Which bun is the one? Mystery collectibles in convenience store snacks fuel buying craze.
Collectible K-pop mementos, literary bookmarks and baseball cards are driving convenience store sales and creating resale premiums for hard-to-find items.
A model looks at Rescene buns, which come with one of 27 photocards featuring K-pop girl group Rescene, at a CU branch.BGF RETAIL
One package, one mystery card — and potentially many more purchases until the right one turns up. Collectible cards randomly tucked into bread and snacks at convenience stores are fueling a buying frenzy.
The craze now stretches well beyond K-pop photocards, encompassing book-themed bookmarks and sports cards.
Convenience store CU sold all 30,000 units of Rescene bread allocated for its first day of sales on the launch date Thursday, retail industry sources said Monday. The corn cream bread comes with one of 27 photo cards featuring K-pop girl group Rescene.
A total of 100,000 units of the bread were sold through Sunday.
“Stores nationwide have been flooding us with orders, and even though products are supplied every day, production simply cannot keep up with demand,” a CU representative said.
Publisher collaborations have also gained traction amid the “text hip” trend, which has made books and literature fashionable among younger consumers.
GS25's Minumsa book bread has sold 1.35 million units as of Monday since its launch in August. The bread was created in collaboration with publisher Minumsa and comes with one of 20 random bookmarks designed to resemble the covers of classics in the publisher's World Literature Series. The bread has become popular enough that people are even sharing tips on social media on how to get their hands on it.
GS25's Minumsa book bread, which comes with one of 20 random bookmarks designed to resemble the covers of classic books from the publisher's World Literature Series.GS RETAIL
CU collaborated with Kyobo Book Centre to release a cream bun that comes with a random card showing what type of reader the customer is. The bun sold 800,000 units between its launch in September 2025 and its discontinuation in December that year.
The convenience store continued with the trend by releasing a cream bun in collaboration with e-book platform Millie's Library on Sept. 9. A coupon is enclosed in the package, allowing customers who sign up for a one-month subscription to the platform to get an extra month free.
And then there's the classic collectible — baseball cards.
7-Eleven's KBO Baseball Cards, launched in May, have sold 98 percent of available stock and are nearing a sellout, the JoongAng Ilbo reported Tuesday. The baseball card series was first introduced in 2024 and has sold 12.5 million packs to date.
Rescene photocards that can be found in bread sold at CU and bookmarks that come in cream bun packs sold at GS25 in collaboration with publisher Minumsa are sold on secondhand marketplace Karrot.SCREEN CAPTURE
The hidden collectibles are fetching premiums on online secondhand marketplaces.
While the products they come with, including bread and snacks, typically only cost between 2,000 won ($1.45) and 3,000 won, the collectibles themselves are being resold for two to eight times as much. Rescene photo cards, for example, are listed for 10,000 won to 15,000 won, while Minumsa bookmarks are listed for around 5,000 won to 10,000 won.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
