Looking at the eBay listings, seems like the range is 1300-1700.
It does seem like other sets are moving faster, and I’m wondering your thoughts on
Got to remember those are light packs for that price.
Base 1st ed packs are by FAR the easiest packs to weigh… About 6 years ago I bought six “unweighed” packs. Pretty sure they were unweighed at least because there was feedback from multiple buyers pulling holos. All 6 packs ending up being light and it was so disappointing. There is a silver lining to this though… I asked the seller if they were truly unweighed because that was some rotten luck and they said they felt bad about the situation, so he offered me a base set unlimited box for 800. At the time they were going for about 1000. I jumped on that and sold my light packs off to cut my costs. Should have kept a few, but ya gotta spend money to make money they say…
Still… all I ever wanted was to open one heavy base set pack and I took my shot and missed. I completed the set at least and just in time with the recent price jumps. All is well.
The market value on them is well established at $2500 from several filled box breaks for legitimate packs.
I wouldn’t trust eBay packs. The risk is factored into the price.
As others have said, that seems like an accurate price point for the light (non-holo packs). Heavy packs would cost several times more than that.
As for unweighed - I wouldn’t trust anyone claiming that unless it was from one of the few sellers with a high enough credibility to fully trust.
And as @churlocker said you also have to take into account that there are a lot of phonies out there, so you need to be extremely careful when purchasing them for less than top tier sellers.
Never trust someone else’s opinion on “light” or “heavy”. If you buy a base pack or any pack that can be weighed then you need the person in the ebay listing to show the pack on a scale. Then when you get the pack, weigh it yourself. If it does not match then return it as item not as described.
I’m not buying it when people say the pack is unweighed. Every weighable pack has been weighed. The only exception is if you are buying from someone like pokerev where you can see him cut the seal on the box and then put the pack in the mailer on livestream.
Confirmed one just sold today for $7500 on eBay.
Link? Not showing up on any of my sold searches
And I know the guy because I’ve bought from him a few heavies before and he said yes it sold for $7500.
At that price point, 12 heavies alone would sell for $90k. Then you would still have 24 light packs left in the box. Jeez
Took him a while to sell but, yeah that’s true.
he said he has some heavy 1st ed base charizard art, which he’d sell for a bit more. so 12 heavies could easily be over 100k, which makes that 1st edition box currently listed on ebay at 160k not too overpriced. 
i’m tempted to move some (big) mountains to pull together a fund pool to buy the box.
and he lives near walt disney world. living the dream.
Man 160k… this is getting too much. I remember this box being like 10k 7-8 years ago? Thought it was nuts at 10k. I guess its like art at this point… will probably break 1 million one day
Most people buy heavy to open yeah?
At 7.5k even with a god non holo selection:
Uncommon (Wartortle, Dratini, Charmeleon) $1750~
Common (Red Cheeks Pikachu, Yellow Cheeks Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle) $2500~
Energy (Water, Water) $200~
$4450~
Overwhelming odds the holo is a 9, after grading fees only Charizard would net over cost.
At current prices, the only way you’re going to avoid losing (from a financial perspective) opening up a 1st Base heavy pack is if you pull a Charizard that grades as an 8/9/10 or a Blastoise/Chansey that grades as a 10 (and probably 1 out of 4 holos are 10s right out of the pack). And maybe you’ll break even if you pull a Venusaur/Hitmonchan that grades a 10… if you get lucky and get some really good commons and uncommons that also grade as 10s.
90%+ odds of taking a significant loss.
@shizzlemetimbers oh yeah, you’re going to lose a lot of money opening that pack almost every time but that won’t stop people from trying for the psa 10 or the zard lol. It’s like a more fun version of a lotto scratch ticket but with much worse odds haha
If those are the rates for heavy and light packs, a sealed box is severely underpriced.
Remember, just because one person was willing to pay $7.5k doesn’t mean 11 other people are. Plus there are the fees associated w selling but in general you will make money if you crack a box and piece it out. Also, it’s a lot easier for someone to come up with $7.5k to buy a pack than $80-90k to buy a box. This plays a factor in the pricing and profit margins of the 36 packs vs the box price as well as the amount of people willing to buy at that particular price point.
If your goal is to make money *right now*, I agree that you can probably make more profit by selling 36 packs individually than by selling the box, for the reasons you mentioned.
If your goal is to make money for the long-term, keeping boxes sealed is the better option.
Boxes can always be broken later anyway but they can never be unbroken.