when buying multiple hobby boxes

[crankbait09]

for those of us that buy 2 or more hobby boxes from a specific seller, whether it be a Local card store or ebay. i'm curious,
do you buy 2 or more boxes from the same seller at the same time? or do you buy one from them, and then go to another seller to buy the 2nd, and so on?
do you find you have better luck with the inserts/autos by buying from the one seller vs multiple?

in the past i have done both. for me, i seem to have better results when buying boxes from multiple sellers. hoping to break up the chance of getting the same duplicates from box #2. My inserts/autos seem to be a little better when going the multiple seller route as well

just curious what others experience.

 

[PRosefan1]

Ive never given it much thought but I guess I buy multiples from the same seller. If I buy more, I do the same thing again.

 

[calsp3]

Shawn, I guess the bottom line question is do we trust the Topps distribution algorithm. Speaking for myself, I find it very fishy that I can buy a hobby box and not get but just a few dupes, and buy another and get near a quarter dupes., and even dupes in the same pack So I will be joining the conspiracy theorists who think it best to buy from different sellers, though I have no hard evidence to back it up. Carlton

 

[2000Doubles]

I was able to buy a few cases before prices went absurd post COVID, but distribution across a case was pretty good. However, there would be some boxes that felt like I saw the same string of cards together in another box.

If you are chasing hits, I would say the safe place is to buy from the same place. Better chance to get that hot box vs the duds in a case. If wanting to chase the big hits, then from different places.

 

[parrrp]

Man..if you can swing it, best to buy a case, but of course everyone can't do that. I'd be careful who you buy boxes from and not worry as much about 1 seller or multiple sellers, but can you trust them not to weigh them or anything fishy. I recommend that you try to get a box or two from a case you see opened before your eyes and to stay away from eBay sellers for boxes. Big card box reseller companies (D&A for example) are probably the most trustworthy ALTHOUGH now they are buying boxes from consumers (which is a big problem for me so I no longer buy older boxes...I bought from a big card company reseller online packs of Mahomes RC year and they obviously bought them from a consumer and they were resealed with a piece of cardboard in 2 of the 6 packs) :

 

[key2win]

I havent bought any hobby boxes since Covid. I never buy from retail or hobby stores. There is a card convention near where I live called Frank & Sons. Its free admission and parking, now open 3 days a week, and has 150+ vendors. Sadly only one aisle is for sports cards now, but before it was like 3-4 full aisles. Being going there since 1992 from when I was a kid.

I have always bought basketball hobby or jumbo boxes from the vendors there. I always buy it from the same vendor, usually 2 of the same box. If another vendor there sold it for a few dollars cheaper, I would ask him and he would match it.

It would be nothing high end. Its usually a box of Donruss/Hoops each year. And pre-Panini, it would be every year Fleer, Topps, and Upperdeck. I never pulled anything super rare, but a lot of my best hit pulls have come from the same vendor which is probably reason why I just stuck with him.

From memory, some of my best hit pulls were:

06-07 Fleer (Pulled a Jordan Relic)
08-09 Fleer (Pulled a Garnett Auto, and Relics of Jordan, Kobe, and Lebron out of 2 boxes)
09-10 Upperdeck (Got a hot box where every pack had a hit card. Best pull was a Derrick Rose Auto.)
10-11 Prestige (Pulled a Demarcus Cousins Rookie Auto)
15-16 Donruss (Pulled a Kristaps Porzingis Rookie Jersey)

 

[parrrp]

key2win brings up a good point. find a seller where you had success and stick with that seller. One reason I trust (or trusted since now they are buying from consumers as I wrote above...) is D&A because I pulled a Sterling Trout/Harper 'card' from a box of Bowman Sterling like 10 yrs ago. The reason that's significant is the Sterling card weighed a ton. Like it was literally a card made out of Sterling Silver. They are pretty rare and I'd imagine if you picked up two boxes one with and one without, you could easily tell that one of them had an odd weight to it. You got a sshady LCS seller pulling out boxes from a case, I'd imagine you are probably not getting that box. That's kind of extreme I suppose, but if you place boxes on a scale and you have one weighing different than the rest for some reason or another they may pull that aside.

I guess I'm a little paranoid, but I think you need to be a little to be smart and make sure you the odds are exactly where they should be. In a long winded way I guess I'm answering your question...buy from 2 boxes from one seller, not two because you're bound to find one trustworthy person over two.