General Forum

No one on here has spares because of the issue mentioned in this post! I haven't seen a pack of anything in any stores since, what, March. I just buy my complete sets online and be done with it. I do try to buy a few packs just so I have traders, but looks like I won't have any 2020 to trade...

Which store? We're in the same area so you've got my attention. 

Are you talking about a shop or something else? I spent 2/3 of my life in Macomb County and visited a few area shops when I was home over the summer. I'm interested to see if I've run across this one.

one thing that I have not seen from this thread, is.....why do the card shops feel they have to buy and resell retail blasters?

likely that answer is either price hikes from manufacturers/distributors of hobby boxes....or lack of availability from those sources....or both?

I do not like the trend of lack of retail availability for the common collector either....but I am not sure that the local card shop is totally to blame for this....

any other opinions on those points from the community?

mark

Mark, I know that the card shop near me was bought by a new owner because the previous one died suddenly. Topps wouldn't honor the agreement to sell their product initially. At one point he was paying people to buy all new stuff at the retail outlets for him when it'd come out. Not sure if the Topps issue caused that, but it may have. I doubt everyone has that issue. 

Yup, same here. No BB cards to find most everywhere. Just some old hockey. Did find 3 blister packs of '20 A&G @ a Wally World in the Baltimore area Thursday evening which was a surprise.

As far as Topps and hobby shops, I remember the owner of my old shop (now gone) told me that for Topps to even listen to her she had to have something in the five figure range in her account to get the base product. In order to get the premium stuff she had to order a certain amount of the base to get a little bit of the premium and this was like ten years ago.

The shop on Waverly and Saginw hwy.  I will ONLY buy supplies there.

It's the same in Australia, people buy the boxes go on Facebook and jack up the prices, we even have 1990 hoops selling at AUS$190 a box

AS Brimrose said, if the collecctors stop buying, things will come back to reasonable. But for as long as the collectors are buying, this will go on and only get worse.  Right here on TCDb yesterday and way more often than I like to see, someone was buying a card as an investment. Didn't even know anything much about the player other than he heard that he had potential to be a star.  For as long as this goes on, the flippers will continue to do what they are doing.  I hear a lot of complainging yet the same people are still buying. I won't even pay what our stores here in Canada ask for whatever types of packs or boxes they have.

It is the same forall of the inserts and parallels that are being produced.  The companies are luring these "investors" to buy lots of product in the hope ofgetting that SN1 or SN5 of a player that has yet to play on at the top of any professional sport. They produce it because enough people are buying it. I don't. I find enough on sites such as Kijiji, Facebook, or auctions, along with the trading here to keep my hobby enjoyable.

Stop buying from breaks and from flippers and you will soon see prices (and production) come back to some what normal. If you are still buying at those prices therefore supporting the flippers and LCS that are cornering the product, then you are the problem, not them.