My brain literally cannot even!
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I kind of see where you are coming from… but then again not fully. I sell weighed packs and advertise as such. Whatever the next person does is not really on me. I have sold knives before. If someone chooses to stab a person with one, I don’t really think I am to blame.
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The ethical debate even continues on to the people who stop opening packs at their gold star pull in an ex box only 20 packs in. What do you do with the other 16? Can you sell them truly as unsearched/unweighed? What about current boxes if you happen to get a SR and 6 ex’s in the first 16 packs. (I open by the case, so this happens)
At the end of the day, everyone should do their own due diligence when buying. IMO the people who are online are already a step ahead of the game knowledge wise and saving immensely on price from stores and so with disclosure I see no wrong in selling weighed packs. The in store pack weighing I see as wrong due to it IMO, being the least informed consumers of the product (me and it sounds like many of you in your youth, parents for their kids, grandparents etc.)
I especially don’t see much wrong with weighing the older stuff since many people grade those packs or are in pusuit of a collection of sealed packs of each art, and who would want a bunch of expensive potentially holo containing packs in that collection? (though I sometimes also sell new weighed packs, some people want cheap bulk, codes, reverse holos or whatever). It all comes down to what a few have already said. Everyone draws their own line and has reasons for where they drew it. I draw mine where I do not directly harm anyone in the first degree. Now if people buy from me to re-sell? They would be better off buying boxes and weighing themselves IMO in that case.
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The problem is that people are emphasizing what they are doing after they weigh packs to justify weighing packs in themselves. I don’t want to sound like ebay police or whatever, as weighing packs is not a national crisis, but weighing packs is unequivocally unethical.
Furthermore, the analogy with knives is different. You do nothing wrong if a buyer stabs someone with your product, that has no relation to you or this weighing dilemma. The owner who weighed packs already benefited from weighing packs, and is further benefiting from selling the weighed packs for more money. The bit about saying, “I told them they were weighed” is just to sooth their conscious, as the weighing part is the problem in itself.
That’s like saying…
“Yeah I made a bomb, Yeah I sold the bomb to a terrorist, but what he does with it I can’t be blamed for”
Problem started with you weighing the pack in the first place. If you don’t weigh, It can’t create a domino effect later on and effect others.
It’s harmful to the community as a whole.
And like I said earlier, Everyone who does it will justify it so they don’t feel guilty.
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I gave a very bad analogy with little thought. It’s more like when I sold a buddy a phone of mine (years ago) for like 5 bucks. He knew the camera was f’ed up, and the hinge had issues, but it served his purpose (just texting and a very rare call). If he were unethical he could have tried selling it on Craigslist for more not advertising the issues. That wouldn’t have been on me. Not even one bit. He was very glad to have (for his purposes) a fully functional phone for a fraction of the price, though it was clearly not fully functional overall, I was glad to buy lunch that day by selling something I didn’t want and he was glad to save a bunch of money losing no function at all.
That is also different. Weighing packs gives the owner a massive advantage. They essentially know what they are getting without opening the product.
If you opened every pack, there wouldn’t be an issue. However, they you couldn’t sell their crap non-holos for the price of a “pack”. In line with your phone analogy, you could say, “hey I opened every pack and this card has a bit of whitening”. If the next owner sells it as gem mint, that is on them.
The issue is that weighing packs in itself is unethical. Everyone keeps focusing on what happens after you already gamed the system by weighing packs. That is a separate argument which has better and worse scenarios, but it does not justify weighing packs in itself.
I think you are forgetting, and I think a lot of people forget this, is that a Booster Pack is a gamble. You are paying for a chance, it’s like buying a lottery ticket. Weighing packs completely eliminates the sole reason for the pack to exist in the first place. If you sell someone the pack and they know it’s weighed, and then they sell it on as a ‘real’ pack then sure you aren’t directly responsible for what that person does with it, but you are the beginning of the chain that allowed it to occur in the first place.
When someone buys a pack they should be able to do so knowing that the chances of the rare cards inside exists and hasn’t been tampered with. Weighing is tampering with that chance.
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Don’t worry about sounding like the eBay police lol. Your opinion counts too 
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Interesting perspectives and comments and it will give me things to think on. A main goal of mine is to open one of each sets booster boxes and grade the holos while assembling a collection of one of each pack art. (I wish I collected right since childhood and just had done it since release) I keep the 9’s that I like myself and passing on the rest to fellow collectors (can’t afford to keep the 10’s plus I am not too keen on what PSA deems a 10 sometimes). I have already seen many of my 10’s show up here on collection threads. I have helped some local guys add many packs to their “1 of each pack art” collections at reasonable prices as well as some people on eBay. I was only seeing/thinking of the positives. I love helping people grow their collections.
I have been able to buy many boxes, run my “process” and break even. I lose (a lot) on some and gain on others. No I do not think just because it is my goal that I am entitled to do so whilst making a profit, but without the weighing and selling light packs I surely would lose a lot on many of the older boxes. I also would not have added some of the 10’s that I have to fellow collectors collections and even just owning some of those very valuable cards for a short time is a joy for me.
I honestly never really considered those arguments as you make them and appreciate the insight. New sets I have been moving away from weighing and opening in general some, ordering less cases of every release since Phantom Forces. I’ll have to stew on it some and see how I feel about it on older ones. I still feel that overall it helps more parties than it could theoretically hurt in the way that I do it, but I’ll see how I feel after I think more about it.
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The best or easier way to understand this situation is looking at weighted dice. Weighted dice give the user an unethical advantage. If the person informed everyone the dice were loaded, that does not negate the advantage they still gain using weighted dice.
Similar with pokemon, stating that packs were weighed does not negate the unethical advantage.
This isn’t exactly correct.
Weighed packs have some advantages, especially for sealed pack collectors or graders. You don’t want your sealed packs to have possible mint ultra rare cards in them. If I was going to start a sealed pack collection, I would weigh packs myself or attempt to purchase weighed packs. Once you get into selling the packs to non-collectors though, that’s when it starts to get fishy, as these packs can circulate and not be marked as weighed even if the original seller disclosed that they were weighed. But then you get into the issue of who is a collector and who is a reseller/unethical opportunist, as @milhouse said.
Loaded dice have no value to anyone except cheaters.
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If the other party decides that they do want to play with weighted dice isn’t that their own fault? Same with the other situation if they read that the packs are weighted but still buy them then they have been informed before hand at least.
Again, everyone is focusing on the second step. Argue the merit of weighing packs in themselves, without focusing on what happens afterwards. Are people not getting an unethical advantage? That is the dilemma I tried to highlight with dice, the advantage cannot be ignored. Whether or not only cheaters use the dice is a separate claim.
Basically, what people do after they weigh the packs does not justify weighing packs in itself. That is what everyone keeps trying to argue, which is a separate point.
What is ethical? How do you define Ethical? Is Capitalism Ethical? No, but the Evil will never end. What is the problem causing ordinary people to weigh older sets? Capitalism is the problem, because you see with capitalism you take something that’s worth nothing and turn it into a limited quantity, making it rarer and more expensive over time. Is it ethical for someone to buy a card for 5,000, have it graded and sell it for 100,000, directly taking 95 grand out of someones pocket? Yes it’s ethical in a Capitalist society, but its not ethical for patriotsfan117 to get a few 9’s from weighing a few packs from some older sets that cost him about 600 bucks. I don’t weigh packs, and I am cool with maximizing profit just as much as all of you, I also Love that things are rare and I feel that person who took the 95,000 dollars earnt it for getting such a rare card graded in the first place… But you know what Brian?! Sometiiimmeezz… I don’t believe I know you… Wait a minute let me refraze… Sometimes these thoughts of morality come into my head and I don’t even…
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P.S I just got my first ever WOTC fossil 1st edition booster box… What do I do? I thought it was okay to weigh the older packs and sell the crappy ones for cheap as crap price noteing in the listing that there weigh’d, because it seems every poketuber, and alot of collectors are doing it. Arn’t they??
This is a separate argument, which echos a similar discussion about re-prints, “why does it matter if they tell you it is a re-print and someone wants to buy the re-print”. This doesn’t justify the unethical element of a re-print.
With pack weighing, it is much more of a grey area, but the point of packs is that it is a lottery, and you shouldn’t know. When you find a way to know without opening the pack, that is the unethical issue.
Arguing if a weighed pack going to a person who collects sealed items is better than the obvious liar, is well, obvious. However, this is not justifying the inherent advantage that someone gains by weighing a pack, which is the dilemma in itself.
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Confusion seeps in about what to do with my box now…
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Well with that kind of mentality from those Meat heads, I suppose I should just go get a bazooka and blow my fossil box up then, and yell and scream SOCIALISM HAS WON TODAY! That evil pokemon 1st edition fossil booster box distracting people from the truth, and turning people against each other because of the weight of each pack!
I’ve never collected boxes or opened any old product. Were you planning on opening it and scaling it out and then reselling the weighed packs?