An online break study

[leafer70]

Over the years, I’ve done my fair share of online breaks. And during that time, I like to think I’ve more or less broken even. I’ve hit some monster cards and I’ve been skunked. But not unlike purchasing a box of cards and opening it myself, the nature of the beast is very much hit & miss. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. So for me, it’s the entertainment value that keeps me coming back. Having said that, I’ve never been a big gambler nor do I have deep pockets. Therefore, the extent of my online breaking has always been in the $20-$50 per spot range. If I hit a homerun, I’m ecstatic. If I pitch a shutout, it’s not overly upsetting. So I’ve often watched in envy of those who are willing & able to ante up the bigger dollars for the bigger breaks. Recently, one of my preferred breakers offered up a massive break amounting to $900 per spot and it sold out in literally minutes. Obviously with a break at this price point, there was a ton of product (including, but not limited to, 16 boxes of The Cup spanning 11 different years!) There were also a bunch of giveaways which essentially guaranteed a third of the participants would be receiving a mid-range hobby box. Now I’ve always been curious to know just how many people in a break this size would walk away on the plus side and how many would be taking a loss. I’m sure the percentage is the same regardless if it’s a $20 break or a $900 break but the bigger ones are obviously more intriguing. So being that we’re currently in a lockdown and I have all this extra time on my hands, I thought I’d watch this particular break and document every single hit and record its book value (as per Beckett online) and see just how each team does.

Please understand that I post this strictly to satisfy my (and anyone else’s) curiosity on the subject. This is by no means a knock against breaking or the people who participate. As I’ve mentioned, I personally enjoy them and will continue to do so. This is also the absolute minimal sample size so it should not be taken as the norm but I may do more if this lockdown persists.

This was the list of products in this particular break:

16-17 UD The Cup x 6 (Sealed Case)
15-16 UD The Cup
07-08 UD The Cup
08-09 UD The Cup
09-10 UD The Cup
10-11 UD The Cup
12-13 UD The Cup
13-14 UD The Cup
14-15 UD The Cup
17-18 UD The Cup
18-19 UD The Cup
19-20 UD Black Diamond
16-17 UD Black Diamond
15-16 UD Black Diamond
19-20 UD Buybacks
17-18 UD Splendor
18-19 UD Premier
16-17 UD Premier
15-16 UD Premier
02-03 UD Premier Pack
18-19 UD Ultimate
17-18 UD Ultimate
15-16 UD Ultimate
10-11 UD Ultimate
10-11 Panini Dominion
11-12 Panini Dominion
13-14 Panini Prime
12-13 Panini Prime
11-12 Panini Prime
18-19 UD Chronology
06-07 UD SP Authentic
18-19 UD SP Authentic
17-18 UD SP Authentic
18-19 UD Ice
19-20 UD SP Game Used
18-19 UD SP Game Used
15-16 UD SP Game Used
19-20 UD SPX
18-19 UD SPX
17-18 UD SPX
19-20 UD Trilogy
18-19 UD Trilogy
19-20 UD Artifacts
11-12 UD Artifacts
19-20 UD Allure
18-19 UD Clear Cut
17-18 UD OPC Platinum
15-16 UD OPC Platinum
14-15 ITG Heroes/Prospects
15-16 UD Series 1 Tin
16-17 UD Series 2 Retail
19-20 UD Series 1 Tin

This break was a Team Draft whereby the participants were randomized and allowed to select the team of their choice based on their position in the draft. Below is the order in which the teams were selected:

1. Toronto
2. Edmonton
3. Vancouver
4. Pittsburgh
5. Montreal
6. Winnipeg
7. Colorado
8. Boston
9. Calgary
10. Detroit
11. Chicago
12. Washington
13. Rangers
14. Philadelphia
15. Buffalo
16. Islanders
17. Carolina
18. New Jersey
19. Los Angeles
20. Arizona
21. Tampa Bay
22. Columbus
23. Florida
24. Ottawa
25. St. Louis
26. Anaheim
27. Nashville
28. San Jose
29. Dallas
30. Minnesota
31. Vegas (FREE SPOT)

Below is a link to my spreadsheet showing every team and their respective hits.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vq_KQUubirMP7kMiFeUnzkXhJ0FWIUhiG3r6oCiTAJk/edit?usp=sharing

The Becket value of each hit is also listed. Keep in mind that there were some cards that had more than one player on it representing more than one team. Those cards were randomed and assigned to the winning team (i.e. The Gretzky/Hull dual was randomed between St.Louis and Edmonton. St.Louis ended up winning that random.) There were several hits whose value was unlisted in Beckett, therefore I estimated their value. Those items are highlighted in red. While I think I’m in the correct range on most of those cards, the two that I had difficulty with were the Hischier 1 of 1 and the dual auto of Gretzky/Hull. If I’m way off on those, then that could obviously make a big difference for those two teams. There were also several cards that were redemptions and way past their expiry date (these cards are in italics.) I included the value of the original card although it will be up to the participant to submit that card to Upper Deck’s raffle program and hope for a card of equal value in return.

Note: Vegas is ignored in these stats since this team was raffled off for free. More than half of the products in the break were pre-2017 which would have been highly unfair to have someone get stuck with them.

BIGGEST WINNER: Toronto Maple Leafs +$521.60 (not too surprising since there was a full case of 16-17 The Cup and a /99 RPA Nylander was pulled.)

BIGGEST LOSER: Anaheim Ducks -$767.80 (Nashville was actually the biggest loser strictly on card hits but that participant won 1 of the box giveaways at the end which nudged them ahead of Anaheim)

BIGGEST SURPRISE: St.Louis Blues +$240.50 (the Blues were one of the last teams selected and yet were one of the few teams to come out ahead. The fact they won 1 of the box giveaways AND won the random of the Hull/Gretzky auto obviously helped their cause.)

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Edmonton Oilers -$590.00 and Boston Bruins -$748.75 (all this product and not a single big McDavid card! Losing the Hull/Gretzky random was a tough blow for the Oil. And original 6 team, the Boston Bruins typically do consistently well in breaks like this but not this time)

# OF TEAMS TO COME OUT AHEAD: Toronto, St.Louis, Winnipeg, Los Angeles (L.A. made the list thanks to winning the grand prize at the end: 16-17 The Cup tin)

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Montreal, New Jersey, Pittsburgh (while these teams fell just short, they did hit some nice stuff!)

BIGGEST HITS: Black Base 1 of 1 Nico Hischier (17-18 The Cup), Dual Scripted Sticks /15 Wayne Gretzky & Brett Hull (12-13 The Cup), Rookie Patch Auto /99 William Nylander (16-17 The Cup), Rookie Patch Auto /199 Patrick Laine (16-17 Premier), Signature Materials /99 Patrik Laine (16-17 The Cup) x 2!!!

CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE: McDavid, Matthews, Crosby, Lemieux and Orr. Surprisingly, no big hits from any of these players. I’ve seen enough of these breaks to know this is definitely not the norm.

I’d be interested to know who else enjoys participating in breaks, particularly your experience with the larger ones. If you were in this particular break, what would be your top 5 draft order? Have you ever hit a huge card in a relatively small break? Personally, I recall buying the Kings in a Team Select mixed break for $35 and hitting a Gretzky Black Auto /5 in Artifacts. Similarly, I bought the Oilers for $40 in a small mixer and hit a McDavid/Draisaitl Pro Penmanship /10 in UD Black. We won’t talk about all the big misses ;)

[SabresGuy]

Very interesting read. It feels wrong to thank the lockdown for the spare time it gave you - but it must have taken some serious time to go through it all. Lots of red ink on the google sheet for sure.
I have never done a group break, and this did not push me closer to starting.


Thanks for sharing.

[jcesar77]

Thanks for the analysis -- wanted to watch the break, but didn't, so I appreciate the timesaver summary -- glad I didn't invest, I would have thrown $800 into the fire

[leafer70]

For those unfamiliar, I think it’s worth mentioning that breaks of this particular size are very rare and only occur once or twice a year. I would say 99% of breaks fall into 3 categories: Small ($15-$50 per spot), Medium ($50-$100 per spot), Large ($100-$500 per spot). So a break of this magnitude is definitely in a category of its own. And because they’re so rare and the potential is so big, I’m not surprised by their popularity and sell rate.

[leaflandwest]

Wow, this is amazing. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I've always been super curious about the return on breaks in general but specifically around these "monster" breaks. I decided to piggyback off of the heavy lifting you did and add some additional analysis.

When we talk about realizing value from a group break, we also need to consider the costs that go along with selling these cards so that's what I've focused on. For the purposes of this analysis, we'll assume that every card hit was sold on eBay at the Beckett book value. Also, in order to level the playing field, I've removed the giveaways from the equation. In order to calculate what the break would have cost without the giveaways, I totaled them up to get $2,200 and once we factor in tax, it's about $2,500 total value. That equates to a difference of about $83 per spot so I've deducted that from the break cost to leave us with an adjusted amount of $817 (and for that reason, giveaways will not be considered in potential profit).

An assumption I'm going to make here the intent is to sell since if we were going to PC these cards we likely would've either done a pick-your-team style break or just bought the cards we want from the secondary market. Also, I'm going to put aside the value of our time to take pictures of the cards, create the listings, correspond with buyers, package the cards for shipment, drive to the post office and stand in line. I'm also not considering the "real" cost of packaging materials, gas, wear and tear on your vehicle etc. I'll assume we've worked that into the shipping cost (which I'm not sure a lot of sellers do).

With that out of the way, let's start with our biggest winner, Toronto. The value of the 21 hits are $1,291 and after the cost of the break $817 that leaves us up $474. Now we have to sell them. Let's assume we sold all 21 (to individual buyers) and the average shipping cost was $10 per card (could be more or less, it doesn't make a huge difference in the final number) so now we've been paid $1501 ($1,291 + $210 in shipping).

Now come the eBay and PayPal fees. You might be able to wait for one of their quarterly sellers promos but I'm going to assume we'll pay the regular fees. eBay is going to charge $150 (10%) in final value fees and sales tax on top of that (I only realized this tax part when doing this analysis on my own sales). I'm in Ontario so with tax I owe eBay $170. PayPal wants their cut too which is $45. Now if we take those fees off of what we were paid, we're left with $1,286. When it comes time to ship, that'll be $210.

That leaves us $1,076 for items we sold for $1,291 in sales whichis $215 (or 16.7% of total value) in fees. If we now deduct the break purchase amount of $817, that leaves us with a ROI of $259 (or 32%). That's for the absolute best spot without factoring in your time.

Applying the same ROI factor across all teams, Nashville was the biggest loser with a -95% ROI. Only Toronto, Winnipeg and St. Louis had positive ROI (31%, 6% and 3% respectively). After that, Pittsburgh had the next highest ROI at -25%.

The total cost of the 30 spots at $817 was $24,510 and the net value of the cards after fees is $9,651 for an ROI of -$14,859 or -61%.


This chart illustrates how far below the break even line most teams were.roi.PNG

Also, if you're wondering about the optimal draft selection (this time including the giveaways, here it is.

draft.PNG

Something else I looked at was the average hit value with the thought of having fewer, more expensive cards is more beneficial to having a higher quantity of lower value cards and here's where the teams stacked up:

avg hit value.PNG


That was fun for a Saturday morning. I gotta say, although I don't participate in breaks very often anymore, it was quite eye opening to see the numbers and is a good reminder that breaks are really only good for the entertainment value and not so much for the investment value.

[leafer70]

Thanks for the additional analysis leaflandwest! Very interesting indeed. I've always maintained that breaks are great for entertainment purposes and like any "vice", should be in moderation and within your budget. Same applies to buying boxes. I'm sure the BV of the cards you hit in a box rarely exceed the price you paid but it's the thrill of potentially hitting something big and/or the sheer joy of collecting that makes it worthwhile.

[leaflandwest]

Thanks for the additional analysis leaflandwest! Very interesting indeed. I've always maintained that breaks are great for entertainment purposes and like any "vice", should be in moderation and within your budget. Same applies to buying boxes. I'm sure the BV of the cards you hit in a box rarely exceed the price you paid but it's the thrill of potentially hitting something big and/or the sheer joy of collecting that makes it worthwhile.

Completely agree! I mainly collect patches and autos but when I have that pack opening itch that needs to be scratched I'll buy some UD series 1/2 for the fun of it and the chance of hitting some exclusive

[CJ1510]

This thread is gold. Fantastic analysis leafer70 and leaflandwest.

[Maggot]

Great thread! For anyone that looked at my Chronology break thread, you'll know that I crunch numbers before entering breaks as well. It's not uncommon for the Blues to be undervalued, especially when there's 17-18 product in there (4 rookies that year).

The big gap in your analysis is actual sale values, though. There's lots of cards in that list that book for $40 to $100 that will actually sell for $5 to $10 at auction.
The Blues... if it weren't for that Gretzky/Hull sticks card they would have been completely smoked! Huge hit.

[leafer70]

The big gap in your analysis is actual sale values, though. There's lots of cards in that list that book for $40 to $100 that will actually sell for $5 to $10 at auction.

100% agree. And I did consider that factor when posting this but it was easier to crunch the numbers based on BV since the actual "sell" value can vary quite a bit. And on a personal level, I don't do any selling but i do my fair share of trading based on BV so when I bust some wax or participate in a break, the BV is actually more meaningful to me personally than the sale value of any cards I hit.