In case you haven’t been paying attention to the world of sports cards lately, we’ve reached absolute peak hysteria in the history of the hobby.
In just the last five months we’ve seen a Tom Brady rookie card sell for $2.25 million, a record for any football card, a Luka Doncic National Treasures RPA (“rookie patch auto”) sell for $4.6 million, and a 2003 signed Upper Deck Exquisite Collection LeBron James RPA and a 1952 Topps #311 Mickey Mantle each sell for $5.2 million, the record for any sports card ever.
Jesse Craig, the director of business development at PWCC, the auction house that sold the LeBron card said, “The demand for rare cards, especially basketball right now, is just like the demand for fine art.” To give you an idea of just how much the hobby has grown in the last year, a similar version of the LeBron card that just sold for $5.2 million, sold for $1.85 million just 10 months ago. Not a bad return on investment for the buyer of that 2.5 x 3.5-inch piece of cardboard!
So, how can you get your hands on a card like one of these grails without selling your house or mortgaging your life away?
You can either go searching through your uncle’s attic to dig up his dusty, old card collection and hope he has a crisp Mickey Mantle stored away with perfect corners, surface, edges and centering (the standards by which the cards receive a grade from BGS, PSA or the other grading agencies). Or, you need to “rip wax!” Wax is what the cool kids call sealed boxes of cards, and to rip means to open.
Panini America, Topps and Upper Deck are the top manufacturers of today’s best cards, and in any given box, or pack, you might just be lucky enough to find a “One of One” Patrick Mahomes rookie card, or a Nebula of Tom Brady like Rob Kardashian did with Bullpen LA, live on Instagram. But packs of cards in 2021 are not a few quarters or dollars like you may have paid when you were a kid. No no no, not even close. Packs these days can go for as much as $300 for four cards if you’re chasing a Luka or Mahomes rookie card in Panini Prizm, or even $1,400 for two cards in a box of Panini One&One. Or you can spend $34,000 for a box of Eminence Basketball which comes with a whopping 10 cards, all numbered to 10 or less; meaning there are only 10 copies (or less) of each card in the box.
Why so much? Because the payout if you do happen to “pull a banger” (another phrase the cool kids use) could be 100x or more. In December, a Zion Williamson 1/1 Flawless Logoman was pulled out of a $7,000 box and is estimated to sell for more than $700,000, close to the winning payout of a 7- or 8-team parlay! Sounds fun right?
Now that you’re convinced to get in on the action, you might be thinking you can just jet over to Target or Walmart to pick up a box to try your luck. WRONG! Well, you could, but just like the lines that form outside of sneaker shops whenever there’s a new limited Jordan release, Target has people camping out ahead of restocking days to buy all the inventory and then flip it (resell it) on eBay.
It’s unlikely the wife and kids will want to camp out with you at Target, so your best bet to crack into this buzzing hobby is to pull wax with some of the top Instagram breakers, like Bullpen where Kardashian hit his crazy Tom Brady nebula. And it’s really easy to get started, and a whole lot more convenient than sleeping over at Target. Open up Instagram once the kids are asleep, hop into their live feed, tell them what box or pack you want ripped, send them payment via Zelle, CashApp, Paypal, Apple Pay, Venmo or use your trusty old credit card, they rip it live on their feed for everyone to see, then they mail you the cards, even the bad ones. EVERYTHING SHIPS!! It’s that easy!
To help get you hooked, I mean started, here are our picks for the top Instagram breakers that may just have the next 100x banger waiting for you in their unopened wax! Happy ripping!
- Rizo Sports (@rizosports): Run by Michael Rizo, Rizo Sports offers live breaks, razzes, Rizo Razz, personals, selling and buying. Plus, if you’re lucky, Michael will show you around his office for a glimpse of his insane autograph jersey and picture collection. Rizo Sports is also available in stores with two locations in Riverside, Calif. They have hundreds of sports and Pokemon slabs available for sale or trade.
- Lilpullman (@lilpullman): Run by 18-year-old Chase Pordes from Aventura, Fla. One-stop shop for case breaks, personals, hit drafts and buying, selling and trading.
- Jaspy’s Case Breaks (@jaspysbreaks): Group break on YouTube daily, buy on: JaspysCaseBreaks.com. Live personals on IG daily, buy on: Jaspys.com
- PULLWAX Marketplace (@pullwax): Buy, sell, trade sports cards on site. Connecting authorized buyers and sellers. Live box breaks.
- Mamba Cards (@mambacards): Live personal breaks, team breaks and hit drafts.
- TheCoffeeBreakers (@thecoffeebreakers): Live breaking sports card boxes.
- PullKingz (@pullkingz): Run by Ryan Shapiro, the Pull Kingdom is your home for slab mixers and King Packs.
- The Bullpen (@bullpenla): Sports card shop in Los Angeles. Huge selection of wax. Live Instagram personal box breaks and hit drafts.
Photo Credit: Google Common Licenses, Twitter
