Randomly selected Loot Lockers also include bonuses, and I got a bonus Jumbo pack of 2018 Topps Series 1. This month I again broke the cost of the packs out by dividing the hobby box prices on a major card retailer's site by the number of packs in a box and multiplying that number by the number of packs in the locker to see how much 'value' I got for my $30.

2017 Panini Donruss Optic: $87.95 / 20 = $4.40 x 3 = $13.20

2017 Topps Chrome: $149.95 / 24 = $6.25 x 2 = $12.50

2018 Topps Series 1: $52.95 / 36 = $1.47 x 2 = $2.94

$13.20 + $12.50 + $2.94 = $28.64

I valued the bonus pack at $10.50, so the final total was $39.14 for the cards in the box. Based on current market prices, the basic locker seems to offer an appropriate amount of product for the price. I hate to pay that much per pack for Chrome, but 2017 products are crazy and it looks like 2018 is shaping up in a similar manner, with Heritage boxes going for $125 now.

As usual, the box also includes a package of top loaders and penny sleeves, as well as a few pieces of candy. Now that I've done the math, lets see what I actually pulled this month.

Here are the highlights from the Optic packs. The Sierra, Braun, Snider, and Reyes cards are all Prizm parallels. I also pulled a Diamond Kings of Mike Trout and a The Rookies card of Carson Fulmer.

Here are the notable cards from the Chrome packs. The Mike Trout is a base card. The Starlin Castro and Gerrit Cole cards are basic Refractors.

The 2018 Topps Series 1 packs offered up a handful of base cards featuring Astros, along with a few inserts. I was happy to get that Nolan Ryan card and the Carlos Correa insert.

I pulled a relic card from the bonus Jumbo pack of Topps Series 1. It's a standard relic card of Chris Archer.

That wasn't the best break in the world, but that's how it goes. Loot Locker is a good option for people who don't have a hobby shop, or whose hobby shop is inconvenient or unfriendly (or both). I'd much rather buy a Loot Locker than spend the gas and time to visit my somewhat local shop, where I always feel like the owner is inconvenienced by my presence.

March's baseball Loot Lockers have 2018 Panini Donruss, 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen, and 2017 Panini Donruss Optic for the low-end options, and 2017 Bowman's Best, 2017 Bowman Chrome, and 2015 Bowman's Best for the high-end boxes. There are also options for football, basketball, and hockey. The ordering deadline is March 24th.

January 2018 Loot Locker

I ordered a Loot Locker in January, and it arrived in the mail a day or two ago. The Loot Locker is a monthly or one-shot service that sends you some Hobby packs and a few card supplies. It's a decent alternative for building up trade bait, or for getting your hands on a few Hobby packs. The basic Locker comes in two levels, a $20 and a $30 (plus shipping) box, with the difference being that the more expensive box holds a couple more packs. There are also high-end boxes, which I think are $50. They have premium brands packed into them. Each month, you can vote on that month's packs on The Loot Locker's Twitter feed. I think February voting closes tonight. The current leaders for February are 2017 Panini Optic, 2017 Topps Chrome, and 2017 Topps Archives.

I ordered the $30 option. The products inside included two packs of 2017 Topps Chrome, two packs of 2017 Panini Optic, and three packs of 2017 Topps Heritage High Numbers. There were also some top loaders and penny sleeves, as well a couple pieces of candy. The cards ship in a 400-count card storage box.

At first I kind of felt like there wasn't a lot here for the money, but instead of whining about it I went and did some research. I went out to a major card retailer's site and pulled down their box prices for these products. Then I divided them by the number of packs per box and multiplied that number by the number of packs in the Loot Locker.

For two packs of Optic, I came up with $8.80. For two packs of Topps Chrome, I got $11.91. The three packs of Heritage High Numbers would have cost $7.49. That gives me a total of about $28.20 for the packs. Throw in a couple of dollars for the card supplies and candy, a few more for shipping and Paypal fees, and a couple dollars of profit for the company, and you're right about at the $35 mark.

Not much came out of the Heritage packs. I got a couple of short prints, including a Houston and PC player, Josh Reddick. I also got a Rookie Performers insert of Hunter Renfroe.

Here are a couple of the shinier Optic cards. It was kind of hard to find any base cards among all of the Prizms, Diamond Kings, and Rated Rookies.

The Kluber and Moncada cards are both numbered parallels. The Kluber is numbered # 12 / 99 and the Moncada is # 79 / 99.

These are the highlights from the Chrome packs. I got a nice Blue Refractor of Yasiel Puig, and one of the 1987-design inserts of Addison Russell.

The Puig is # 075 / 150. I didn't pull any hits out of this Loot Locker, but I got a handful of nice parallel cards and a taste of a few products that I didn't buy a whole lot of this year. For personal reasons I don't visit my local card shop, and this is a nice alternative to making that trek.