General Forum

well, most of that stuff wasn't a thing before this past year.

Makes sense. Hoarders creating a need to take extra steps to manage sales. Fights in the store. Greedy humans have once again caused the hobby to no longer be something the average kid can enjoy. I hate some aspects of my hobby and glad I no longer look to but new product.

I didn't know about Walmart until I read the Target story. I live in a small town an hour away from anything except Walmart. An hour away is a Target. Guess I won't be finding any packs at all for a while...

What he said! 

I have not bough ta box of cards since January of last year.

That was Hoops which cost me about $200 NZD and I got the usual $20 worth of cards but it was fun as always. I then watched prices then go to $300... $400... $500... $600.... eventually they hit $800 a box.

In that time I have added approx 800 cards to my Olajuwon PC and it has probably not cost me much more than the $800 I could have spent on Hoops.

This is similar to what I like to do. I got the idea from a blog entry, and for the life of me couldn't tell you who would post it. But they would basically stash cards away from COMC when they got them, and when they needed a blog post they'd put together a "COMC blaster" and show off $20 worth of cards (purchase price).

That's how I go about it. I go to eBay and search for PC players with free shipping on the auctions. I set my max bid at $1.00 and move on. If I get it, great. If not, oh well. Or, for instance, the other day, I set my calculator at $10.00, and started going through a different PC player and purchasing everything under $0.50. Plenty of cards that fit that criteria for Shawn Green. I subtracted for each card I bought, and stopped when I got to $0.00. Basically, for $10.00, I purchased (and will eventually receive, when I decide to ship) like 22 or 23 cards that I actually wanted.

Ripping packs is fun, but being stuck with 85 cards that I really have no use for isn't all that thrilling. I'd rather bargain hunt and/or spend a little less to get cards I truly need and want. Anyway, a little off-topic. But that's my way of going about it anymore.

Here's what Target has on their website:

Trading cards update

The safety of our guests and our team is our top priority. Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to temporarily suspend the sale of MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokémon trading cards within our stores, effective May 14.
Guests can continue to shop these cards online, while supplies last.

i live not to far from where the incident occured and may i say within hours of it happenning all the walmart and targets had their stock completely pulled off the shelves. this sucks now because it leaves us only online ordering (which topps baseball was sold out last time i checked) or going to the card shops. And from what i've seen at my local shops they tend to charge more then at walmart & target. which i get because they are mom and pop shops and aren't buying in large quanities like others. But now i'm concered that given the recent circumstances that local card shops will follow in suit and you'll only be able to order the boxes and have them shipped to your house. 

Target made this choice after what happened in the parking lot brawl in Wisconsin. It has gotten bad lately these so called "collectors" who turn around and sell for double or more have ask or threatened employees for cards in the back. The card vendor at my store was telling me that they follow her from store to store and have approached her at her house. So it is for the safety of the shoppers, employees and the vendors that Target is trying to protect so the sales are going online.

I don't think it's just one store with the problems otherwise they would just be pulling that one store and maybe the area around it.  There have been issues in NH at some of the Target and Walmart stores as well.  A clerk at Target told me that the woman who stocked the cards outright quit because of how bad she was being harrassed so badly.

We had a story on the news where some guy in Brookfield Wisconsin bought a cart full of cards when he was leaving the store 4 guys jumped him at his car and he had a concealed carry permit so he pulled out his gun and aimed it at them they were caught later on but that's way Target is not selling cards at the moment they feel they're employees and shoppers are in danger because of this