I was at a Target department store recently and saw a guy (looked like he was in his late teens or early 20s) feeling up packs of trading cards. It was obvious what he was doing -- he was feeling the edges of every pack with the hope of detecting the thicker memorabilia cards.

I watched this guy do this for a few minutes, then went up to him and said, "You know, pack searching isn't cool." His reply to me was "Why not?"

By searching the packs, I said, he was taking the chance to find a memorabilia card away from everyone else who bought packs from that box. His reply: "It's not my problem if they don't know what to look for."

I spoke to one of the managers, and they understood what I was telling them. But, as long as the person wasn't damaging the other packs or stealing anything, there wasn't anything they could do about it.

So my question to you is: Do you believe pack searchers are truly doing something wrong, or are they just savvy collectors?

Among the people who were happiest to hear of Upper Deck’s plan not to purchase Topps are the folks who own card stores. While most card stores generate plenty of revenues from Upper Deck products, they also generate plenty from Topps products, as well.

For the most part, retailers believe the marketplace is better off with two very strong competitors. Here’s a sampling of the reaction I received:

• Ken Hoffman, Card Stadium, Harrisburg, Pa.: “Everybody’s happy that it’s not going to go through. Everybody wants competition. I don’t think anybody is interested in just one company controlling the marketplace. But I don’t think it was a concern to most of our customers.”

• Jeff DeGraw, Matt’s Sportscards, Joliet, Ill.: “I didn’t want to see (the takeover) happen. Right now, in my opinion, the hobby is as strong as it has been because of what both companies have been doing. Now they can focus on their own products and stop worrying about what the other is doing.”

• Rob Veres, Burbank Sportscards, Burbank, Calif.: “Having two competitors is much better than having one. I think the reaction (to a takeover) would have been minimal at the collector level, because people would have just collected the cards that were available.”

• Rob Vandorick, All-Star Baseball Cards, Las Vegas: “Anytime there’s some waves going around in our industry, there are going to be some concerns over how things will end up. I had customers who were worried about the future of some of the popular Topps brands. There had been some trepidation.”

• T.J. Schwartz, Tuff Stuff columnist and owner of Porky’s Baseball Cards in Woodland Hills, Calif.: “As a 20-year store owner, I must say that it is good news. To us store owners, having that cardboard competition is everything and I'm sure collectors like it that way, too. Now hopefully, the Eisner deal will go through and bring some fresh, competitive capital to the hobby. It's good to know that they'll both be keeping each other on their toes."

• Mike Fruitman, Mike’s Stadium Sportscards, Aurora, Col.: “I'm very happy. Should it have happened, I would have been concerned about the potential reduction of the Topps brand name. Over the past two years, Topps has repositioned itself as a serious player in the high-end product category. Their recent releases have been complete sellouts and I wouldn't want that to change anytime soon. Now it's up to see if the Eisner group can move ahead and acquire Topps. Since hearing that he might get on the scene, both myself and my customers have been excited to see what his company might do both in terms of content and with the overall direction of Topps.”

Upper Deck has dropped its offer to buy Topps, saying Topps was doing everything it could to stonewall its efforts to complete an acquisition. Topps accused Upper Deck of not being sincere about its intentions to buy the company with a "disingenuous" stock tender offer.

This has been the most fascinating hobby related story I’ve covered in my 18 years working in this industry for a variety of reasons.

First, this was a very public battle. It had to be, because Topps is a publicly traded company. Anything that could have influenced shareholders reaction to Upper Deck’s stock offer had to be made available to them.

Even though Upper Deck is a private company, it had to make a certain amount of its dealings in this case public as well. So most of what took place had to be issued via press releases or filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rarely have negotiations of any kind between card companies been this public.

Another interesting, and somewhat scary, part of this story is that the best interests of the hobby have nothing to do with its final outcome. The sale of a public company like Topps is determined solely by a vote of its shareholders. Shareholders decide on the merits of any offer based solely on its price per share, not how will affect the card market. Again, that’s the nature of publicly traded companies.

This has also been an interesting story because there have been so many twists and turns. In March, Topps announced it reached a deal with a group of investors lead by Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Walt Disney. He’s a pretty big name in the business world, and his interest in a trading card market that has been shrinking in recent years made headlines. Then you had the competing offer from Upper Deck, which seemed to come out of nowhere. There were questions as to why UD would want to spend $420 million on Topps? Was it a legitimate offer, or just the chance to peek into the books of its largest competitor?

Added into the drama is the fact there has been a hedge fund group called Crescendo Partners that, for the better part of two years, has been trying to overthrow the management at Topps. They wanted to force a sale of the company, but the price Topps agreed to with Eisner’s firms is far too low, in their opinion. They’ve been hopping mad about this deal since day one, and they weren’t enthralled with Upper Deck’s offer, either. They’re still hoping to get Eisner’s deal voted down by shareholders, elect their own representatives to the Topps board, and eventually sell the company for a higher price.

The latter scenario could still happen. Again, it’s a little concerning to think of people who know very little about sports trading cards coming in to run a company with as much hobby tradition and following as Topps, knowing their primary goal is to sell it to somebody else in a few years.

Granted, Eisner’s company could also come in and sell Topps to someone else a few years down the road. But at least that hasn’t been the expressed intent of this potential ownership group. And I’m sure Topps wouldn’t have sold the company to someone who would have stated that objective up front. After all, Topps’ current chairman, Arthur Shorin, is the son of one of the three Shorin brothers who founded the company more than 70 years ago.

There’s still some drama to unfold in the Topps sage, with the next big chapter in this story to be written when shareholders cast their votes next Thursday.