Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Pack-searching exploit - Good, Bad or Who Cares?

Chris Harris of Stale Gum fame had someone email him a "secret" that can be used to pick out Target 2011 Topps Heritage Baseball loose packs that evidently contain a "hit" in the pack.  Packs without the "mark" do not have any hits (or at least are not marked such as to indicate the possibility of a hit).

Apparently, people are going bananas over this: checking the backs and only buying potential "hit" packs.  By bananas, I mean people are trashing Chris for exploiting the issue.

Frankly, I say kudos.  And, Chris, if you read this, email me the secret and I'll happily put it to the test in the Texarkana region.

I don't see the point in keeping it a secret anyway. What are the chances, really, that the respective readers of the blogs/posts of those who know the secret will run to the same Target to snag up all the "hit" packs?  Also, so far the hits are simple inserts and short prints. Whoop-dee-doo.  If we were talking a jersey every time or an auto in every marked pack, then that might be a little hard to swallow.  We're not. I'd do it if I knew it, just because I like to have added fodder for my giveaways.

I agree with Chris' assessment: he is simply the messenger (and really not even that since he is not posting the exploit, just the breaks he picked up by using the exploit himself).  The real "enemy" here is Topps.  But, then, that should be no surprise to anyone.  From fake "error" cards to re-creating the MLB card monopoly of the pre-1980's, Topps is well-known to create its own media/collector frenzies.  Topps should be blamed for pulling such an obvious manufactured telltale.  I suppose next year, they will just put a sticker on each "hit" pack saying, "This pack has the insert."

So, Chris, I say you keep buying the packs in the name of research. And, as I said, if you'd like some geographic distribution to test your theory, feel free to email me: davidinark@yahoo.com - why not.

To see the 10-pack test: http://www.youtube.com/embed/ca_z9KhLFeg

3 comments:

  1. I did this last week!

    http://cardjunk.blogspot.com/2011/07/heritage-barcodes.html

    I even gave everyone the code to look for!

    Why is no one hassling me?? What am I, chopped liver?

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  2. Okay, somewhere along life's journey, I fell off the face of the card-blogging earth. UGH!

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  3. I don' see the issue w/ this either. Who cards is right!

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