Today, I got ahold of a sell sheet that really made my jaw drop. When I started to see who is responsible, my feeling of excitement turned to a feeling of skepticism. Sbay Sportscards, known for their baseball and football re-pack products, have decided to really blow out the high end crowd with boxes that cost 3000 a piece. Sbay made news most recently with their purchase of the Yasiel Puig Bowman Chrome Superfractor Auto 1/1 for use in their baseball products
, and news like this should come as no surprise.
After Panini became the first licensed company to produce packs with a price tag above $1000 with Flawless, Sbay decided to dive into high end basketball on their own. Although the sell sheet features some impressive material, just about every one of their previous releases have been nothing short of a colossal disappointment.
They are advertising quite a few cards like this, of which you can see the prices:
2004 Exquisite Michael Jordan Exquisite Auto Patch
2007 Exquisite Kobe Bryant Exquisite Auto Patch
2008 Exquisite Lebron James Exquisite Auto Quad Jersey
The basketball market functions almost exclusively on super high end, which is why I get why this is their approch. However that isnt the way the SBAY products have been. Plagued with tentpole hits (like the Puig), surrounded by heaps of mid range and low end hits, the Super Boxes dont exactly have a great reputation. However, they were all pennies on the dollar compared to a product like this. Sure, there will be some incredible cards in a limited run, but for all intents and purposes, this is not meant to be busted by someone other than a group breaker. Even then, it looks like it will be quite hard to stomach. Their previous products dont instill a lot of confidence by any means
.
Products from companies like Leaf and Heroes of Sport have garnered both praise and criticism for offering similar products on a smaller MSRP scale, but this is on a completely different level. At least with Heroes of Sport, you feel like you are getting a few nice items or per box
, for about a third of the price. Even then the boxes are still built for group breaking. Until I see a box or two opened, I would be staying about as far away from these as I can.
Although I do give them credit for wanting to break into this type of territory, and I do think there are some incredible things on the sell sheet, they have earned themselves quite the reputation over the last few years. Not a good place to be, when you expect collectors to drop this type of money. Sure it has Michael Jordan rookies and game used items that will sell for thousands, but in a box run of 200, do you feel THAT lucky? Maybe you do.
I saw this the other day and just began shaking my head. I am not sure they could put anything in that box for me to feel happy spending 3.5k. Even if I pulled a couple cards valued at 1k each and some memorabilia, unless the memorabilia is from Lebron or Michael it’s really not worth thousands. Will be interesting to see what this product looks like. Maybe I’m wrong and they have a superstar superfractor auto in every box, but I just couldn’t see myself biting the bullet on one of these. Honestly if I wanted an MJ autographed jersey, I could buy one for $1,500. Then have another $2,000 to buy myself whatever auto I wanted. Just tough to wrap my head around the price tag. I could be completely wrong–but I just can’t even guess at what they’re going to put in those boxes to justify that price tag.
I don’t trust throwing $500 or $1,200 at a Panini high-end product. No way I’m giving 3k to a no-name company.
I would never break this, but Exquisite basketball used to be awful too. Some of those breaks are epic to see 500 plus dollars being turned into 25 bucks.
No way every box has 3 grand worth of cards in it. There will be some unhappy box breakers.