You have all heard the responses on message boards whenever someone has a ridiculously good break.
“Those boxes should have gone to Beckett!”
When something reaches meme status like Beckett’s constant “luck” in pulling amazing cards, you would think that companies would think twice before trying to pull crap like that again. Its not a secret that my hatred for everything Beckett does and produces is widespread. Whether its their highly subjective money making scheme in their grading service, or their horribly innacurate and conflict of interest filled magazine, Beckett presents a disgusting expectation of what the hobby is truly about for new and old collectors alike. Then we get to the box breaks, which have been nothing short of ridiculous parade of amazing pulls, sprinkled with terrible acting and even worse cover-ups from the unethical marketing reps at the companies that provide them with product.
Don’t get me wrong, not every box Beckett gets is a winner. Obviously, the level of stupidity it takes to give them 100% greatness has yet to be explored, but that doesn’t mean that each and every company has used them as a vehicle to hauk their wares in the best possible light. Regardless, if you go back through 2007 and discover JUST HOW MANY of these amazing pulls they have had, the evidence speaks for themselves.
This evidence is so powerful and status of hilarity has reached such a level that Beckett may have finally understood that opening boxes with extremely valuable cards does more harm than good. There was supposed to be a break of 2011 Topps Tribute baseball in the same fashion as there always has been, however after Chris Olds exclaimed on Twitter that they had pulled the best card he had pulled in an “adver-break” during his time at Beckett, things changed. Within minutes another tweet was posted saying the video was fried and would not be shown, my guess is this is what happened.
1. Some ultra valuable card is pulled – most likely a 1/1
2. No reaction is given from the people who pull the card on video
3. video is completed
4. first tweet is posted
5. IMMENSE backlash from “muckraking conspiracy theorists” like myself is sent to Beckett’s twitter
6. PR team weighs options of posting the break or requesting another box
7. decision is made
8. second tweet is posted
In the past, the video would have been posted, and there would have been tons of negative publicity sent the way of Beckett and Topps. However, because of their arrogant belief that THEY and THEY ONLY should be the voice of the hobby, they would shrug off any criticism and expect people to forget because they are Beckett and Beckett is the number one source DAMMIT.
I mean, after all of the cards, whether it’s the numerous 1/1s, cuts and thousands of dollars of cards taken out of the hands of paying customers, you would think that they would just solicit videos from actual collectors buying at the LCS. Fuck no. That isnt the Beckett we know and love.
In a very similar situation, we had the recent release of Upper Deck football, and the highly publicized release of the hobby’s first video card. These cards are so thick, that they cannot be inserted into packs, which means that they have to be cut into the foam that Upper Deck put into the bottom of each box. Not only does it add significant extra weight to the boxes they are put into, but there are numerous claims that these boxes are easily searched for the cards. As you can guess, when Beckett opened their personally provided box from Upper Deck, guess what was inside? Its not necessarily suprising at this point, mainly because of the expectations that many of the online users have for these “adver-breaks”, but the fact that Upper Deck was vehmently denying the searching and providing of this specific box to Beckett is almost as bad. We get it, you want Beckett to get one of the video cards because of how many out of touch collectors they still reach. Its not a bad idea. However, when in the same breath, these cards are claimed to be extremely “rare,” there should be no fault assigned for thinking exactly what I just wrote.
The bottom line remains that these types of situations should not happen at all, but are far from unexpected at this point. I used to keep a list of the cards that Beckett had pulled in their breaks, but I stopped when it got laughable. The companies are JUST as much at fault for this, but you would guess that Beckett likes the attention these breaks give for a magazine that is losing its base of followers rapidly. I fault both sides of this debacle for the clear unethical behavior, and I urge both sides to just give up and let this aspect go. Even if Beckett does have a lucky pull once in a while, the body of evidence prevents it from staying out of suspicion. Because of that, is it really worth continuing this practice?
Their response was somewhat entertaining. They didn’t exactly make the video card to be all that much.
What I am really curious about is the pull of a lifetime Olds bragged about on Twitter and promised to give away only to later say that the “video” of the pull somehow vanished.
well, I have said it to exhaustion yesterday and will say it again today, we did not send them a box pre loaded with anything…..period…..you have asked me for information before Gellman and have always been upfront with you…so if that isn’t good enough at this point then thats all I can say, we have zero interest in sending Beckett anything other then a random box….
It is actually the opposite, beckett reader is NOT the ideal consumer for a new technology card because we want to grow the hobby with new and lapsed consumers that probbaly dont know what beckett is
I am sorry to see that you determined you know better just to have a new addition to your blog, I speak the truth not a best guess as you are doing based on past indiscretions.
Are you serious? Beckett readers are NOT the ideal consumer for you? Then why send them boxes at all? After all you yourself said they were worthless. The hobby is growing with lapsed and new collectors, the number of new and emerging blogs directly reflects this. The problem the hobby has is most collectors look to Beckett first and rely on them for their usual misguided information. They then make large purchases based on the misinformed price guide, only to later find out their treasure isn’t worth Micheal Jack Schmidt! they then feel cheated and leave the hobby.
I don’t believe the video card was pre-loaded. The problem is that ever since the 2007 Exquisite Football break it’s hard to know what is and is not pre-loaded. That event alone throws into question every Beckett break since. Perhaps UD learned their lesson, but what about Topps and Panini? I watched a recent video for Contenders and sure enough a Sam Bradford auto comes out. How often do you see a break where Beckett gets a terrible box? I don’t believe all the companies are clean when it comes to Beckett breaks. How am I supposed to tell the Griffeys from the McGwires?
it doesn’t matter what Beckett pulls from a box because there will always be issues so long as UD, Topps etc. Pay for ads on their site/in the mag. Stop sending free boxes!!!!! Make beckett buy the boxes from random stores! Not only would this eliminate the problem it would also allow those stores they do buy boxes from to be spotlighted.
I found the beckett break humorous. Not surprised that there was a video card in the box but that the card was smarter than the bozos opening the box! 😉
Obviously the video card isn’t ready for primetime because it takes a lot of fussing and mussing to figure out how to use it fr most people. And the card probably as hackable as a memory stick so you can load porn or something on those cards and sell them and give some evolution card buyer a surprise! 😉
As for the size of the card, considering what you have to put it in to make it work, I say that is modern technology, contrary to the opinion of one of the Beckett bozos in the box break video.
One final thing — Upper Deck FAIL on the box layout. They should have replaced one normal pack of cards in each box with the Evolution card in those boxes that are to contain the card. You probably can’t figure out with a scale which one has evolution cards and which ones don’t, assuming the evolution card weight is about the same as a normal pack of cards.
“well, I have said it to exhaustion yesterday and will say it again today, we did not send them a box pre loaded with anything”
So the guy who already pulled a 1/1 Adrian Peterson 2007 Exquisite card, is saying he pulled a card of a lifetime. This guy must have got a George Washington/BabeRuth DNA cut card. Lucky right?
I bust equally just as much as the guys at beckett (which isnt much), and have never gotten anything close to what they get once, and they do it on a regular basis
I’m really sick of Beckett and the card companies’ practices in general over the past few years. Upper Deck and Panini have just been atrocious. All of the companies should stop sending Beckett “loaded” boxes when they can’t provide the same for us “Joe-Schmoe” collectors.
I read about a guy’s 2010-11 Classics Basketball case break the other day and nearly collapsed out of disbelief from how crappy it was. He didn’t even get one of the “case hits” that Panini promised.
I opened a box of 2009-10 Exquisite Basketball this week and pulled a Derrick Rose jumbo jersey patch that was ALL WHITE. Come on, motherf@#kers! If you’re going to charge an arm and a leg for a product, at least make sure all of the jersey cards are multi-colored.
Meanwhile, the douchenozzles over at Beckett pull primo stuff and act like it’s no big deal. I’m seriously considering leaving the hobby or sticking to buying singles on Ebay. You just don’t get your money’s worth anymore when busting boxes or cases.
These boxes weren’t pre-loaded, they were FLAT OUT LOADED!! I get it being in sales. You want to show your customers your latest and greatest by giving them a free sample at a show or to post on the web. Please stop trying to play ingnorant that these chase cards “just happened” to be unwrapped by another company. Hell, give them a “Hot Box”, but stop it with the cards that are worth more than 99% of the other cards in that release being opened by Beckett et al. Chase cards only work when they are pulled by those customers you’re trying to impress. Any other alternative and you, the card companies, come off as skeptical at best, and colluding by removing some of the best cards from ever being pulled by an end user at worst. I don’t think you could find one person outside of Beckett HQ happy that these types of cards are being pulled there.
My favorite is when the box busters on Beckett pull a 1/1 and there isn’t even a hint of surprise/excitement, and one of the guys doing the break says “yeah … it’s so-and-so middle-rung player,” writing it off like it’s some crappy insert that’s seeded 1:10 packs.
Is it really so blatant that the Beckett guys only get excited when it’s a “good” 1/1? I’ve busted plenty of boxes in my life and I’ve never, not once, pulled a 1/1 of ANYONE. But I guess there’s one definition of rare for the average collector and then an entirely different definition of rare for Beckett’s adver-boxes.