Pack and Box Searching

[dherm360]

also if you are going to buy packs from retail, buy the clamshells

[gladdyontherise]

my favorite thing to do is grab the stack that the pack searcher has set aside and walk away.

On a side note, we had a pack searcher at a neighbor hood target. He would run his nail along the pack because he said he could then tell where the card was. Unfortunately for him he was putting a nail scratch in one of the cards in every pack. I notified security and the manager and he was forced to buy a couple hundred dollars in pack or have the police called. Target also put up a sign no pack searching and no scales(although I dont understand who would bring a scale in)

Oh my, I can only imagine that it would be fun to take the pack searchers packs away and just leave them somewhere in the store that he wont find them...

To bad more retail stores arent like that, sad to say but they could use cameras in the card areas, to many times the packs are searched or all the packs have been opened with only base left...

[dherm360]

that area is also said to be one of the most shoplifted area in retail, many stores have moved the cards behind a counter or glass

[iowa49erfan]

My Target parks all the carts with the child seats and the electric carts in the card aisle. You can barely fit into it to look at anything. Apparently that's cart parking now.

[OnePimpTiger]

I don't see any rule book for buying packs of hockey cards????? There is a rule book for playing baseball and steroids are an illegal substance anway and banned in all sports and by law. Pack searching isn't illegal, isn't breaking any laws, and doesn't affect my integrity because I'm not doing anything wrong. Every single person can pack search because it is easy. The only reason people don't is they don't know how or they are on some high and mighty horse about pack searching being wrong and lacking integrity. Upper Deck may want to aviod people pack searching so they use spacers and whatever but people still find ways to do it because it isn't illegal. If you want to avoid pack search boxes just buy full boxes or do the pack searching yourself.

If you knew a Tin of the Cup had a Crosby Auto/Patch Rookie /99 and another Tin of the Cup had a nobody you'd pick the tin with the Crosby for sure. If there was a way to tell legally without busting the seal on the box you'd pick the box with the Crosby. Of course with The Cup I'd say it isn't possible to do but the question is hypothetical anyway.

What about ARod? The stuff he took wasn't against the rules when he took it, does that still make it ok? He still gave himself an unfair advantage even though it wasn't specifically prohibited.

Or let's use a different example: What if you see someone drop a $20 bill as they're leaving a store...there's no rule or law that says you have to give it back to them, but it would be considered wrong not to...at least in my mind it would, but I have this silly little thing called a conscience and crazy ideas called morals. I know everyone's morals are different and maybe it doesn't affect your integrity in your eyes, but it most definitely affects your integrity in my eyes.

Or how about insider trading...or reoddai's example of fixing the lottery...or fixing a fight. Yeah, it works out great for the people who are in on it, but everyone else who's not in on it gets screwed.

And the fact that companies insert decoy cards should be a indicator that it's not acceptable behavior. Why would they be trying to stop it if it was ok?

The reason of why has to do with the gambling nature of opening wax. Lottery systems work in the same fashion. You put up money for a chance to get something back of more value. Pack searching is akin to fixing the lottery. You expect the payout to be such and such, but because of pack searchers, the actual payout is much less. Asking why people would be mad is like saying, "why do you feel angry when you're being cheated?"

If the stated odds are false, then people are giving up their money with much less potential return than they could get back if the system was fair.



I think you're mistaking 'fairness' for 'odds'. Fairness would be that no matter the order of people getting their packs, they all have an equal chance at getting the hit. For example, let's say 20 people line up and grab a pack from a box. Well they all have an equal chance at the hit.

Now, we add a pack searcher who knows how to pick the hit. Anyone who picks after the pack searcher has a lesser chance than normal to get a hit card. So, for those people, is it really 'fair' when compared to earlier when no pack searcher was present?

BTW, I agree that the "but think of the children!" rallying cry is a stupid one. Kids are the future of collecting (they're the future of everything right, we all grow old and die, so someone has to take over). But don't underestimate the shrewdness of kids. They may not notice for a few months, but when they get nothing but base at the retail store and they have dreams of collecting, are they more apt to leave the hobby or stick with it? And when they stick with it who will they turn into? Seeing that pack searchers get their hits from the mall, are they going to redouble their efforts in an ethical manner, or will they become like the pack searcher? Its not just the effect of the pack searching, but the possibility for emulation.



Since you wanted to play Devil's, I'll jump in. With a tool box, the contents of the box are described, like one hammer, one screwdriver, etc. If you open it and one's missing, then that's an issue of course. But for wax, the pack often states that you are buying an unknown and what's inside COULD be anything. A better example would be scratch tickets. Do they let you scratch the ticket before you buy it to see if its a winner? Of course not. But would you buy them if you know that someone else could pick out the winners before you?



You don't see a rule because a lot of this has to do with ethics and morality. There may not be any laws against it (now?), and while it may not affect YOUR integrity, that's simply because you don't care about this issue. It may affect other people's perception of your integrity though. Don't worry though, there's no high horse here saying you should or shouldn't do it. That's a personal choice.

When you pack search, you making the situation worse for anyone who buys packs after you. It a question about how much you care for your fellow collector. In an ideal world, everyone cares for themselves, but also for the person next to them, right? You feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick and give an equal chance to your fellow collector to pull a hit from that box.

Let's be honest though, its not a perfect world. People throw out half a McD's burger, ignore the guy on the street, rail at school property taxes when they have no kids and pack searchers at Wal-mart spend hours feeling up loose packs. Who gets hurt? Everyone and no one.

No one gets hurt because people still want to believe that the stated odds are good and so they are still purchased. As for those people who are naive enough to buy packs after they've been searched? Well, I don't know them anyways, so its not like I'm hurting someone I know.

It also hurts everyone because slowly, and you can see this in the forums and from people you talk to, people are buying less loose wax and moving toward singles on the secondary market. The card companies see less wax sales (at least for retail)... and... what do they do? I don't know, but we're in a state of flux right now IMO. I can only see what happened in the 90's. Massive over-production coupled + back-door shenanigans = market collapse. I'm not saying that pack searchers are the cause of the next crash, but they do add to the disillusionment of collectors. We all know what happens when the "bubble bursts". There's no one thing that does it, but when you add up all the little things, it just becomes overwhelming.

Cheers to all.
reoddai

Very good post and I think the part I bolded is what it all boils down to. Pack searchers are only in it for themselves, screw everyone else in the hobby...you probably didn't mean it that harshly, but that's how I see it.

[gosox55]

my favorite thing to do is grab the stack that the pack searcher has set aside and walk away.

On a side note, we had a pack searcher at a neighbor hood target. He would run his nail along the pack because he said he could then tell where the card was. Unfortunately for him he was putting a nail scratch in one of the cards in every pack. I notified security and the manager and he was forced to buy a couple hundred dollars in pack or have the police called. Target also put up a sign no pack searching and no scales(although I dont understand who would bring a scale in)

I've seen it done. Since the card companies have started to put filler cards in packs that method has declined, i think. I too have seen cards damaged by pack searchers, I doubt if retail stores would care to much for having their products damaged and most likely ban the customer from their store and/or call the police if caught.

[jwmaryvillecrg]

How are you pack searching? Do you feel the packs or are you opening them?

Any packs at wal mart that are thin (not the ones with GU fillers) with the security tags in them have inserts in them. This is done so that if a pack is stolen, it will be one that consists of base cards, not of a pack with a potential auto in it. Also, i am not a pack searcher who goes through and buys all of the packs i can find. I buy one or maybe 2. There has only been one instance when I bought 3. I have only ever done this with one product, also. I really don't feel like I am destroying the hobby by buying maybe 1 retail pack a week and knowing that I am going to get an insert. Also, I have never gotten anything more than an insert doing this. I have simply gotten SP cards. Never an auto or a redemption.

[jwmaryvillecrg]

My only problem with people saying that it bothers kids is this, when I was a kid, finding a jersey card(not that they had them back then) or a autograph wasn't the coolest thing ever. For a kid, usually, finding a base card with their favorite player or team means more than anything. I really don't think that a kid will hate the hobby simply because they don't find hits.

[MCXC1987]

Well we don't tell people to rob banks because we expect them to not to. In the end, you are gaining an advantage. I don't care how many times you do it or for how many products. People go in, take hits out of a box, potentially ruin other cards in the packs. If you were a kid, and got a game used card, I'm pretty sure you'd be on cloud nine. So yes they may get excited over a base card of their favorite player. But in all honestly, that little fluke game used card that gets us $3, would mean a heck of a lot more for a kid that never pulled it. My first hit came from a pack that I bought in a video game store. It was on sale, it was an Ivan Rodriguez game used jersey. I was pumped. I had a game used piece from a baseball game. Part of a jersey. I still have that card. Its wrong no matter how you look at it. Stores lose money because people see guys rubbing packs down. I never buy packs from my target because I saw a guy do it. Not targets fault, but I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate losing money because some guy likes to come in and feel up packs.

[Diamondlistings]

Well, I agree that if you open a new box they get first dibs but they shouldn't cheat the packs.