At Cost Breaks (Hockey)

[Faun]

Hi All,

Hopefully this post is allowed, if not Admin please let me know.

I am a long time collector but have been put off by price of a lot of breaks, in particular with the rising costs everywhere else hobbies are typically the first thing to go. As a big hockey fan, I would love to collect this more and build a solid community in Australia for it.

I have frequently seen other breakers put product up at +50% on cost, while I understand they are in it to make money it doesn't help collectors. I am ideally hoping to find a stable group of collectors to break hockey with that would be interested in doing so at cost prices (cost of boxes, cost of shipping etc) and it that means we get to break 50% extra boxes that's a huge win!

I'm not super picky on the boxes that we break, I'm guessing that it would be lower cost stuff mostly but with a stable group we could set a schedule of routine cheaper boxes and some more expensive stuff intermittently to suit the budgets of the people involved and the cost of boxes at the time. Cost per person wise, I am open to discussion with a group for this but I imagine we would just divide the box price by the total number of hits for that product and then multiply it out for each team so your paying for your odds of a hit. I would just use the tables of Break Ninja if that worked for everyone.

With all of that said, my DM's are open if people want to ask questions as well as below, and if we are able to get a group together i am looking to take the Flyers. Ideally 31 other breakers would be involved but if we can get 8 to do half divisions or something that would be a great start.

I have put Hockey in brackets in the title as I would be open to helping out collectors in other sports do at cost breaks if there was a group of them, but I personally wouldn't be involved myself as I am only looking to collect hockey at the moment. Given I am starting off here and have a new account and my involvement to date in collectibles is somewhat limited for references, I am open to setting up a collateral with a trusted member of our group/the community in the short term until the group is comfortable with me running our breaks.

I am really hoping to get a group together as I am excited to get fully absorbed back into the hobby but current break prices are prohibitive in the long run for me.

Thanks

 

[ozsportscardcollector]

Late reply but didn't see this until now.

I think the hockey hobby in Australia is too small to get this up and running. I've stopped going in breaks for at least 3 months now and I'm glad. I get it if you are purely a team collector but it's a brutal way to spend your hobby dollars imo.

There is a great Youtube channel called Leaf Fan Downunder. He's in Canberra and makes hockey content with his Mrs, mostly opening random packs and boxes.

If you still want to try and get this going perhaps you can contact him or leave a comment in one of his videos. In any event it's a good channel if you haven't seen it before

 

[Faun]

Late reply but didn't see this until now.

I think the hockey hobby in Australia is too small to get this up and running. I've stopped going in breaks for at least 3 months now and I'm glad. I get it if you are purely a team collector but it's a brutal way to spend your hobby dollars imo.

There is a great Youtube channel called Leaf Fan Downunder. He's in Canberra and makes hockey content with his Mrs, mostly opening random packs and boxes.

If you still want to try and get this going perhaps you can contact him or leave a comment in one of his videos. In any event it's a good channel if you haven't seen it before

Hey, thanks for a reply.

Yeah its certainly a niche but thought I'd shoot my shot. Almost a year of no feedback on this certainly indicates how small the interest would be in this.

I think the biggest pain point for me has been the extras charged by breakers here for hockey (probably given its niche) often being in excess of 50% extra. Same in other sports too, and it sucks for the participants and the hobby.

I certainly feel your point there, I haven't been in a break for over a year now. I do enjoy the community aspect of it and chasing teams which is why i prefer it over getting personal boxes, but with how hockey is in Aus I'd be better off going in overseas breaks or just doing personals.

Appreciate the recommendation too, I'll have to check it out!

All the best and have a great festive season!

 

[Lazlow]

I went stupid buying boxes between 2012-2015 (last time the Canucks were decent, as was the Australian dollar) but I quickly learned how niche Hockey cards are here, with very little opportunity to sell or trade. So not only are you left with a lot of cards sitting around, the lack of demand doesn't encourage fair value compared to North America. And of the big 4 American sports, hockey is probably the worst at yielding a return per box. Nothing worse than stretching the budget on The Cup and getting about $100 worth out of the tin.

Couple this with UPS doubling their shipping rate, plus the Australian dollar heading south, I fell out of a love with it as quickly as I became obsessed. I dabbled with a couple of breakers in the USA, but this can sometimes be a crap shoot too.

Apparently there was a decent Hockey collector group on Facebook, but I don't really use Facebook, so I never really looked into it.

 

[ozsportscardcollector]

Hey, thanks for a reply.

Yeah its certainly a niche but thought I'd shoot my shot. Almost a year of no feedback on this certainly indicates how small the interest would be in this.

I think the biggest pain point for me has been the extras charged by breakers here for hockey (probably given its niche) often being in excess of 50% extra. Same in other sports too, and it sucks for the participants and the hobby.

I certainly feel your point there, I haven't been in a break for over a year now. I do enjoy the community aspect of it and chasing teams which is why i prefer it over getting personal boxes, but with how hockey is in Aus I'd be better off going in overseas breaks or just doing personals.

Appreciate the recommendation too, I'll have to check it out!

All the best and have a great festive season!

Cheers. And good luck if you go in overseas breaks.

 

[ozsportscardcollector]

I went stupid buying boxes between 2012-2015 (last time the Canucks were decent, as was the Australian dollar) but I quickly learned how niche Hockey cards are here, with very little opportunity to sell or trade. So not only are you left with a lot of cards sitting around, the lack of demand doesn't encourage fair value compared to North America. And of the big 4 American sports, hockey is probably the worst at yielding a return per box. Nothing worse than stretching the budget on The Cup and getting about $100 worth out of the tin.

Couple this with UPS doubling their shipping rate, plus the Australian dollar heading south, I fell out of a love with it as quickly as I became obsessed. I dabbled with a couple of breakers in the USA, but this can sometimes be a crap shoot too.

Apparently there was a decent Hockey collector group on Facebook, but I don't really use Facebook, so I never really looked into it.

I didn't get back into cards until late 2017 and bought some 2017-18 UD hockey but didn't really go heavy into it until mid 2020 when imo it became the best value for money almost overnight. NFL and NBA box prices went 5 X and baseball went 2X in some products. I discovered epack around then and got a lot of fun pulling Makar, Suzuki, Pettersson, Svechnikov etc. They had lots of 2019-20 S1 and S2 which I bought a lot of, as well as 2018-19 S1 and S2. Eventually it all got gobbled up but for a time 2019-20 S2 was the best rip going for $110 USD in late 2020.

It has now swung the other way where the print runs have gone crazy like they did in the other sports and there is so much product on epack it will sit there for decades if they don't heavily discount it. They are selling UD hockey at double what you can get it for in a hobby shop and then you have to still pay $0.25 per card shipping!

Pity you didn't keep ripping through the McDavid and Matthews years.

Again, the Leaf Fan Downunder youtube channel is great and definitely has a community vibe.