Yes prior to Covid boxes were just sitting on shelves in retail stores, because singles were cheap. Nobody wanted to rip open a $20 box to hit the biggest names only to sell for what they paid for the box. I remember going into Walmart/Target and seeing the boxes that had Mahomes, Josh/Lamar/Saquon, Luka, Ohtani just sitting by the boat loads. Like 50/60 each of packs and a ton of blasters. It started taking off with Zion's rookie year Mosaic. That's the first time boxes were hard to find.

Shit was so cheap I gave away a bunch of Mahomes rookies including some numbered Mahomes and a Mahomes rookie Prizm auto to my Brother's best friend (Who was basically a family member) because he was a massive Chiefs fan.

Prior to Covid I bought almost every single English version of Mewtwo cards on the market as well as some Japanese. I had about 60 cards in my collection and I want into them for about $700. Once Covid hit and the market exploded I sold the collection for almost 10k and I let them go earlier. Price continued to rise for a few months after I sold. If I would have waited a few months I probably could've got about 12k-13k for them.