Pack Searchers

[NEZHEAD42]

I live in podunk Carrollton, Georgia. I am about an hour west of Atlanta. We are located about 20 miles from the main 4 lane highway. You have to try to get here, to get here. As far as I know, I am the only Wacky collector in this area (say 30 mile radius). I was at Wal-Mart today and every pack that they had in stock had obviously been searched. The back card had been slid up and the front cards slid down. I checked and all 20 packs they had, had this "feature". I could feel them lined up this way thru the pack. Due to the discussions on the board, I knew that I was feeling the result of pack searching. I then went to Target and discovered the same phenomenon. I don't know if there is someone in my area or if there are searchers going around to every store they can find. I did buy 3 packs for my unopened pack collection. I figure there is no major chase item inside the pack, so I won't be tempted down the road to open them.

[lucidjc]

Dont assume its a Wacky collector doing that. My guess is its a card dealer of sorts just in the know of what cards are hot, and how to pull 'em. 

I like your thinking on the unopened packs, i will also grab a few from the searched pile for keeping without temptation.

[BumChex]

I still don't know how they can look through the blue front. I took a card and tried to see through it with no luck. This is how they are doing it but I don't know how they see through them. Maybe I need more light?

[Jean Nutty]

I still don't know how they can look through the blue front. I took a card and tried to see through it with no luck. This is how they are doing it but I don't know how they see through them. Maybe I need more light?

Maybe they are using a hand held laser pointer or one of those super bright LED lights?

Or those X-Ray glasses we wanted as kids

[BumChex]

Or those X-Ray glasses we wanted as kids

I'm still curious if you can use those to see through ladies dresses?

[Plastered Peanut]

I still don't know how they can look through the blue front. I took a card and tried to see through it with no luck. This is how they are doing it but I don't know how they see through them. Maybe I need more light?

I don't get this at all either.  Someone must have magic fingers to discern a pack with a premium card over a regular pack.  Sure, magnets are easy, but how can someone tell if there is a luggage tag inside the pack?  The few tags I've gotten, I put all the cards back in the pack, and tried to discern a difference between them and a pack with "regular" cards.....no dice!  So unless the pack searcher is searching for magnets, how in the world are they a bonafide "pack searcher"?

[BumChex]

I don't get this at all either.  Someone must have magic fingers to discern a pack with a premium card over a regular pack.  Sure, magnets are easy, but how can someone tell if there is a luggage tag inside the pack?  The few tags I've gotten, I put all the cards back in the pack, and tried to discern a difference between them and a pack with "regular" cards.....no dice!  So unless the pack searcher is searching for magnets, how in the world are they a bonafide "pack searcher"?

They are looking through the wrapper and moving cards around to see the borders. I don't get it either. I would be afraid that someone would come over and wonder what I'm doing at the cards for an hour...LOL

[Tic_Toc]

They are looking through the wrapper and moving cards around to see the borders. I don't get it either. I would be afraid that someone would come over and wonder what I'm doing at the cards for an hour...LOL

I agree with you guys on this.  I tried that method on the last ANS set and could never see though the pack well enough to spot the border of a sketch card.  Even with mega-bright lights, it seems like it would be nearly impossible.  There's just not enough room in the packs to spread the cards out far enough to get a good look.  And then it's difficult to shuffle through them inside the packs anyway, and like Brad said, you look like a thief standing in Target molesting the packs.

[RawGoo]

I agree with you guys on this.  I tried that method on the last ANS set and could never see though the pack well enough to spot the border of a sketch card.  Even with mega-bright lights, it seems like it would be nearly impossible.  There's just not enough room in the packs to spread the cards out far enough to get a good look.  And then it's difficult to shuffle through them inside the packs anyway, and like Brad said, you look like a thief standing in Target molesting the packs.

I don't know how they'd do flash searching in store aisles, or that it would be very profitable, and I've not seen evidence of that in my purchases; the nearly full gravity feeds I purchased yielded the expected amounts of silver flashes, as well as magnets and tags.  I believe they're searching for sketch cards in those store gravity feeds, and I think I know how.  Don't want to post it and give more people ideas.

It's also possible that the distributors are doing the searching before the product even makes it to the store.  Has anyone opening a packing box in a store found that the gravity feed had been opened? 

Also, remember, it's not just Wackys involved in pack searching, this happens with sports cards, and non-sports sets like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.  So, no other Wacky collectors in your area doesn't mean no one has searched the Wacky packs.

As I said before, as much as I want to buy packs at Target and Walmart to support the product and help ensure a future series, I no longer want to buy loose packs, and will be looking for bonus boxes and blisters.  Not that I'm on a sketch hunt, but if I'm going to spend my money, I do want to at least have a fair shot at one.  Not sure that those boxes and blisters aren't 'searched' by case opening, but at least there might be a chance there.

[Dr Popper]

I don't know how they'd do flash searching in store aisles, or that it would be very profitable, and I've not seen evidence of that in my purchases; the nearly full gravity feeds I purchased yielded the expected amounts of silver flashes, as well as magnets and tags.  I believe they're searching for sketch cards in those store gravity feeds, and I think I know how.  Don't want to post it and give more people ideas.

It's also possible that the distributors are doing the searching before the product even makes it to the store.  Has anyone opening a packing box in a store found that the gravity feed had been opened? 

Also, remember, it's not just Wackys involved in pack searching, this happens with sports cards, and non-sports sets like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.  So, no other Wacky collectors in your area doesn't mean no one has searched the Wacky packs.

As I said before, as much as I want to buy packs at Target and Walmart to support the product and help ensure a future series, I no longer want to buy loose packs, and will be looking for bonus boxes and blisters.  Not that I'm on a sketch hunt, but if I'm going to spend my money, I do want to at least have a fair shot at one.  Not sure that those boxes and blisters aren't 'searched' by case opening, but at least there might be a chance there.

Is it possible to purchase packs at a place like Target, and then return them the next day under their return policy?  That way they could take them home, do whatever they do, and then bring back the duds.

[BumChex]

Is it possible to purchase packs at a place like Target, and then return them the next day under their return policy?  That way they could take them home, do whatever they do, and then bring back the duds.

Never thought of that. You really could do it. Great, now we are giving more people options...LOL I'm done buying from gravity feeds!

[sco(o)t]

I noticed on ANS7 release when a similar discussion started, that for me... it was impossible to make out card borders in the packs that are foil. But for the "white plastic" packs, in good light, you could make out different border colors. Still very tough. I bought a case of ANS7 but didn't get a sketch card or gold border in my packs.  I did purchased one of each for my set so played around with putting the sketch card in a wrapper with other cards. Under best possible circumstances, I could kinda, maybe tell. Don't know how someone could reliably do this in a store without being well practiced.

In the "Are these guys NUTS" thread, I posted some experimentation I did with ANS8 that would work great if you bought cases and were trying to find "hot packs" at home. I'll include the post below since its more appropriate here. I found when openening the packs within a box, there was a definite pattern and once one ascertained where you were in the pattern by openening the first two packs, you could tell where silver borders, tags, magnets, etc. would be. I only found one gold and one sketch in the case I purchased so can't tell how to detect them by position. But here is some other interesting info...

I didn't weigh packs as I was opening them so did a little experiment. I have a digital postage meter (on the cheap end). Previously, I posted the repeating pattern of 6 packs that I found when opening my boxes. So I weighed the various pack combinations using just the cards, as I have opened all my packs. For each combination shown below, I weighed multiple times using different cards but results where consistant. So here were the results on a cheap postage meter in grams:

   16 grams = 6 base cards - Pink border - Pack to the Future combination
   17 grams = 6 base cards - Pink border - Magnet combination
   16 grams = 6 base cards - Pink border - Movie combination
   15 grams = 6 base cards - Sliver border - Pack to the Future combination
   17 grams = 6 base cards - Pink border - Lenticular Tag combination
   15 grams = 6 base cards - Pink border - Movie combination

So the real item of interest is that in the pack I opened with the sketch card... the sketch card was an additional card in one of the 6 base cards - Sliver border - Pack to the Future combination. This combination weighs 18 grams.

Unless you were to run into some odd combination that wasn't planned , with something like two magnets in one pack,or 3 extra base cards (which I didn't when opening 8 boxes of packs),  
clearly the heaviest packs should contain a sketch card.  I can see how this helps if you are at home opening packs but is someone really going to take a scale into Walmart or Target? If so, they are more desperate than I.

My gold border card I opened came in one of the 6 base cards - Pink border - Movie packs and replaced the pink border card. Weight was no different than the normal pack.

Conclusions:
* Sketch cards can be determined by pack weight

* Silver border, tags and magnets can be predicted by the pack content pattern if you know
 where you are at in the pattern (by openening the first two packs in a box stack).

* I have no idea how gold border cards can be predicted. I know where the one I found was in the pattern order. Perhaps a certain box in each case contains one? Don't know. I only have the 1 case/8 box data set to go by. If any benefactor would like to contribute more cases to my research, please feel free to contact me.  

[Fanatical_and_Sickly]

The back card had been slid up and the front cards slid down. I checked and all 20 packs they had, had this "feature". I could feel them lined up this way thru the pack.

I never thought it would happen to me... but crap, I went to Target today to see if they finally got their gravity feed put up. They did, and probably 12-18 packs were already sold. As I was taking some out to buy though I found that most of the ones remaining were exactly as you describe. Back cards slid upwards. wtf?

[lucidjc]

I never thought it would happen to me... but crap, I went to Target today to see if they finally got their gravity feed put up. They did, and probably 12-18 packs were already sold. As I was taking some out to buy though I found that most of the ones remaining were exactly as you describe. Back cards slid upwards. wtf?

I have been saying this for sometime now.  What we would like to know is what TOPPS thinks about this? And I've said this goes accross all card packs/boxes...Sport and Non-sport.


I was looking to buy some UFC cards. But at Target, all were removed from the box and searched. So i let them be.

[Gurgle]

I never thought it would happen to me... but

For a moment there, I thought you were writing a letter to Penthouse.

[NEZHEAD42]

For a moment there, I thought you were writing a letter to Penthouse.

Dear Penthouse,
 I never thought this would happen to me, but I was at Target looking for Wacky Packages when this hot, co-ed sales clerk and her twin sister approached me to see if I would help them in the back storage room... yadda yadda yadda...and that's why I now walk with a limp. Oh yeah, I never found that sketch card, but it was totally worth it.
-Name Withheld by Request

[Gurgle]

Dear Penthouse,
 I never thought this would happen to me, but I was at Target looking for Wacky Packages when this hot, co-ed sales clerk and her twin sister approached me to see if I would help them in the back storage room... yadda yadda yadda...and that's why I now walk with a limp. Oh yeah, I never found that sketch card, but it was totally worth it.
-Name Withheld by Request

"You yadda yadda-ed over the best part."

"No I didn't. I mentioned the bisque."

[DrSushi]

I never thought it would happen to me... but crap, I went to Target today to see if they finally got their gravity feed put up. They did, and probably 12-18 packs were already sold. As I was taking some out to buy though I found that most of the ones remaining were exactly as you describe. Back cards slid upwards. wtf?

I noticed the same thing at my Target. The few packs I checked all had the back card slid upwards. wtf, indeed.

[Dr Popper]

I noticed the same thing at my Target. The few packs I checked all had the back card slid upwards. wtf, indeed.

Not very comforting hearing all of this.  I was thinking there are probably a few people that know how to search the packs at the most but it sounds like it could be a lot worse than that.

[Fanatical_and_Sickly]

Not very comforting hearing all of this.  I was thinking there are probably a few people that know how to search the packs at the most but it sounds like it could be a lot worse than that.

wow. Is there any possibility that something in the process of packaging the cards is causing the bonus cards to get offset from the base cards? They are different cards and maybe there's something about the way they are being added to the stack for each pack before they are wrapped and sealed is throwing them off.
It just boggles the mind that suddenly ANS8 is a hot property and packs are being scoured for all across the country

[Swiski]

One good thing - Topps fixed the resealing-returning problem. The new wrappers are so fragile when you open them at the seam, they tear very easliy. In the past, people would buy an entire a top loader. Open them all up at home, take the good stuff, reseal the packs with mucilage or rubber cement, then return these packs back to the store. So with new wrappers, that won't happen anymore.

[lucidjc]

wow. Is there any possibility that something in the process of packaging the cards is causing the bonus cards to get offset from the base cards? They are different cards and maybe there's something about the way they are being added to the stack for each pack before they are wrapped and sealed is throwing them off.
It just boggles the mind that suddenly ANS8 is a hot property and packs are being scoured for all across the country

You're right, its hard to fathom. BUT, with ANS 7 sketches going for uber high prices at the time. Golds going for a bill to 2 bills. How could these chase cards NOT be on the radar?

[RawGoo]

wow. Is there any possibility that something in the process of packaging the cards is causing the bonus cards to get offset from the base cards? They are different cards and maybe there's something about the way they are being added to the stack for each pack before they are wrapped and sealed is throwing them off.
It just boggles the mind that suddenly ANS8 is a hot property and packs are being scoured for all across the country

I suppose it's possible, but the packs I got in the Walmart gravity feed were not like that, just the Target packs were.  My Bonus box packs weren't like that, either.  Anyone notice this in blister packs?  I haven't gotten any yet, but would like to buy an entire sealed sleeve of those; I really miss Lockwood.

The thing about the liklihood of this being widespread is that pack searchers are not necessarily 'collectors', and they don't care whether they make a profit off of baseball inserts or Star Wars or Wacky inserts - it's just a business.  When I mentioned pack searching to someone at Target, she said, 'oh yes, the collectors do that.'  The searchers wouldn't have bothered with Wackys until recently, since the inserts weren't rare enough to be valuable enough to be worth the effort.  That changed with ANS7.  Actually, I'm surprised it didn't happen with FB2 plates.

[NEZHEAD42]

wow. Is there any possibility that something in the process of packaging the cards is causing the bonus cards to get offset from the base cards? They are different cards and maybe there's something about the way they are being added to the stack for each pack before they are wrapped and sealed is throwing them off.
It just boggles the mind that suddenly ANS8 is a hot property and packs are being scoured for all across the country

I bought a gravity feed at Target and one at Wal-Mart on the day they got them in stock. I got mine before anyone else had a chance to look at them. The packs were not tampered with and the cards had not been slid around. The stack inside the pack was perfectly lined up. The ones I found the other day were the second feeds they got in stock at the stores. As I stated in the first posting of this thread, the back card had been slid up and searched. I don't think a production issue, packaging issue or shipping issue caused the cards to slide around. I feel 100% confident that it is pack searchers.

[Dr Popper]

wow. Is there any possibility that something in the process of packaging the cards is causing the bonus cards to get offset from the base cards? They are different cards and maybe there's something about the way they are being added to the stack for each pack before they are wrapped and sealed is throwing them off.
It just boggles the mind that suddenly ANS8 is a hot property and packs are being scoured for all across the country

I was assuming the cards were shifted from people manually doing whatever they do to search the packs, but here is an interesting video of a production facility doing a stream of trading cards.  Although the beginning is slow, it eventually shows the various stacks of cards in the feeders and collating with the other stacks, and then heading to the end to be wrapped into packs..........

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppKTCZA_vLw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppKTCZA_vLw</a>

[Hustler08]

I bought a gravity feed at Target and one at Wal-Mart on the day they got them in stock. I got mine before anyone else had a chance to look at them. The packs were not tampered with and the cards had not been slid around. The stack inside the pack was perfectly lined up. The ones I found the other day were the second feeds they got in stock at the stores. As I stated in the first posting of this thread, the back card had been slid up and searched. I don't think a production issue, packaging issue or shipping issue caused the cards to slide around. I feel 100% confident that it is pack searchers.

I went to Target and Walmart - the Target feed was NOT tampered with - packs perfectly lined up - I also pulled a GOLD from that Feed..so I know it was f*cked with..

The Walmart feed - the packs were messed with...so I left it...

How can the Blister packs be messed with in the plastic - bought those at Target and they were fine...

going back to Target and walmart for a sdecond round - will report back...

i think its only a select few people doing this...

[Plan 9]

I went to Target and Walmart - the Target feed was NOT tampered with - packs perfectly lined up - I also pulled a GOLD from that Feed..so I know it was f*cked with..

The Walmart feed - the packs were messed with...so I left it...

How can the Blister packs be messed with in the plastic - bought those at Target and they were fine...

going back to Target and walmart for a sdecond round - will report back...

i think its only a select few people doing this...

There are thousands of Targets and Walmarts across the U.S. I don't think it's likely there are anywhere near that many Wacky Pack tamperers.

[Crust]

How can you tell if a magnet is inside a pack? I've tryed some different things and all have failed.

[View Monster]

How can you tell if a magnet is inside a pack? I've tryed some different things and all have failed.

I have a magnet that is about 1/4" thick and 5/8" in diameter and it sticks to the pack very well.

[BumChex]

I have a magnet that is about 1/4" thick and 5/8" in diameter and it sticks to the pack very well.

Can it detect sketches also?

[View Monster]

Can it detect sketches also?

I dunno...it hasn't stuck to one yet.  I never buy anywhere near enough packs to search 'em anyway.

[View Monster]

I don't get this at all either.  Someone must have magic fingers to discern a pack with a premium card over a regular pack.  Sure, magnets are easy, but how can someone tell if there is a luggage tag inside the pack?  The few tags I've gotten, I put all the cards back in the pack, and tried to discern a difference between them and a pack with "regular" cards.....no dice!  So unless the pack searcher is searching for magnets, how in the world are they a bonafide "pack searcher"?

I used to be able to detect motion cards with no problem. You just hold the pack like a cell phone with the tip of your thumb and fingers holding the sides of the pack and with your other hand push your fingers aligned down the center of the pack and you can feel the resistance in the card vs. a pack without one. If you tried to do this on the ANS8 motions it would break the tag off of the card.

[BustedFinger]

I too find it hard to believe that there are pack searchers in every city across the country searching packs of Wackys.

[sco(o)t]

I too find it hard to believe that there are pack searchers in every city across the country searching packs of Wackys.

One word... Aliens!   Conspiratorially speaking. They need sketch cards to fuel their ships and gold border cards for.. Well, I'm not really sure. They didn't explain it well in the recent documentary I watched called COWBOYS VERSUS ALIENS

[Jean Nutty]

I noticed the same thing at my Target. The few packs I checked all had the back card slid upwards. wtf, indeed.

The Target near my house finally got a gravity feed. Even though I've got what I want coming in the mail this week, I considered buying a few packs to try for a sketch. This topic of "pack searching" has me a little paranoid, so I examined a few first. I checked 8 packs and all of them had the front card pushed upwards. I'm not sure what to make of it. I didn't buy any.