I’m beggining in buying sealed product, and i’m targetting mostly the newest stuff.
I know that most of the loose booster packs from the beginning of the S/M era are sortable, but what about the more recent ones like Unified Minds, Hidden Fates or Cosmical Eclipse ? As long as they remain factory sealed, is there any way to tell what’s inside by weighing/sorting them ? In other words, is it safe to buy large quantities of not-in-booster-boxes packs from those series ? Because they are findable for much less than those that are the boxes themselves. To be honest, i find quite suspicious to see large quantities of loose packs and i don’t see where is the interest of the seller in selling them in this form rather than keeping it in the original items that they are from. As a new buyer who is not conscious of all the tricks than people can perform in order to scam ignorants like myself, i’d be really grateful to benefit from the experience and wiseness of people on this forum to be more conscious of what i’m risking if i decide to buy those ones.
Actually, they are not that cheap in the market that i’m interested in. In France, the price difference between boxes and batches of loose packs is … quite significant, to say the least. It’s like 1.5 to 2 times more expensive to buy boxes, on average, for the same number of packs. That’s why i’m asking. But thanks for the advice ^^
Prices for boxes from distributor (for Netherlands, Belgium, France it’s Asmodee) in Europe is usually between € 84,99 and € 89,99. Compared to something like $ 74.99/79.99 in the United States. Webshops usually sell sealed boxes for € 104 - 109. Game stores sell for € 114 - 119 per box. BUT… I think retail stores are not allowed to sell single boosters, only check lane boosters (those in the cardboard) which are always more expensive. Only LGS’ sell boosters straight from the booster box.
Personally… opening boxes is a net loss. I have never ever broke even on any box I bought. Not even the box where I was looking enough to get the most valuable lucky Secret Rare pull. There is just no value on bulk in Europe (thanks to Cardmarket basically push down every bulk card to € 0,02 and even reverse holo rares under € 0,10). I recommend just searching eBay and CardMarket for the singles you need, and not crack boxes to hope to get what you want. If you after completing full sets; opening a box is the way to go to get a big chunk out of the way, although… I think buying it all as singles on Cardmarker would be more cost efficient.
Ideally, if you after just single sealed boosters. Buy them online, usually they get cracked from ETBs, Tins, Collector Boxes and sometimes go for lower than whatever price is per booster from a box. Pokemon does a nice job to counter weighting, but they do terrible job at making boxes not able to be mapped. I heard Sword/Shield can be mapped, so you can pick out the guaranteed Full Art/Secret-pull boosters.
Yes, but as a non-distributor, i don’t know how to buy boxes directly from Asmodée. Otherwise, i would do it without any kind of hesitation. Do you know any tip to buy boxes for as cheap as possible in Europe ?
In France, as far as i know, retailers are selling single packs from opened booster boxes in most physical and online shops. Are they allowed to do so ? I don’t know, but they are doing it anyway.
Of course, i agree with you : most of the time, unseal any kind of item is a net loss. That’s why those that are doing so before reselling packs for a lower price are … intricating. This hides something for sure, in my opinion.
I realize that i forgot to say something important : i have absolutely no intent to unseal anything : my aim is to keep the items for a variable amount of time before reselling or trading them. I’m not interested in most of the cards that are in those sets and when i am, i just buy singles already ^^
I buy my English boxes from a Belgium based webshop, simply because they cheaper than any I can find in The Netherlands. And they located close to the border, so they can ship using the PostNL, instead of BPost. Avoiding the whole international parcel hassle.
Here in the Netherlands, retailers (toy stores etc.) only sell the check lanes. I once asked owner of the store about it and he told me he’s not allowed to order booster boxes any more like he used to do back in WOTC/early Nintendo days. Can be a ruling from Asmodee, Pokemon or just from head office (they no longer independent shop like the used to be). LGS’ all over the place sell boosters straight from the box usually for € 3,95 - 4,50.