If you could choose 1 unopened box to buy, which would it be?
 

Modern cards only...any price, any box...which would you choose and why?

I would go with 1982 Topps Baseball simply for pure nostalgia.

The end of 1981 baseball season was when I first really got into baseball and by that time most of local stores had sold through their Topps Baseball and only had Football wax packs (which I did buy and was lucky enough to pull a Montana RC, but this then 9 year old football fan was more interested in cards of Terry Bradshaw & Jim Hart so the Montana didn't mean a lot to me at the time.) Moving on though.. Summer of 1982 and my beloved Cardinals are having a hell of a year.. Ozzie Smith, Lonnie Smith, Tommy Herr, Keith Hernandez, "Silent" George Hendrick and rookie call up by the name of Willie McGee had me hooked!! I spent all my allowance buying wax packs from Art's Drug Store, Ben Franklin & Majik Market. Ok so maybe a few quarters found there way into the Donkey Kong machine at Majik Market...Then I discovered rack packs at our local Kroger! I was pretty disappointed to find Ozzie Smith still in his Padres uniform and no Willie McGee cards at all!! What's worse than that? It seemed like I pulled a John Henry Johnson card out of every other pack. I HATED THAT CARD!!

So for no other reason than nostalgia and pure hobby innocence (didn't know what a price guide was and we would not get our first card shop until 1986) I would choose 1982 Topps Baseball.

1984 donruss, always too expensive to buy as a kid in the late 80s.

2001 Topps

I got a box of 2001 Topps for Christmas when I was 10, I opened every pack and my little brother wanted a pack so I gave him a pack. He pulled a Pujols RC.
He still has it lol.

It'd have to be 89 Upper Deck for The Griffey, the iconic card of my generation as a youngster.

Honorable mention to 2015 Topps. I'm too much of a cheapskate to do it, but it'd be fun to see new cards and see what special inserts I'd pull. I'm fascinated by all the creative relics, autos and the like, but I wouldn't know where to start

1986T Football. Wax, cello, or rack. Nostalgia.

1990 Leaf (I or II) and 1989 Upper Deck (I) are close behind.

That was a great era to be a kid who loved cardboard.

1980 Topps Baseball. First year I collected. I rode my bike 5 miles each way all the time to pick up these packs. Sometimes more than once in a day.

I would also like to have a Henderson RC in better than a PSA 9.

Better save up.

1986 Fleer Basketball. Lot of great rookie cards

2001 Topps Heritage
 

One of my favorite Topps sets . Would love to bust a box again . I busted 2 when they first came out . Haven't completed the set after all these years:eek:4or 5 high numbers left . One of these days .... Brett

1987 Topps.

+1 on '87 Topps, an all-time fav, and my 1st year collecting.

Curious, what's up with the Burks obsession?

Great thread! I am struggling with this right now. I am considering buying some wax from when I was a kid (80s). I remember 84 to 86 Donruss and fleer being hot and hard to find. I always got topps but it was always the third place set. 89 upper deck was awesome, but as a kid, $1.00 was expensive in 89. I started buying cards in 83 when I was 8. Any suggestions?

I'd get whichever set was the first one you went bananas on as a kid. It's all about nostalgia and you were lucky enough to be born at a time when you can get that feeling for next to nothing.

Some of the crusty old farts on here have no opportunity to rip a box from their childhood. They're just so... old.

Good topic, Gary. /thumbs up.

I have two different answers. From a purely financial perspective, I'd probably look at 2009 Bowman Draft. I already have a Mike Trout Bowman Chrome base auto that I bought for $99 way back when. I'd love to get another to sell, or trade for something nice. And if you're looking at consolation prizes, I have a feeling the Zack Wheeler Chrome auto cards (which I also already have one of) are going to go up in value. The kid is a stud!

Sentimental? I've got to go with the 1989 Upper Deck, too. Series 1 (better chance to get Griffey Jr). I had to buy this card, as I never pulled one from a pack. I'd love the chance to do that even if it wasn't perfect.

I'm going to break down and buy a BGS 9.5 before he goes into the Hall, and sell the one I have now. I should get $40 for it. Or maybe I'll give it to my adopted niece, Jocalyn. She's a little softball phenom. :p

If I couldn't get ahold of either of those two boxes, I'd say 1983 Topps. Gwynn, Boggs and Sandberg. Pretty hard to say no to those. Plus, the Robin Yount card is one of my favorites from his master set. It shows his MVP season stats. I don't have it graded yet. I need to rectify that.


http://net54baseball.com/picture.php...ictureid=15313http://net54baseball.com/picture.php...ictureid=15143http://imageshack.com/a/img673/3394/x9Q0Bw.png
Hey, a man can never have too many great cards!

Matthew, I have about 4,000 1987 Topps. I just loved that set. The return of the Topps Rookie Team with the trophy cards was awesome. Of course, being a Brewers fan, it figures that the one rookie on the team without the trophy, shortstop Dale Sveum, would come from Milwaukee, lol. I saw his three home run game. He just missed hitting 4. That was his only real power season. He's a good hitting coach, though.

But what a rookie team, huh? Jose Canseco, Wally Joyner, Danny Tartabull, Cory Snyder, Pete Incaviglia. There was some real thunder in that team. I think that was the first regular series card for Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, too. Then there was the Bo Jackson card, and the Rafael Palmeiro. Great set. I ought to build that one. Put together a real mint set.

Yikes, you must be a huge Henderson fan then. A PSA 9 goes for about, what, $400? I guess it's like me with my '75 Yount, though a PSA 9 for Yount is super expensive. PWCC just sold one for $1,093.

Edit, nevermind, that was the price for the mini. The standard size PSA 9 was $1,210.99. Just my luck, my favorite player happens to come in '75, so I need a standard and mini. Grr.

I recently (2 weeks ago) bought a case of 89 UD low numbers from Steve at BBCE. I have opened 6 boxes so far. Believe it or not, my very first pack from my very first box had a Griffey Jr!

The last box I opened had 5 of them. Centering is pretty good on them too. Just thought I'd share.

http://i.imgur.com/GD7EyTx.jpg

5 Juniors in one box? Wow, I've never had that luck with any box before. Nicely done!

Don't forget the immortal Oddibe (Young Again) McDowell!! :D

The 5 Juniors is pretty impressive. I ripped a box of 85 Leaf once and got 5 Clemens, and 1 was showing on the back of a pack so I left that sealed up.

Will Clark, too. I can still picture all the Gold Cup and Future Stars cards. Didn't Todd Worrell almost win a ROY award for his closing duties?

Always loved '86 Donruss to see if I could get the Canseco rookie. I picked up a '90 Leaf series 2 box last year and got a couple Thomas rookies, that was a dream card for me as a kiddo. That's amazing on getting 5 Griffey's in your '89 UD box.

2006 Topps Sterling or the new one from Topps this year (can't remember the name) that is $500 a pack. Who wouldn't love to bust something they totally can't afford!

The members of the 1986 Topps All-Star Rookie Team:

C Andy Allanson Cleveland Indians
1B Wally Joyner California Angels
2B Robby Thompson San Francisco Giants
3B Dale Sveum Milwaukee Brewers
SS Andres Thomas Atlanta Braves
OF Cory Snyder Cleveland Indians
Danny Tartabull Seattle Mariners
Jose Canseco Oakland Athletics
Pete Incaviglia Texas Rangers
RHP Todd Worrell St. Louis Cardinals
LHP Bruce Ruffin Philadelphia Phillies

I remember thinking at the time how many of these guys would go on to be all time greats!!

1952 Topps, just for the possibility of pulling an iconic card...Mantle, Mays, etc.

1993 sp
 

mine would have to be 1993 SP baseball, with the jeter rookie.
sad thing is i bought a collection that had 2 sealed boxes of sp in it, held it for a few years. then last year when jeter took his retirement tour i figured id toss them on ebay with a super high BIN. both ended up selling over $600 a piece.
i wish i had thew guts to rip one, but the chances of getting 600 worth out of a box are pretty slim.

thats my choice thoug, 1993 sp baseball.

sidenote, 1989 UD was my favortie rip so far. got to rip 1 last year. only landed 1 griffey but it graded out mint so that was cool

I opened (2) more boxes of 89 UD on Tuesday. I got (5) more Griffey's out of the first box! The second box yielded only (1) that was horribly off centered. Talk about luck though, (2) boxes in a row that had (5) Griffey's in each.

I told me friend that was opening them with me that if we got (5) in the second box we opened that day that we would keep opening the rest of the case until we stopped getting that many per box.

Bummer nobody chose 1988 Score! I still have a box sitting around somewhere. C'mon
...you know you want to feel the rush of pulling a Gregg Jefferies RC!

I think 1988 Score might have the best photography of any set from the 1980s. I plan on doing a graded set someday.

Me and a buddy split a case of 89 Upper Deck when it first came out...I got 10 Griffey's in my 6 boxes, he got 1! But I remember him getting about 15 Walt Weiss'! The collation was atrocious!!!

Speaking of bad collation, weren't there Upper Deck execs who got 15 Griffeys in every pack?

You will do well with a wax box of 1987 Leaf. I love the black borders. Of course they look identical to the 87 Donruss but simply say Leaf instead.

The catch is the Leaf set only had 264 cards compared to the Donruss set having over 600. Leaf simply didn't print the extra 350 commons that no one really cares about. This means your odds of pulling multiple Maddux, Bonds, McGwire, Palmero, Clark, McGriff, Bo, Larkin, etc are very high. I cracked a couple of wax boxes of them last year and got a minimum of 3 of each per box.

'91 Topps DS
 

From this era of cards, for me, it would have to be a full box of 1991 Topps Desert Shield cards. Unopened packs are getting scarce.....and boxes are even more scarce as well.

Z Wheat

How do you tell if a pack or a box is Desert Shield?

I don't think you can.

1991 Desert Shield
 

Daryl,

You can't tell with certainty, but you can increase the odds substantially. Almost all DS cards will have a glow back per previous N54 threads. I can find these for you if you are having difficulty with the Search function....it is quirky sometimes. If you shine a black light on the back of the cards, you can see the "glowing" border through the packaging.

This same topic was just covered on CU and someone indicated you could tell with a stud finder. I haven't tried it yet but others said it worked.

Z Wheat