Mike D's Adventures in Wax

[Mike D.]

Hi folks. I'm new here, but have been collecting for over 30 years. Hoping you guys will humor me as I chronicle a few adventures (and misadventures) in wax box busting.

As I mentioned, I've been collecting for 30+ years, and my collection has taken many focuses over the years. After a long stretch of collecting ungraded stars and hall of famers and TTM autographs. A couple years back I transitioned into PSA graded stars and rookies..."upgrading" many of my ungraded stars and RC's to graded versions, selling off my ungraded cards to help finance the upgrades.

PSA cards are a blast, but lately I was missing opening packs. New cards haven't held much appeal to me in a while (I dabbled in A&G and Heritage boxes back in about '07-'09...like I said, many focuses over the years).

I figured I'd pick up a box or two to scratch the itch. As you guys know, wax box busting is like chicken math (another hobby of mine...you start small, but then things expand on you in a hurry).

[Mike D.]

I wanted something a bit "out of the mainstream" for my first box.

I picked up a 1980-83 Cramer Baseball Legends box. 36 packs of 8 cards each.

I got what I think is a pretty good deal on it too, paying $34.95 delivered.

It's an interesting set, produced over a number of years by a dealer who would eventually start Pacific Trading Cards.

The packs are old school wax packs, and while the condition of some of the cards wasn't great (probably don't pull a lot of PSA 10's out of boxes like this), there were enough in NrMt+to make me happy.

Can't complain about the collation, either. I got two full 124 card sets out of the box.

I am listing the two sets (and wax) box on eBay along with some of the dups.

Two things this starting making me think are that small sets are the way to go for this adventure, and I may be able to break even or may a little reselling the busted boxes...not looking to get rich, but maybe enough to buy more boxes.

Oh, and my 7 year old, who's not into baseball but does collect tractor and Pokemon cards, has decided he LOVES opening packs, so now it's a family adventure.

[bnorth]

I also am a big fan of ripping wax packs. Reminds me of the when I got into the hobby. It also brings back great memories of players I watched back in the day when I actually went to ball games.

Have fun and welcome to the forum.

[tonyo]

Hi Mike and welcome,

I had to google "chicken math" and yep that definitely applies to a few things in my world, including card collecting....

Also, I'm very surprised you got two complete 124 card sets out of 288 cards. I don't buy boxes and open them though, so maybe it's more common than I think.

Looking forward to hearing how you do selling the two sets on ebay. I've been trying to sell alot of my low hanging fruit, and am lucky if some of my smaller sets net me more than a couple dollars.

Have a great weekend!

[steve B]

Sounds like fun!

And tell us more about tractor cards. I haven't heard of them but they sound cool.

[AGuinness]

Welcome to the board! Wax can be fun, although my impression is that if it were easy to break even, more people would do it and the prices would likely increase (thereby making it a scenario where you could no longer break even). Good luck!
I've got two boys, 6 and 9, and we've been opening a box of cards on Opening Day for years. It took them a little while, but they are both totally hooked on baseball cards now!

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by steve B

Sounds like fun!

And tell us more about tractor cards. I haven't heard of them but they sound cool.

My son has liked antique tractors since he was, well, an infant (my dad has half dozen or so old Farmall tractors). A number of companies made tractor trading cards in the 80' s and 90's - Goodyear, Ertl, and John Deere among them.

Not too many different sets were made, and they all seem to cost more than they should, but I've bought a bunch for my son, who loves 'em.

He's not that into baseball, as I mentioned above, but he does love opening packs and sorting them.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I also am a big fan of ripping wax packs. Reminds me of the when I got into the hobby. It also brings back great memories of players I watched back in the day when I actually went to ball games.

Have fun and welcome to the forum.

Same here, always a good time, even if the contents rarely exceed the cost of the box.

[Mike D.]

Strange...most of the packs have the gum on the front of the top card, but a small percentage of packs have the cards in backwards, so the gum is sitting on the sticker side. It seems like there's little rhythm or reason to it...with it happening to random packs in different boxes.

[Mike D.]

Listed the first 7 complete sets on eBay.

Still have a LOT of boxes and packs to open, but probably won't sort any more sets until a few of these sell (if they do!)