Stickers on RRR are just for show

Screen capture  of Razor Rookie Retro stickers

There was hope with Razor Rookie Retro, the boxes would be tamper proof. Brian Gray stated there would be stickers to prevent tampering with the boxes.

That’s great! Right?

On Wednesday night, Andrew from All in Cards did a three-case break on Ustream (watch it: there was an amazing hit ... here's a hint) and it showed the stickers, which are supposed to help prevent tampering, are for nothing more than display. These boxes can easily be searched and put back together.

(I’m not giving out those details on how to do it, but there are many who know it.)

The stickers were literally silver foil with Leaf imprinted in black. Leaf stickers on a Razor product, I might add. Andrew shows at the beginning of the video just how easily the stickers come off.

Upper Deck had it right with Ultimate when part of the sticker would rip off and the other part would stay on the box, so collectors would know if the box was previously opened.

Live and learn. Get better stickers if you are truly into preventing tampering.

Thanks.

What would you do?

2010 Razor Rookie Retro has been released and has brought up some interesting discussions.

I found one on Freedom Cardboard about a break that was posted on Blowout Cards forum (phew - that’s a lot of clicking).

I’ll break down the discussion.

A man on Blowout busted a box of this and apparently received a 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft Picks Colby Rasmus refractor autograph BGS 8.5 (there was no pics provided). It’s probably one of the cheaper cards in the set, resale-wise, especially because it grades at an 8.5.

On the secondary market (auction links), an 8.5 grade may only sell for $25-$35 of this card.

This card would likely sell for more money raw. Raw might get an extra $10-$20 on the refractor because the seller would hope for a higher grade than an 8.5.

Here are the options if you are not keeping the card.

1. Resell the card as the 8.5 and hope to get some money back.
2. Crack the card out of its slab and resell the card raw, but state the card graded as an 8.5.
3. Crack the card and resell raw, but make no mention that the card was previously graded.

What would you do with this card?

Razor Rookie Retro checklist - FINALLY - released

Brian Gray released the checklist for Razor Rookie Retro on Twitter on Thursday.

Check it out here.

The PDF file is 13 pages long and includes baseball, football, basketball, hockey and golf rookie cards starting with a 1941 Ted Williams. The cards are all graded with some modern grades going as low as BGS 8 or PSA 7.

As far as the baseball checklist goes, these are all names we have heard of, but there is a bit of gamble involved in these boxes. You could get a 2001 Topps Chrome Albert Pujols or a 1955 Roberto Clemente or a 2009 Bowman Sterling Auto of Randall Grichuk.

At over $200/box for this product, there is a lot of gambling going on, maybe even more so than usual.

What do you think of the checklist?

Something extra with Razor Rookie Retro

There was some news that came out about Razor Rookie Retro on Tuesday. Razor Rookie Retro, which is supposed to be the last Razor product Brian Gray is involved with, will have a little something extra inside.

Every pack will contain a 2010 baseball prospect autograph along with the graded rookie card. These aren’t basic autos either. There will be Metal prismatic autographs, Metal base and colored parallel autos, Gray wrote on Freedom Cardboard.

The Razor Rookie Retro checklist should be released sometime today and I will have that posted as soon as possible. However, Gray also said it could come as late of Thursday. Since the product ships out next week, collectors are anxiously awaiting to see it.

The reason the checklist is not available yet is because there is still tweaking being done to it. As market values change on cards, different cards are being included in the product while others are being taken out.

One of the cards we know that could show up is the 2010 Bowman Chrome Stephen Strasburg Superfractor. Gray paid $21K for the card to include specifically in this set.

Update: View the checklist here.

Razor Rookie Retro checklist coming together

The last Razor branded product should be coming out at the end of August, if not sooner, Brian Gray said on Twitter. Razor Rookie Retro is a set of some of the most popular graded rookie cards of the top players over all sports.

Gray bought the 2010 Bowman Stephen Strasburg superfractor when it was re-listed and bought it for $21,403 exclusively for this set.

Razor had success with a similar product, Legends of the Diamond, where every card is slabbed by PSA. The boxes go in the $200-plus range and include one pre-1970 vintage card.

There is no checklist yet for Razor Rookie Retro, probably because cards are still being bought. However, if you look at this eBay account (hint, hint), you will get an idea of what cards will be included. Some of the rookies include Alex Rodriguez, Michael Jordan, Lebron James and 2007 Jason Heyward superfractor.

Like every hobby box, these boxes are a gamble. While at the National, I saw two Legends of the Diamond breaks. One had a card that was immediately sold for $60 (after paying $200) and another had a 1969 (I think) Nolan Ryan.

Gray has said the average return on the Rookie Retro boxes will be around 80 percent of factory cost across the print run. As of Monday night, pre-order boxes are going for $219 on Atlanta Sports Cards.

Gray has purchased money cards from collectors to fill this as well. At the National, many sold graded cards of well-known players and some of today’s hottest prospects. Imagine if they opened this product and got their own card back. Ha!

In other good news, Gray also said the boxes will have security stickers in hopes of preventing tampering.

While this set is out of my price range, I am looking forward to seeing some of the breaks of this product.

Update: View the checklist here.