Not everyone is familiar with group breaks and how they work. There are many different ways to hold a group break. Here, we’ll talk about what they are and detail the types we do at Card Warehouse.
What is a Group Break?
A group break is a way for you to participate in the opening of a larger amount of cards for often less than the price of a single box. In each group break, you are assigned a “spot”, which represents a team, player, or hit. Which that is depends on the type of break. Most breaks are performed (case/box/packs opened) on a live video stream which is also recorded for viewing later. All of our breaks are this way to help ensure your confidence in our honesty. When a card is pulled that matches your spot, that is your card and will be shipped out to you. So, in the example of a team break, if you had the Twins, all Twins cards pulled go to you. Cards with more than one player/team represented are often randomed off between all teams shown on the card, awarding it to one winner. Breaks often consist of a whole case of cards that get opened up as part of the break, but sometimes it’s a single box, just a few boxes, multiple cases, or even a pack of something vintage. There are sometimes even “mixers” that might consist of one or two boxes each of many different products in the same sport.
Team Breaks – Pick Your Team (PYT)
In a PYT, you purchase a specific team as your break spot. Some teams are considered more valuable than others and are priced accordingly. For example, in 2019, the Tampa Bay Rays might cost several times as much as the Minnesota Twins. Some break spots are given as a result of auctions where others are flat priced. This break can be the most hands off and easiest, but you also end up paying a lot more for the hot teams.
Team Breaks – Random Team
A random team break is much like a PYT, except that you don’t get to select your team. You might wonder why anyone would want to do this. The answer is because everyone has the same opportunity at getting the hot team at the same price. The way these work is that a number of spots are allocated to match the number of teams in the product. All spots are sold for the same low price and at the time of the break, the team names and spot holder names are randomized into two lists and matched up to assign teams to spot holders. In some cases there will be a short window for those in the live chat to trade teams if they desire.
Team Breaks – Draft
Sometimes teams are assigned in a draft. Spots are sold similar to a regular Random Team break, but instead of each spot being assigned a random team, it’s assigned a random draft position. Then, each spot holder, in order, selects from the available teams until all teams have been assigned.
Player Breaks
Player breaks are pretty much the same as team breaks, except that there are far more spots and they are assigned to players.
Hit Spot Breaks
Some of the more expensive (per card price) products have far fewer cards but more guarantee of hits (autos, jerseys, etc). In a hit spot break, each spot is guaranteed a hit in the break. For example, if a product has 4 autos in each box and 10 boxes per case, a case break might consist of 40 spots, each guaranteed a hit. As with other random breaks, hit numbers are assigned randomly to spots. If your spot had hit number 5, the 5th hit pulled would be yours.
Serial Number Breaks
Another way to deal with high end products is a serial number break. In this break, serial number spots are assigned at random. If your spot was assigned to the number 7, you would get any card numbered 7/10 or 7/100 or 17/20 or 107/199, for example. There may be variations on this, but that’s the most common we’ve seen.
Sorting, Packaging, and Shipping
One challenge for many breakers is the amount of time needed to not only open all the cards, but also sort them into their spot groupings and then package and ship them out. For this reason, getting everything shipped after the camera turns off will often still take 2-3 additional days. Many people who are just looking for hits will ask the breaker to keep or donate all the base cards. At Card Warehouse, we sometimes offer break options that reduce your spot cost and also account for a smaller package of cards to reduce your shipping costs. While you can always opt to have every card shipped – and this is the default, you also have the option to have just your hits shipped out and save money.
We hope the above information has helped you better understand what a break is and how it works, but you should contact us with any questions or confusion before buying into a break.
Take a look at our current breaks here.