The fine print

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who forgot to cancel their Collector Crate subscription.  I'm not sure if I just missed the fine print or they put it up after I ordered my one box, but I ended up getting sent and charged for another box.  I sent Collector Crate a snarky email and they were more than willing to refund my money, but in the end it was probably my fault anyways, so I bit the bullet and now I'm the proud owner of another bronze level box. So I'm going to share it with you.

Since I didn't know I was getting another box I couldn't put in three teams I'd like to get stuff from as a result I got stuff from all over the board.

In this month's box I got a nice selection, and I mean that, of packs, the manila envelope of goodies, a bag of sunflower seed, another plastic baseball featuring the Yankees, a pair of cheap sunglasses with the Yankees logo on them, two stickers, Mets and Tigers, and another small pennant featuring the Mariners.

I was actually really impressed with this month's selection of packs.

I won't bore you with the contents of each pack, I'll just show the good stuff.  The two packs I was most interested in were the mid 90's Leaf packs.  I don't think I opened any Leaf Limited or Preferred back then and both were both pretty top end at the time.

Super shiny.

Preferred comes with one metal card.  The pack was very heavy.

Here are the inserts and hits I got from everything else.

It was really nice to see that the retail pack of Masterpieces yielded a relic.

My goodie envelope was pretty thick

And that was because there was two extra cards.  The Griffey rookie was nice and it was also nice to see that my relic and auto were of players of I've heard of.  It's also cool to see Collector Crate doing some exclusive stuff like this custom Jeter art card.

Overall I would say that this box was a vast improvement over my initial box last month, the pack selection was better, the hits were better and even the extra stuff, though I don't want any of it, was better.  Luckily I have a buddy who's a Yankees fan that lives just down the street from me, so I know whats going into his Christmas present.

cb out.

Collector Crate - So that's whats in the box

Nope not Gwyneth Paltrow's head.

It got here Saturday.  I unfortunately was deep in the throws of tearing up my floors and putting in some nice Pergo.  So that little red box just sat there taunting me, yet I knew when I got done I'd have a nice surprise waiting for me.

I've already seen quite a few box breaks posted of all three levels of Collector Crates. But I promised I'd break open my box and share it with ya'll.

First let me preface this break by saying I paid for this box.  It was not sent to me by the company.  I know they sent quite a few out early and I'm sure that helped them get a nice buzz going.  Second I opted for the cheapest, Bronze level, box. Cuz I'm cheap. But I digress...

The first thing I noticed was how small the box was.  To be honest 10 packs of card don't take up that much room though.  The second thing I noticed was how light the box was.  Again, 10 packs aren't that heavy, but these are the things I notice. After I go through the contents I do plan on doing a price break down to see if it was worth it.

So here's what was in the box.  No the Sharpe was not in the box.

Here's a close up of the box.  Besides the 10 packs of cards and my one auto and relic card I got a nice little A's mini pennant, a plastic mini baseball with the Phillies logo on it, a Blue Jays sticker, two gumballs, a mini "We're #1" foam finger and pack of TeenyMates.

Here are my TeenyMates.

There are a couple  rarer ones to pull. I pulled a Giant and Met. And 2 puzzle pieces.

The packs

2007 Upper Deck Series 2 (Retail, says so on the pack)
2012 Panini Prizm (4 card pack so I know it's retail)
2008 UD Timeline (6 card pack so I know it's retail too)
2012 Topps Chrome (Retail, isn't marked as hobby)
2010 Upper Deck Series 1 (18 card retail gravity feed pack)
2013 Topps Series 1 (5 card retail gravity feed pack) Really a 5 card pack of Topps?
2014 Topps Heritage (Retail, because it's got the security card inside)
2009 Topps Unique (Hobby Only!!)
2013 Panini Golden Age (Not sure if this is a hobby pack or not we'll call it hobby)
and the vintage 2006 UD Future Stars (Hobby, it says so on the pack)

Well it looks like out of 10 packs I got 7 retail packs and maybe 3 Hobby.  The 5 card pack of 2013 Topps really pisses me off.  That's not even a real pack. Were those even .99 cents?  And the inclusion of Golden Age is interesting since it's not really a baseball product.  But I do love the oddball stuff.  So lets see what I got.

I realized I bought the low end box, but this pack is just insulting. I would have rather it had been a pack of Opening Day.

 Not even a rookie card for my trouble.  Well this ain't starting off too good.

Retail Chrome

 At least I pulled a rookie and a refractor.

 Oh how I miss you Upper Deck.  I'm not a hockey collector so I haven't bought any UD since 2010 probably.  Nobody overly exciting in the pack either.

And speaking of 2010 Upper Deck.  We all remember UD got smacked down for putting this out.

 Still I liked the overall design of the set and boxes of this are super cheap.

 I also got a Mat Latos Blue Surpreme foil board card and Biography insert, hazaaa.

How about some more shiny.

 Nice to get at least a rookie a couple stars.  I'm not a huge fan of Prizm baseball, but I will say this year's football looks good.

 Did anyone open any Timeline back in 2008. I might have grabbed a pack, but I was living in the boonies back then. King Felix shows up again.

I quit Heritage 2 years ago.  This set just aggravates me to no end.  I do love the 1965 design though.

 And I pulled a short print, Jean Segura. Sadly I already have it for my Brewers team set.

 Here's a set that got no love.  And to be honest I kind of liked Topps Unique.  I did not, however, like the price tag associated with packs and boxes.  Boxes of this still go for close to a $100. Topps even tried carrying this over to Football, but neither brand got a second year.

 The black borders are cool, but such a bad idea.  They show any imperfection. I also got an insert and parallel.

 Nice to see Warren show up in the pack and make it a little more basebally. The Sugar Ray mini is the basic back.

The oldest pack in my box was this 2006 UD Future Stars. I had seen a few box breaks that had some vintage 90's Bowman, but this was by far the best pack in the bunch.

 Look at that Felix again. Oh that foil board goodness.

 And holy crap an autograph!  And this a cool acetate card too. Too bad it's of Peter Moylan.  He played with the Braves for 6 years and a year with the Dodgers, with a lot of minor league time.  He's also Australian and signed a minor league deal with the Astros this year before being released in March and that's were Peter's trail goes cold or at least were I stopped.

 I hear you asking. So what were my hits? Even the bronze level box gets one auto and one relic card included guaranteed. I saw a few breaks were guys were also getting a Griffey rookie, no rookie in my pack.

I got a 2008 Allen and Ginter Jim Thome  framed relic. At least I know who he is.

I also got a  2012 Bowman Platinum Green Guillermo Pimentel Autograph. Guillermo is still floating around the Mariners minor league system.

And that's it. Was it worth it?  It definitely doesn't feel worth it, but lets do some cost break down.

First I'll see if can buy packs off of blowout.com, if I can I'll use that price per pack, otherwise I'll use the price per pack if you bought a box.  This would be the cost I would have paid, not that Collector Crate paid.

So the box cost me $29.99. Like a dumb ass I forgot to enter the promo code for $5 off.  Shipping was included in the price, but usually for similar products shipping is $6, so we'll knock that off the top and say that if we break over $23.99 we're good.


Contents of box.
A's Mini pennant - $1.50     looking on Amazon these are between $2.50 and $1.40 each.

Plastic Phillies Baseball - .50 - You can buy a full set, all 30 teams for about $14 and these usually go for about 50 cents in coin ops.
Gumballs - .25
Teenymates - 3.99 That was the original price on the gravity feeder found in stores.
Little foam finger and sticker - I'll say about $1
Price of extra goodies $7.24


The packs - Blowout.com's prices
2007 Upper Deck Series 2 (Retail) - $1.29
2012 Panini Prizm (retail) $1.49
2008 UD Timeline (retail) $1.29
2012 Topps Chrome (Retail) $2.99 (couldn't find a pack or box price for a retail box so i'll go for what my local department store usually charges for Chrome
2010 Upper Deck Series 1 (retail) .60 (had to do a price per on this, you can buy a 36 - 18 card packs of reatil for $19.95)
2013 Topps Series 1 (retail) .50 - I'm being generous here for this 5 card pack, you can buy 60 for under 30 bucks.
2014 Topps Heritage (Retail) $2.99
2009 Topps Unique (Hobby) $4 - This is price per pack if I bought a box
2013 Panini Golden Age (hobby) - $1.70
2006 UD Future Stars (Hobby) $1.99
Total pack price $18.84. Let's just round up to $19

The hits 
2008 A&G Thome relic - I could only find 2 that sold recently on ebay and one went for about a buck and the other for two so lets say the relic is worth about $1.50. I picking up Ginter relics at my local card shop for a dollar all the time.  Why not they make great trade bait, but as a hit pretty lame. And I'm not using Beckett pricing, I live in the real world.

2012 Bowman Platinum Pimentel Green auto #d to 399 - People are asking all sorts of money for this card, but the only sale I found on ebay within the last 3 months was for $1.99, so we'll just call it $2.00

I'm even going to add in Moylan auto - sadly I found unsold cards that could have gone for .89 cents and the only one I found sold was for about a buck. $1.00

So lets summarize.  The packs were currently worth about $19. The extra goodies, which I don't care about, are worth maybe about $7.  And my hits including the bonus auto I found amount to about $4.50.

So if I include the extras in the box value that comes to about $30 to 31.  Take the extras out because they are nice, but not something I would collect or buy and the value of the box drops to about $23.50. Right about on the money.

Was it a good deal?  Not really. A good deal would imply I was getting more for my money which I clearly did not.

Was it fun to open? Yes. Who doesn't love opening random packs and other goodies?

Would I buy another one?  Probably not. But I don't regret trying it out. And I'll definitely be putting in for their free box drawings. And I know I only got the cheapest box they offer, but the packs were ones I probably wouldn't buy and the extras were definitely something I wouldn't have spent money on. And maybe it's just the way I choose to collect or the type of collector I've become, but really this box had nothing in it for me. Sure the silver and gold levels might have been better, but I have no problem risking $30 once on something like this to try it out, but definitely not $70 or $100.


 As a matter of fact everything posted here is up for trade, everything.

Are you guys still with me?  I know this post is getting long.
Let's go over the good and the bad and then I have a few suggestions for Collector Crate.

The good.
Nice variety of packs, spread around brands and years.  It was very well packaged. The packs came  well bubble wrapped.  I did hit a bonus auto.

The bad.
70% retail packs!  7 out of 10 were retail!!  Retail sucks. I get that picking up old retail packs might be great for the bottom line, but odds of hitting anything good out of retail are slim.

A 2013 Topps Series 1  - 5 card pack. Are you kidding me? I'm not even sure I'd count that as a pack at all. If it had been thrown in as an extra that would have been cool. It's almost insulting to include it in the box. And don't say, but you got the big old 2010 UD fat pack.  Yeah retail fat pack of an unlicensed product that almost got Upper Deck sunk. A 10 or 8 card pack of Topps would still have been considered low end enough for this box.

The hits were not in top loaders.  They were well packaged with the packs, in penny sleeves and were fine, but it seems odd to have the meat of the box unprotected like that.

The hits where kind of lame.


OK I'm done ranting, now on to some constructive suggestions on how to make the boxes better.

First, get rid of the retail packs.  I would suggest going exclusively hobby, even for the low end.  I'm sure the silver and gold feature higher end packs you can't find at the retail level, but if you want me to move up to the next tier or even buy another bronze, you got to make me want to and after breaking my box I don't want to.

Consider making teamcentric boxes.  Make the extra goodies, like that pennant, and the hits customized to a team collector.  I'm a Brewers fan. Would I have had a better experience getting a Brewers relic and auto in the box?  Yes I would. I would also probably keep the pennant and little ball if it featured my team.

I didn't see the option on the website, but consider being able to give these crates as gifts.  I think these would make a great birthday or Christmas gift. I could even see my wife getting me one.

And lastly, try and bring the cost per box down. I don't see too many people signing up even for the Bronze level over and over again at $29.99 getting blind packs and I really don't see people dropping big money on the unknown.  This might work with kitsch pop culture things at a lower price point, but sports card collectors can be very picky.

Alright.  Lastly if anyone out there opened a box and posted it feel free to link your break in the comments.  I've seen a few, but I know I've probably missed a bunch too.  And I'm curious how others breaks went. Happy, sad, mad, or glad?

cb out.

So what's in the box?

I saw a post over at Sports Card Info about the new Collector Crate. Similar to Loot Crate. You can subscribe and get monthly mystery boxes full of packs, sports figures, game used cards and autos.  The company offers three levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold, starting at $29.99, $69.99, and $99.99 respectively.  The site is up and running right now and taking it's first orders.  We'll have to see if prices come down. Loot crate is only $13 bucks a month and if you do a yearly subscription it's only $11, so if Collector Crate can get it's prices a little lower by working with the companies this might get really hot.

It'll be interesting to see what they pull out for the first boxes due later this month.  I for one don't have the means to drop even thirty bucks right now, but for a few of you with a little more disposable income might be worth a look. Oh and you can get $5 off your first box with the Promo code 5OFFOCTOBERLAUNCH.

Update:  Alright I ordered one. I'll do a box break down when I get it. CB