Beating the odds, or just an expectation?

I have not purchased new unopened cards in years, other than a few stray packs here and there. It became a problem for me, much like a gambling addiction would be for others. I literally was buying the boxes just in hopes of beating the odds and getting the big pulls, but I was not buying them to resell, I was a simple collector. I slowly figured out that in the end, I had a stack of fairly useless cards and it rarely amounted to even a quarter or half the value I spent! My luck was not the greatest and I rarely made that payoff pull I had hoped for. In retrospect, I could have waited, bought the singles, team sets or inserts that I really wanted and been money ahead. Now bear in mind that I stopped buying wax in any serious quantity around 1998, so we were just beginning to see a period where beating the odds really paid off and it wasn't just some 1:360 insert that would be worth a fraction of it's original value within a couple of years. GU, Autos, 1/1s and other gems were starting to surface, making your box breaking habit more profitable (in the short term - even those 1/1s aren't so special anymore).

However, the reason for this post is not to debate the reasons for buying wax vs. singles or even to question those who still buy packs/boxes/cases. My concept behind this post was about the stated odds on the boxes and packs. I know back when I was buying the most wax, the stated odds were just that, odds. Most manufacturers even stated that the odds were based on the entire print run and that in any given box or case you would not necessarily see the advertised results. Now, given the type of product, price point and the odds of most items (1:2, 1:6, 1:18 and even 1:24 and 1:36, when boxes used to have 24-36 packs still), you do expect to meet those odds. With the tougher odds, most people couldn't possibly buy enough product to test those and have a case to support not seeing them. If you pulled the 1:9000 autograph you were excited, but you never expected to pull that card.

Now maybe the packaging has changed, maybe not, but it seems to me that the expectations of collectors and speculators have not only remained the same, but perhaps have become more stringent. I have seen people complaining that they didn't get their advertised GU/Autograph quota from boxes and were angry at the manufacturer and were going to write a letter and demand retribution! Often the manufacturers will indulge buyers and some seem to have gone so far as to provide guarantees now, via customer service procedures that prove you purchased the product and if you meet all of the requirements, they will reward you with your missing card(s). This has abuse potential written all over it (I mean, how can Topps prove you didn't get the autograph in your box when you claim you didn't and how does a receipt and UPC prove that you got one, other than it proves you bought the box itself), but again, that is not my point. My point is that these used to be odds, not guarantees.

I'm not defending the card makers, nor would I appreciate buying an expensive box of cards with 24 packs that touted odds for one autograph every 24 packs and then not get anything, but that is life. That was the reason I bought complete sets back in the day rather than vendor boxes or packs, to guarantee the complete set and not a get bunch of doubles (even if I could have had the chance to get 6 Cal Ripken Topps rookies in my vendor box...I mean who was Cal Ripken in 1982 anyway)!

I miss the excitement of opening packs, but not enough to start buying them again in any quantity above an occasional pack or two, regardless of the odds.