Any pack collectors here?

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Posted By: Anthony

I really love unopened packs- the graphics are typically really strong, they display really well, have the mystery of what is in there, and at least in my case the '70 thru '74 packs are really nostalgic. I'd love to see images of any that anyone has- here's a few of my favorites:
'53 Topps

'54 Topps (Canada, 4 cards) They didn't change the design that much

Here's a pack of Ted Williams condoms from '59. No mention of the nickname "the splendid splinter"

In '63 Fleer tried to get around Topps monopoly by having a cookie in the pack instead of gum. Didn't work, they got nailed for it

'74 comics test. A tough one.

'66 Fleer- a rather boring issue, the fronts of the cards had a game and the backs made up a puzzle of Don Drysdale. I think the pack and the accompanying box were the best part of the set.


Looking forward to seeing everyone else's!

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Posted By: Bob Fisk

Hey Anthony!

You knew I'd jump on board (like waving a red flag in front of a bull).

I also really love the look of the Drysdale pack. I wish the card companies had done that for other players.

Here's the companion pack for your Comics:



Here's the other Fleer foray into single player wrappers:



And a sorta tough one:

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

"sorta tough"? good grief!

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Posted By: DMcD

They slab condoms?? Good grief! (Hope to God it's not game used).

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Posted By: Anthony

Bob- I knew your resistance was weak! Was the Plak pack the one we called the truce on and you went for? It seemed like there was 3 or 4 that came up in a short period of time, and I figured I'd get the next one in a matter of months. Of course I haven't seen one since.
Do you have a '59 Fleer 8 card pack? The 6 card pack seems a lot easier, probably due to a "find".
A couple of recent acquisitions that don't come up very often. Decided I prefer the GAI holder over PSA's- I"m not as worried about protection since my packs don't go anywhere, and the PSA holder is so much bigger it doesn't show off the pack as well as the smaller Global one.



Edited to add- fortunately the Williams condom pack is NOT PSA/DNA graded.

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Posted By: Paul S

I never really paid much mind to unopened packs. But you guys are changing my mind. I love the Williams' items. Bob, yours is from one of my favorite postwar sets. You're not tempted to look inside in search of #68? Anthony, I don't even want to know how they grade that authentic, but it sure caused me to stand up and take notice.

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Posted By: PS

How good are the grading services at detecting resealed packs?

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Posted By: Bob

Anthony,

The Plaks pack was from the Alan Rosen auction. It seems like you had other packs in your sights during that one, so I think we did call a Plaks-truce (unless that would be collusion in which case I don't even know you).

The six-card '59 Fleer pack is the only one I have. I'm not tempted to collect pack variations so I think I'm off the hook for the tougher 8-card one.

Paul,

I think I'll be able to resist opening the pack and looking for #68. Hopefully...

Here's another few:

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Posted By: Paul S

Oh man, this thread is enough to make me go buy some cool esoteric unopened pack. Love looking at these.

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Posted By: John Moran

I don't have anything as nice/rare as Bob and Griffins but I do have a run of Topps wax, (full size) cello packs and rack packs from 1969 thru 1979, including most of the wax wrapper varations. Here is probably the cream of the crop

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Posted By: peter chao

John,

Nice rack pack, does anybody know the first year Topps produced rack packs?

Peter C.

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Posted By: Bob Fisk

I agree with Peter, John. Very nice rack pack! I like that GAI notes Clemente on front as if you might not have noticed.

Poor Joe Morgan got no respect though...

Scan some of your others if you get a chance. I started collecting seriously in '69, but we never got any rack packs, just wax and an occasional cello as a gift from the random good-intentioned adult.

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Posted By: Paul S

I just saw on Mile High what packs were going for. Even empty cardboard pack boxes. YEOW!

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Posted By: Anthony

Here's a '60 rack pack from Mile High- the earliest one I've seen. You'd think for 20% juice they could get the photo in focus


BTW, if you come across Xmas rack packs they're bogus, run away fast!

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Posted By: John Moran

Thanks for the kind words! I'll try and get some photos of my packs up this weekend.

Here is a picture (not mine) of the oldest rack I've ever seen. No idea if it's legit or not but notice the header says "36 assorted full color hobby...."

1960 and 1961 rack headers say "36 hobby cards"

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Posted By: John Moran

A few more rack pack photos I've saved:

1959



1961 sell sheet with rack pack



1962 sell sheet with rack pack



If anyone has any late 60's or early 70's sell sheets I would LOVE to see a photo of them, including football and basketball.

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Posted By: Bob Fisk

John,

I love those sell sheets! Those are totally cool.

Anthony,

Mile High is only 17.5%, so they have to skimp on picture quality.

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Posted By: Anthony

John- thanks for posting those. I remember seeing them on the pack group board but couldn't find them last time I looked.

Bob- it's impossible to overpay for good photography

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Mark Murphy's pack guide states the earliest rack pack he had seen was from 1960 but the image above obviously negates that. Still, the early racks consisted of 3 cello packs and the first true rack pack is from 1968. There were also some 3rd Party racks in the 1950's and Kevin Savage auctioned a bunch of those a few years ago. The earliest was (I think) from 1954.

Topps, or somebody they sold the stock to, marketed a bagged set of redbacks though, prior to 1954. I think it was issued by Topps but cannot be sure (more screen grabs from my library of other people's cool stuff):

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Posted By: Paul S

I wouldn't mind a rack pack with Colavito, Musial and Spahn on top. My G*d! Who's in back? Mantle, Mays and Koufax?

Awesome sight to see those Red/Blue backs. Never really thought about how they were issued.

BTW, is it just an abberation that a high percentage of these are GAI graded?

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Posted By: Anthony

GAI had a 3 year head start on pack grading. PSA just started last fall.
Initially Global had a great grader in Paul Wright. Since then it has been a bit of a revolving door, with disasterous results in some cases. Confidence in their pack grading has severely eroded amid the authentication of reseals and bogus cello packs. At the same time PSA stepped up with the most respected pack seller in the hobby, Steve Hart.

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Posted By: John Moran

PSA does not grade rack packs or oversized wax packs (think 69 and 70 basketball packs) yet, therefore all graded racks will be GAI

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Posted By: John Moran

Paul, did you say you wanted Mantle and Koufax, well here ya go??

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Posted By: Paul S

Thanks. Hey, I got all those cards! I'll take the ruboff

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Posted By: John Moran

Ok, here are some of my wax and cello packs. The racks are just too dang big

1969 wax packs and 10 card cello (rack is a few posts above)



1970 wax packs, OPC pack and 33 card cello pack. My rack is a series 3 with Carew in the middle (alot like the one in the Mile Hi auction)



1971 wax packs, OPC packs and 30 card cello pack. Have 2 racks, one with Reggie Jackson and Willie McCovey showing on the back



1972 wax packs, OPC pack and a full size cello pack. My rack has Clemente and Clemente IA showing on the front (again just like the one in the Mile Hi auction that just ended). Sorry for the crappy picture

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Posted By: BobF

Cool packs John!

I'm always on the lookout for '69 OPC packs, and although I've never found one, I've finally seen a wrapper. Did you check the backs of your '69s to see if any of them have OPC listed instead of Topps (Topps packs list both).

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Posted By: John Moran

All the 69 packs list both companies, although one has Brooklyn as the address and the other 2 have Duryea, PA

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Posted By: Anthony N.

bumped up for Paul S.!

anyone get any new packs?

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Posted By: Bob

Here's what I picked up at the National (thanks Keith!). Turns out you don't have to look at the back to discover that it's an OPC pack.

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Posted By: Paul S

And we were worried about what the motivation for the day was.

Since this thread was last alive, here's 2 wrappers I've since found in one of my old scrapbooks. Guess I'm on my way!

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Posted By: manny

Ok, so I do not make it here often, but clicked and saw my favorite topic. Anthony, Bob and John may have seen some of these already, but for those of you who have not...enjoy!

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Posted By: John Moran

Manny, never get tired of seeing your packs, love the 1971 Bert B. rack, grew up a twins fan, John

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Posted By: DD

All I can say is WOW, after viewing this thread again. I'm one of the people that can never own one of those, because I will open it.

Anyone have a Greatest Moments pack? I remember seeing the wrapper up for auction once in the late 70's by Tom Pfirrman, and I saw the box at the 97 National when Kevin Savage had it. I had just purchased the set that day, and couldn't pull the trigger on the box.

Also bought 2 54 Bowman Baseball Wax packs at that show, and cracked them. I remember pulling Piersall, Kiner, Shantz, and a few others. All long gone.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

The Red-White-Blue wrapper on the right represents the normal 5-cent Bowman pack available in 1949.

The Green-White-Orange wrapper on the left was also available in 1949.....however, no one appears to know what Bowman cards,
or what series, were contained in these packs.

I collected these cards as a kid....and, I do not recall ever having seen packs with the Green-White-Orange wrapper.

Can any Net54 poster or reader solve this mystery ?






TED Z

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Posted By: Red

Left wrapper lists cards, right lists 5 cards, so maybe a 1 cent pack. Or maybe it contained PCL cards.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

The very rare wrapper on the left was not a 1-cent wrapper for the regular 1949 issue. Both the penny and the nickel
packs were Red-White-Blue.

Your 2nd guess is similar to my thoughts regarding the 1949 PCL issue. But, no one has stepped forward to confirm this.

TED Z

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Posted By: RayB

Need to get myself a 1969 Topps Pack at some point in this short stay on this earth. Closest I've come is a nice wrapper.
RayB

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Ted - do you have a scan of the 1 cent wrapper? I assume the only difference between the red/blue/white 5 cent and 1 cent would be the number of cards in the pack (and hence the writing on the front that states 5 cards).

======================================
For the premier online souce of information on baseball-related cigarette packs, visit http://www.baseballandtobacco.com

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Posted By: Anthony N.

A few new ones, just back from Global (I like their holders a lot better than PSA's)





Anyone know why the '64 Tatoos says "Cardinals"? is that the only team that was issued with the blue wrapper?

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Posted By: Bob

Anthony,

GAI must have taken a peek under the wrapper of the Tattoos pack. I can't think of any other way they'd have guessed that it was the Cardinals team logo tattoo.

The new packs look fantastic!!

Bob

Edited because aye donut no Howe two spel.

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Posted By: John Moran

Anthony, awesome packs, can you tell who is in the sports king pack?

Also, who is doing the authentication for GAI these days? John

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Posted By: Anthony N.

John- no idea on GAI these days. All except the Tatoo and Bell Brand pack were bought from Steve Hart though, and most were graded by PSA before I decided I really didn't like the holder.
I'm 90% sure the Sport King pack has Weissmuller inside.

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Posted By: John Moran

From the current Lelands auction, 1967 standup wrapper, wow

Does anyone have a Killebrew stand up for me, LOL

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Wow! I never knew their was an instruction sheet either. First I've seen of the wrapper as well.

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Posted By: Felicia

I got this pack as a gift several years ago. I wasnt sure why it had football on the front yet it had baseball cards on the back so I called topps years ago to help clarify this.
They told me they put these packs out in a test issue and they did not go over well. The majority of the cards are Football but that you would also get Baseball inside the pack. I asked them why they did not label the packs all sports or something to that effect and I was informed that they were a push to get more people who collect Baseball cards ( their best selling card product) to try collecting football cards and they put star baseball players in the packs to entice people to buy the packs.

Enjoy: