Card Curiosity

@CardPurchaser Itching for a sapphire rip

Several Topps drops and pre-orders already scheduled for the week! Which ones are you going for? #ad Topps® Finest UEFA Club Competitions 2025-26 PRE-ORDER May 26, 10am central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/WOdDvZ 2026 Topps Tier One Baseball PRE-ORDER May 26, 11am central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/LKd32Y 2026 Topps Knockout UFC PRE-ORDER May 26, noon central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/BnJLzx 2026 Bowman Baseball Mega Box May 27, 11am central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/xLQAyk 2025-26 Topps Signature Class Basketball May 28, 11am central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/enrvaZ 2025-26 Bowman Basketball Sapphire EQL May 28, noon central thetoppscompany.sjv.io/yZbZab

@avillanueva3rd I love buying and selling with them 🤷‍♂️.

People ask why DC is on the do not buy from list. Here is why. Shill bidding.

@WNYCards Haven’t touched them since then

Is anyone like me and stopped buying Topps Now cards since Topps switched to 2% Fanatics Fan Cash instead of Topps points? Doesn't help we don't earn on pre-order...

@paulyc1117 Dropped off Feb 19, in hand yesterday

@Card_Curiosity I’ve been looking to eventually get some cards graded what was the turnaround time like

First time I’ve hit 100% gem rate, only 8 cards but we’ll take it all day 👊. Graded through @gamestop x @PSAcard @CardPurchaser

Anyone want to go halfsies with me 😅 @CardPurchaser

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to stop posting absurdly long product breakdowns on X because it was not meant for that. Moving forward, all deep dives will only live on Substack. Relax. I’m kidding. …probably.

I just can’t get over the font used at the top of this card.

@LFGSixers @WaxMetrix @NoHitsNickLCS @CardPurchaser Omg I got no case hit in my case and you got two???? 😭😭

@WaxMetrix @Card_Curiosity @NoHitsNickLCS @CardPurchaser Yeah. Second case was a smart move. Didn't pull the trigger on the 3rd, but may have to.

New stash spot found…. NO LIMITS EITHER! Do I go clear the shelf? Or rip them all 😂❤️ @CardPurchaser

@stonksandcards Already dried up too

2026 Bowman baseball value boxes might end up being the most ripped product of all time.

@CardPurchaser Oh yeah

Did you enter the Cactus Jack EQL?

@OffDaHook35 Have a feeling cactus jack might be better. Only 100 card checklist

This in cosmic? Boxes are still way too cheap IMO (relative to other stuff out there)

@CardPurchaser Exactly dang

To DDOS a website just tell everyone Pokemon is dropping

@CardPurchaser @ty_guy182 @Topps You pretty shady bro 🤣

@ty_guy182 @Topps I'm not the seller by the way everyone

Well, you guys were right, congrats!. Guy canceled my dart auto and tried to change his name on wn 🤦 absolutely sick.. was the biggest card I ever “had” and was excited for… but what do ya do, hopefully wn has my back. P.O.S @CardPurchaser . @Topps

@SKYBCards Garbage for me. So bad

Fanatics exclusive Topps chrome football mega boxes. That’s it. That’s the tweet

@WaxMetrix Good stuff. So it’s a completely different design than the all star version?

2025/26 Topps Chrome Cactus Jack NBA Basketball Analysis & Deep Dive With a bit of a sordid past, the Cactus Jack brand is back for another round of NBA product. The first round was an ultra-limited drop only available at this year's NBA All-Star festivities. Entirely different format, entirely different beast. But those are currently available on the secondary market at a bonkers price point of $1850 for a 2-pack, 8 card box. On the other end of the spectrum, WWE fans crapped all over their recent, fairly forgettable offering of Cactus Jack WWE. With a similar structure to this upcoming NBA release, that WWE version dropped at $400, promptly faceplanted, and hobby boxes are currently sitting at $260/box on the secondary market. So now Cactus Jack NBA finds itself standing directly between two wildly different realities. One where artificial scarcity, hype, and FOMO send sealed wax prices into orbit. The other where collectors wake up from the simulation and realize they're holding a glorified Chrome side quest nobody asked for. So which path does this one take? The red pill or the blue pill. Blissful ignorance or painful reality. I have some ideas. And some numbers. Let's see where they take us. Welcome to 2025/26 Topps Chrome Cactus Jack NBA. If you need more of this kind of product analysis in your life, please consider following me on Substack, where I have over 100 new product breakdowns in my catalog, in an easily navigable format. @SlabSquatch" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack.com/@SlabSquatch Part 1: The Basics Pre-order window opens tomorrow, Tuesday May 19th 12 ET via EQL. So no need to be online the second they drop. Just hit up the Topps site within 60 minutes if you're interested. 20 packs/box, 4 cards/pack at a price of $490. Part 2: Production Total Cards in product: 3,030,000 Total boxes produced: Hobby- 37,875 boxes (3,156 cases) This is a nicely limited product. For context, these numbers are on par with 2024/25 Finest Basketball at 3.1m total cards, which was an unlicensed dumpster fire, but at least it was short-printed. The most recent Finest NBA (the good one) had production of 3.68m. So Cactus Jack will be in that same scarcity neighborhood, but with even less supply. Part 3: Heat Map Before we jump into the numbers, I have to say...the cards look fantastic. Cactus Jack products have always been a bit polarizing with the design. I think this one looks phenomenal. Here's where this product gets interesting... Parallels/Box- 9.8 Numbered cards/Box- 5 (4 # base, 1 # insert on average) Inserts/Box- 7.5 Rare Inserts (Astrovision & Cactus Mode)- combined 1 per case on average. So far so good. Autos- 0.25 (1 auto per 4 boxes, or 3 per case) Oh. OK. At first glance Cactus Jack Chrome looks legit with ~10 parallels/box, 5 of which will be numbered. Then reality smacks us in the face. This has shades of Cosmic Chrome. One auto every 4 boxes will be hard for buyers to digest from a nearly $500 box. Though inarguably a popular product, this is the fundamental issue that keeps Cosmic Chrome from going stratospheric. But it already has a pedigree of being a more chase-insert driven product. It will be interesting to see if Cactus Jack finds that same lane without the same volume of insert chases. My guess is no. On the bright side of this, when you hit an auto, you know they are quite rare. At this point, I'm not quite sure if the base autos will be numbered, but their print runs will only be ~75-100 copies ea. Part 4: Value Map Based on preorder pricing of $490/box. $/card- $6.13 $/parallel- $50.03 $/# card- $97.31 $/auto- $1,930.04 Part 5: What Would the Squatch Do? This one is tough to call. The checklist and overall set design are dope. The cards looks great and give off a cool, sinister vibe. Very Travis Scott. Anyone who's been into sneakers knows something about the Cactus Jack counterculture. I think the brand will resonate much harder with the basketball crowd than it did with WWE, even though Travis has been known to make some cameo appearances in WWE events. The much more limited NBA All-Star Cactus Jack boxes are going for absurd prices despite having fewer cards in the box. This won't be that. Though I think there will be room for these boxes to organically rise in price, artificial scarcity will blur the lines. There will be inevitable shenanigans with failed EQL entries, ludicrous secondary market pricing, and Topps repricing nonsense on drop day. So it will be hard to tell what is real demand vs manufactured chaos. But underneath all of that, I do think there is genuine staying power here. At pre-order pricing of $490, I think these are a safe stash. I don't see them going the WWE route of post-release price deflation. As a $490 rip, they could be tough. But there will absolutely be some legitimate nukes in here. I also think the superstar autos carry the product long-term. Though the rare inserts are cool, especially Astrovision, they're just not dripping with multi-thousand-dollar energy. Honestly, of all the inserts I think "Utopia Highlights" is the best looking and it's not even one of the scarce ones. The most rare is "Cactus Mode", but to me it looks eerily similar to a base card from 2021 Skybox Metal Universe Champions. Part 6: So where does Cactus Jack ultimately land? Probably somewhere between the red pill and the blue pill. Not the fantasy. Not the nightmare. Just a legitimately solid product with an unfortunate amount of manufactured chaos that may or may not consume it. These are not an 8x your money sealed product like the ultra-scarce NBA All-Star Game version. They also don't feel destined to flatline like Cactus Jack WWE. It wouldn't surprise me to see these settle in the $600-$800 range. I don't think these are a $1k+ box in the way that Cosmic didn't really end up there...at least not yet. Honestly, if these guaranteed an auto per box, these would easily be $1200-$1400. But maybe that will be the one thing keeping prices somewhat grounded. Part 7: The Print Runs Base production: ~23,650 ea Numbered parallels: As of yet, none of the checklist sites have a complete list of numbered parallels. So here's what that looks like: Teal Speckle /299 Pink /250 Aqua Shimmer /199 Lasers /175 Blue /150 Sonar /125 Green /99 Purple Mini-Diamond /75 Gold /50 Cactus Jack Refractor /41... (I'm assuming these are numbered and the print run calculates to /41. I'm not embedded in my Travis Scott Lore. Can anyone tell me the significance of a Travis Scott refractor being /41?) Orange /25 Black /10 Red /5 Red Mini-Diamond- 5 Superfractor /1 Unnumbered parallels: White- ~1,080 ea Refractor- ~760 ea LogoFractor- ~380 ea Unnumbered Inserts: Utopia Highlights (40 card CL)- ~2,370 ea Jacked Up (40 card CL)- ~2,370 ea LA Flame Legends (20 card CL)- ~2,525 ea Rare Inserts: Astrovision (20 card CL)- ~125 ea Cactus Mode (20 card CL)- 32 ea Autos: Base Auto Variation (49 card CL)- ~75 ea Cactus Ink (49 card CL)- ~75 ea #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2025ToppsChromeCactusJackNBA

@WaxMetrix @NoHitsNickLCS @CardPurchaser You buy one then I buy one 🤪🤪

@Card_Curiosity @NoHitsNickLCS @CardPurchaser Found a spot where I can order another case for basically retail and I'm having a very hard time not pulling the trigger. I don't normally go 6 cases deep on anything. But this is super tempting. Talk me off the ledge. Or go buy them out of stock so I dont have the option. 🤣

@OffDaHook35 They’re approaching the limit on these recent releases I think. Didn’t even enter at that price 🤷‍♂️

2025 Cosmic Chrome Football Entered…. But I don’t feel great about it

@WaxMetrix @NoHitsNickLCS @CardPurchaser In one case I got no case hits and rarest card probably a packfractor auto of a mid prospect

I've been able to pick up 42 loose boxes from retail stores without trying very hard. Looks like theyre starting to dry up now though. I'm torn on holding any sealed because theyre such a good rip with high upside. Like do I hold out and maybe sell for a small profit , maybe $50ea down the road? Or rip going for the moonshots? There are so many coming out of these. One of the most fun rips I've had in a long time. I'm 2.5 cases in and probably reasonably close to recouping everything spent if I choose to. And havent really hit anything gigantic. Biggest being Miz Etched in Glass that sold for $350.