A blaster box is a retail product of sports cards that contains a number of packs inside a single box. The number of packs and cards per pack varies per brand—it’s common to see as few as 24 or as many as 88 (or even more). Many brands like to insert “brand exclusive” parallels or inserts into blaster boxes.
The levels of retail sports card products goes like this:
The cheapest are usually the cello packs, also known as fat packs. These are usually bigger packs of cards, or contain a few small packs inside one bigger one—like Mosaic often does. Single packs would of course be cheaper, but most retailers don’t sell like this.
Next cheapest are the hanger boxes, which are a small box with only a single pack inside them. Next are the blasters, and then finally the mega boxes, which are essentially suped-up blasters.
How Much Do Blaster Boxes Cost?
Of course it depends on the retailer or if you’re buying them on the secondary market. Retail products have gone up significantly in value over the past few years to combat how high the prices were/are on the secondary market. From what I’ve seen Walmart seems to have raised their prices the most, but everyone’s prices have increased.
In many cases, blasters are around $25-$35. I remember in 2020 buying blasters for $10…but those days are long gone. As they should be—if I were a retailer, why would I allow eBay flippers to collect all the profit?
That $25-$30 is interesting because that’s a great price for some blasters and a horrible price for others. For example, I recently bought 3 NFL Mosaic blasters for $30 apiece, and an NBA Donruss for $25.
I know from past experience and resale value that the Mosaic blasters are much more highly sought after. Plus, it’s seen in the cards themselves. Just opening them, you can tell that Mosaic is much higher quality, and the inserts actually carry value.
The inserts in Donruss carried no value and were pretty ugly, to be honest.
My point is this: while the market has started to correct, they haven’t fully caught to pricing different brands correctly. For example, in a perfect world, a Mosaic blaster should probably cost 30% – 50% more than a Donruss one.
Here’s a look at the secondary market on eBay:
This is a cherry-picked example, but it’s still hard to believe. Brands like Optic, Prizm, Select, and Mosaic should carry more value than brands like Score, Donruss, Chronicles, and others. (I guess those Downtown! inserts are just that popular!)
Are Blaster Boxes Worth It?
There’s a lot of debate in Facebook card groups that range from “blasters are GARBAGE” to “blasters are total 🔥!!” I personally think blasters are fun to open because you get a bunch of packs to open (as opposed to one in a cello or hanger) and they’re not much more expensive.
I’ve hit some pretty good stuff out of blasters. The “blasters are garbage” camp are usually people who say you should buy hobby boxes…but I’m not interested in spending $300-$600 on a gamble that the one auto in there is valuable. I can buy 10-20 blasters for that price, add a lot more rookies to my collection, and likely hit some sweet cards.
However, opening boxes is almost always going to produce a negative ROI. Probably 90% of the time, I don’t get back the value of the box…although I do get to hold out hope that some of the rookies I pulled with take off.
The other options are a quick flip or a buy & hold. My favorite thing to do is to purchase several boxes, sell off a few, and rip the others guilt-free because I’ve already recouped some of my costs.
Of course, this only works with brands that have a nice resale value (like Mosaic, Prizm, Optic for NBA and NFL). However, most unopened boxes do go up in value over time, as the number of unopened boxes declines and some of the players become stars.
I put together a post that compares the resale value of boxes over time and which brands hold the best value:
=> What Are the Best Card Packs to Flip?
Where Can You Buy Blaster Boxes?
A few years back, the only place to get them was to sit online and refresh Target’s listings until they dropped new stuff…and then you had about 3 seconds to click “Order” or they were gone.
However, that’s not the case anymore. Many product can be found on shelves now at retailers…however it’s not all good:
- The highest value stuff still flies off the shelves—especially when first released
- Flippers leave most stuff on the shelves because prices are high
- Print runs are much higher
And yet, I still think overall this is a great thing for the hobby. Sometimes people look at flippers and say “think of the children!! Where will they find packs?!”
My response?
Well they probably won’t be able to grab high value stuff like Prizm, Optic, and Select, but Topps baseball, Donruss NBA, and Hoops NBA have all been available all week on Target.com.
In most hobbies and industries the expensive stuff is out of the price range for a lot of people. This is just the same. Saying that kids need to be opening Prizm is hilarious. If they just want to collect, the cheap stuff is still available.
Can’t buy a Lamborghini on a Prius budget.
What is the Difference Between Blasters, Cellos, Hangers, and Megas?
Let’s break down the four main retail products:
- Cellos – The least expensive retail product, they’re also sometimes called fat packs. This means you either get a single pack with more cards than a pack from a blaster, or a multipack of 2-3 smaller packs of cards. Depending on the brand, you can often find these at stores for around $10-$15.
- Hangers – These are also a single pack of cards, but they’re packaged up inside a box that can hang for display. You’ll often get more cards out of a hanger than a cello (20 – 60 cards), and sometimes have sought after hanger-exclusive parallels.
- Blasters – These are the standard box of cards with a number of packs inside them—often between 6 and 12 (but sometimes 20+). Often, these will run $25 – $40 (sometimes more at the stores…sometimes WAY more on the secondary market for high-value stuff). How many cards you get inside these is totally dependent on the product. Some blasters have 90 cards, but some higher end ones will only have 24 cards.
- Megas – The most expensive and most coveted of the retail products. In my experience, the extra price is worth it. Some of these have guaranteed hits, like autos or numbered cards (like NFL Prestige in a previous year had 5 numbered parallels and 1 auto per mega…one of my favorite products to open). However if you can find these on the shelf, they’re often $60. I’ve had luck finding Mosaic on Target.com for $50.
