What is the most valuable card you have that you pulled from a wax pack as a child?

[T206Jim]

Mine is a 1979 Topps Gretzky rookie. I have bought exactly one pack of hockey cards in my life, hockey wasn't so big in Texas in the 70's, and lo and behold it contained a Gretzky rookie. Of course, I didn't realize what I had until about ten years ago I went back through childhood collection and rediscovered it. It graded a PSA 7, the fact I wasn't a hockey fan probably helped preserve the condition. What is your story?

[CMIZ5290]

I remember getting a 1970 and 1971 Topps Hank Aaron. I grew up in Atlanta and that was huge for me....

[ullmandds]

nothing too spectacular for me...eddie murray rookies...call ripken rookies. not much between 76-77 and 82ish which were the main years I was tearing into packs.

opening 90-91 upper decks in college was kinda fun!!!!

[Cliff Bowman]

1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan, but I was nineteen at the time. Wish I knew then what I know now.

[ksabet]

1985 Mark Mcgwire USA card...I think I danced and screamed...I was also 10.

[drmondobueno]

From what I remember, a '62 Maris #1, a double handful of Mantle switch hitter cards from the same year, and a pile of '65 and '68 rookie cards, which my ex's attorney probably has. 💊💊💊

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Cliff Bowman

1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan, but I was nineteen at the time. Wish I knew then what I know now.

Heh...I was going to say this exact card and I was also 19 at the time. I pulled 6 or 7 of them.

[mechanicalman]

Great question. Collected in late 80s, so mine was the 89 UD Griffey. I got butterflies when opening packs, revealing cards one by one, seeing a Rookies logo...

[btcarfagno]

Gretzky rookie as well. Was sitting in the back of a station wagon (the waaaayyyy back....when people could actually do that) on the way back from a birthday party at age 9. Knew zilch about hockey at the time, but after I opened the pack, every other kid was trying to trade me for it. Being the same little obstinate prick that I grew up to be, I told them all they could go scratch.

Tom C

[CurtisFlood]

I don't remember. All I remember is it seemed like Chris Cannizarro was in every pack in 1961 and 1962. I think a 1962 #5 Koufax may have been the big one, and most likely a Clemente from the same series. I didn't like them and quit buying cards because of the ugly brown design. So, no Mantle. All my Mantles came from flipping contests, some guys were stupid enough to use them instead of Marty Kutyna and Ken Aspromonte. Of course the condition was not good, making them OBC material now.

[Sophiedog]

I remember buying 5c wax packs in 1966, 1967, and 1968. I remember getting one Mantle but can't remember which year it was. I can tell you that Mantle and Maris were pretty scarce because my friend and I bought a ton of packs and he got one Maris and I got one Mantle. Lots of Don Mossi's and Moe Drabowski's! We were pretty big on the 1c bazooka gum with the comics inside and Razzles Gum. This thread brings back memories.

[Sophiedog]

Oh...and lots of Bo Belinski's too

[DaveW]

All my childhood collecting was fron 1966-1970, so the most valuable were probably the Mantles or the 1969 Reggie Jackson rookie card. I still have them all.

[Jeff_cvc]

I started collecting in the late '70's and early '80's. Probably collected from 4th grade through junior high.

I can remember my father telling me how he would collect cards in the fifties. He said they used to take their favorite cards and put them in the spokes of their bicycles. As you can imagine, growing up in New York, a lot of Koufax and Mantle cards ended up in his bicycle spikes, ughhhh!!! He also said that he kept a bunch in a shoe box, but when he came home from college his mother had thrown them all out.

I remembered these stories well and I protected my cards like a knight would protect his princess. Even though I stopped collecting in high school (my money was being spent on music, girls, and beer. Not necessarily in that order). BUT, when I left to college I dragged my boxes of cards with me. I lugged those boxes year after year, from dorm rooms to fraternity houses to apartments to my first home with my wife and to the home we are raising our kids in. Over all those years I kept the boxes sealed and protected. I never opened them once in all that time! It's really crazy when I look back at it. Well, about three years ago, my then 7 and 9 year old son found my box. I remember one of them running in to the kitchen holding a card and asking me what it was. Immediately my instinctual knight protector surfaced, "Don't touch those!" What I found when I went to survey the damage, were my boys chewing on 20 year old gum and gently laying the cards out. It was all at once a disgusting and beautiful scene (Don't ask me why I kept the gum!?!?). After calming down, I explained the importance of taking care of the cards and then we started to look through all of them. It was awesome. They were so curious about the players and the stories I told about all the great ones. Needless to say, this was the reintroduction in to collecting for me and sharing this hobby with my boys. Three years later we have all found our collecting niche. I now collect pre war, my oldest does mostly modern baseball with a little vintage thrown in and my youngest collects modern football with a few vintage also.

I apologize for the long story, but the thread brought back a momentous day for me and my boys. When we were looking through my old box, there was an album that I put my favorite cards in. We found 4 rookie Montana cards all in beautiful condition and a rookie Payton. I loved the Yankees as a boy, so I had pages of great Yankees, a second year Reggie in superb condition, which was one of the few cards I didn't pull from wax, but instead bought at a local card store. Anyhow, there were a lot of great cards, to many to mention and this story has probably bored you long enough. Sorry there is no climatic finish, it was just a snippet of my life that meant a lot to me.

[BeanTown]

Wayne Gretzky Rookie

[nolemmings]

Nolan Ryan rookie, although I was far more impressed with his card mate, a native Minnesotan who had earlier success than Ryan. Still, multi-player cards of rookies weren't exactly coveted by nine-year olds.

[atx840]

Shown many times, my father pulled this from a pack when he was 9. I opened a lot of 80s & 90s junk.

[Stetson_1883]

When I was about 12, I was constantly opening packs of 1991 Upper Deck baseball from my local Winn Dixie. One day I pulled a Hank Aaron Heros autograph, worth "$700" at the time according to Beckett.

I wound up getting on TV and made the newspaper. Here's the link to the article...

Im on page 11 of 52!:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,2882461&hl=en

God how embarassing to share with you all!

[tjb1952tjb]

Originally Posted by Stetson_1883

When I was about 12, I was constantly opening packs of 1991 Upper Deck baseball from my local Winn Dixie. One day I pulled a Hank Aaron Heros autograph, worth "$700" at the time according to Beckett.

I wound up getting on TV and made the newspaper. Here's the link to the article...

Im on page 11 of 52!:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,2882461&hl=en

God how embarassing to share with you all!

Very cool............thanks for sharing.

[Frank A]

1955 Topps Roberto Clemente Rookie. was in my parents attic with some other stuff if mine. Actually finding my old cards got me started in collecting again in 1979. Frank

[tedzan]

I went to my favorite neighborhood store. I put a quarter down on the counter and purchased 5 waxpacks. When I opened the last Topps pack....I was thrilled to find these cards.

.




TED Z
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[slidekellyslide]

Nice Ted! Not many people here can say they pulled a 52T Mantle....probably not even most of the people here who actually got to open 52T.

[tedzan]

I appreciate the compliment.

I'm probably the oldest dude on this forum....just turned 77 this month.


Take care,

TED Z
.

[Edward]

Ryan '69. No fooling. I was only 4. Much older brother gave me an Ernie puppet for it. Had Bert. Needed Ernie.

Perception is the only currency that ever was.

[Yoda]

A '52 Topps Jackie Robinson pulled from a pack from a drug store in Schenectady, NY where I grew up. When the word got out in the neighborhood, some bright light figured out it was the last series and we were in a good geographic location for its distribution. Well, the search was on for, you guessed it, The Mick who was already wildly popular with us Yankee fans. After some insane activity to drum up a few bucks to buy as many 5c packs as we could, I believe only 1 or 2 turned up. The lucky holders wouldn't even show them to us perhaps fearing mob violence. Seems like yesterday.

[RTK]

My parents would buy me the occasional pack in the mid to later 60's, I recall having mid 60's Mantles. I still have my childhood cards, however my Mantles were traded for Cub's players to some of the older neighborhood kids. I still have Mays, Aaron, Ryan rookie, Banks, Gibson, Clemente. Those were great days trading cards on the porch when it rained and we couldn't play sandlot ball.

[jboosted92]

great post...


1987 Topps Mike Greenwell, .......was 8 at time, loved the Gator....

1985 Topps McGwire.....

pops had gotten some 86 Topps Football packs and put them away "cause i wasnt into football then".....found them in 1992-93....pretty much crapped my pants cause thats when they had developed some value.... pulled a Rice ....i think i looked at that card 1000 times

[RaidonCollects]

I've pulled some great cards out of some very scarce 1987 Topps packs

My grandfather has pulled a Koufax rookie and a '53 Topps Willie Mays among other great cards.

-Owen

[FourStrikes]

Bird/Erving/Magic, which I still have...ungraded, as are ALL of my cards
.

[scooter729]

Not exactly a pack, but I bought the 1984-85 Star basketball set for about $12 when it came out. Not a bad investment for an 11 year old - the Jordan graded a BVG 7 and would sell in the $3K range.

[iwantitiwinit]

1967 Mickey Mantle. Have always loved those 67's, those big photos and the great green backgrounds on the reverse.

[bigtrain]

As a kid, I was buying cards from 1962 to 1969. So I guess my best card from that era was the 65 Mantle, a great card from my favorite 60s set.

[Sophiedog]

The 1965 is my favorite set as well with least favorite being the 1962 set

[ValKehl]

As a kid in Alexandria, VA, I bought Topps 5-cent packs from 1955 - 1960. I don't recall seeing 1955 Bowman cards being sold at stores in my neighborhood, but I guess they were, as I was able to trade for several. Topps cards I found in packs back then include 1955 Clemente, Koufax, and Killebrew; all the Mantle cards from 1956 - 1960; plus most of the star cards of that period. I still have most of the star cards, but when I started collecting again, I traded many of the commons toward older cards. Unfortunately, not many of these cards survived in top condition, mainly due to the games my buddies and I played with them in an effort to win each other's cards. The very few that I have ever gotten graded are ones I was willing to sell/trade - these included my 1955T Clemente (traded it at the 2014 Cleveland National, because the abrasion on Clemente's face bothered me every time I looked at this card) and my 1955T Mantle (still have this card, but I never liked Mantle's image on this card, although I think most collectors do):

[kmac32]

1970 Ernie Banks card for me and also 1970 Reggie Jackson card. Still have the Banks and traded the bulk of my commons for a 1959 Dolan Nichols option/ no option cards and othe Cubs cards.

[Collectorsince62]

1967 high numbers. Series six was nowhere to be found in my area of St. Louis so we just kept buying that seventh series, stockpiling the Seavers, Carews etc. hoping to find the elusive series that never showed up. I ended up buying the 6th series a year or two later for about five bucks from Larry Fritsch. The Brooks Robinson and the Red Sox team were two of the cards I specifically recall getting in large quantities.

[Cozumeleno]

I remember it like yesterday - Doug Smith (basketball) 1991 Star Pics certified autograph at my local card shop. That was back when autographs were really first starting to surface in packs.

I believe it was around $100 at the time. Current book value? Somewhere around three bucks. No idea whatever happened to it - I'm sure it was traded for more shiny packs.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Collectorsince62

1967 high numbers. Series six was nowhere to be found in my area of St. Louis so we just kept buying that seventh series, stockpiling the Seavers, Carews etc. hoping to find the elusive series that never showed up. I ended up buying the 6th series a year or two later for about five bucks from Larry Fritsch. The Brooks Robinson and the Red Sox team were two of the cards I specifically recall getting in large quantities.

This is funny because for me it was the opposite. I had tons of 6th series cards, but couldn't find the 7th. I bought mine from Card Collectors Co. The 68Ryan was probably my most valuable card that I pulled as a kid.

[clydepepper]

I probably pulled a Mickey Mantle of two in 1964 - long before I took care of ANYTHING, much less 'a piece of cardboard'.

I'm much smarter now...,spend thousands just to insure the safe delivery of cards in the best possibly condition...I'm a lot smarter now...I'm a lot smarter now...I'm a lot smarter now...etc., etc....
.
.

[mrmopar]

I guess it depends on when you priced the cards. If you are talking about current prices, today, then my best pack pulled card as a kid was probably the Bird/Magic RC. Sadly, I broke it apart like many kids did with those. Still have two of them in the "torn" 3 card format.

I also bought Topps hockey in the Gretzky RC year. Had no idea who he was but was dying to get a Gordie Howe. Didn't get either.

I bought a few packs of 86-87 Basketball and apparently didn't pull the Jordan card either (or someone stole it or ripped me off for it), but got the Jordan sticker and most of the other "rookies" from the set (Malone, Ewing, Hakeem, Wilkins, etc).

Then for baseball, maybe the Rickey Henderson or Eddie Murray RCs. I would consider my wax buying as a kid from 78-87. I bought a vending box of 82 T, so never pulled a Ripken RC from a pack (unless you count the Donruss and Fleer cards).

[mettoy66]

A 1973 Mike Schmidt RC. I collected hot and heavy up to 1980. I ended up selling most of my cards and comics for beer money in HS. Live and learn!

[brass_rat]

Originally Posted by Jeff_cvc

Sorry there is no climatic finish, it was just a snippet of my life that meant a lot to me.

Great story, Jeff...an enjoyable read.

I have some boxes of 87 Topps that I bought a few years ago just for kicks...and every year or so I open a few packs -- and I still try to eat the gym. Turns to dust and doesn't chew anymore...

Cheers,
Steve

[pawpawdiv9]

collecting in the late 80-s to early 90s....my first was a collectors album from Sear with vintage hof'ers..I loved seeing them.immortals. Still have the entire album stored away. I was in the era of the 88-90 Donruss and Topps cards..loved the Topps better.
But i remember Me and my brother loved pulling Canseco, Bonds, Griffey, McGwire and Ripkens. Then we stopped in like 92 and then moved onto H.S. and college. Only now got back in a few years ago.

[Wayne]

I started collecting in 1989. Upper deck was too expensive at the time and 1990 leaf was also too expensive so I would say the best card I pulled between 1989 and 1994 when I graduated would be 1993 leaf heading for the hall Nolan Ryan card to this day I also pulled a few Jeter Rookies back then but they only book for $1.50

[Mike (18colt)]

Anyone remember the hoopla surrounding the '84 Donruss cards? I pulled Mattingly several years after its release, paying the seemingly ridiculous price of $5 for a wax pack. At the time, this card was "valued" at anywhere from $50-$100. Now? $5 for the pack seems high. 20-25 years made a huge difference (not just the hobby, but Don's career, too).

[cardsfan73]

My most valuable pack pulled cards from childhood would have been a 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie & 1982 Topps Cal Ripken rookie. They are both long gone as I sold them when I got out of the hobby in the mid 90s. I have since picked up nice Ripken rookie, but I still need to get a Montana.

Scott

[chris6net]

I started buying cards in 1971 but I remember the 1972 Mets Team card as being the best card to have (I think 3rd series) followed by Tom Seaver in one of the later series

[emmygirl]

Ok so I'm a dinosour. Turned 70 in July. All I can say is I had a ball with my cards as a kid. Me and my large bottle of Elmer's Glue made for some crazy baseball card memories. Oh how i wished Mickey was playing for my beloved Red Sox in 1955. I was ten years old. Yeh I had his card but I needed him on my team, you understand. So get out the Mick and the Glue. Using a new pair of school "saftey" sizzors I carefully make the trade of the year. Mickey's face on my Frank Malzone's card, perfect. Cut the name/ team from the bottom and presto Mickey is now playing centerfield with Ted in left and Jackie Jenson in right. Thanks Elmer. Also, hold onto your Vern Stephen's but in 1957 in 12 and need a halloween costume (only home made costumes in my home) my Mom say why not go out trick or treating as "Baseball Card Man". I'm not making this stuff up. Well, bring out the 52-56's and of course the Large bottle of Elmers Glue. An old shirt and pants and glue em on. Cards glued to an old baseball hat with flaps made from cards and I was Baseball Card Man. Final look as something like the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Oh being a Kid in the mid 50's was just great fun. Still have some of the 50's cards that Elmer never came in contact with, pun intended . Jim

[bwbc917]

All the cards I opened from 1958-1964 live elsewhere these days. I swapped them to a student back in the 1970's. In 1960 I saved my money and bought whole boxes for $1.20 each.I recall loads of 1960 Yastrzemski cards at the time, I kept getting that rookie with the weird name. I also remember finding a store with high series 1962 and having bunch of those.

[nascarht]

Shortly before Mickey Mantle died i went to a show near Houston where he was signing. That tells how long ago this was, about 1994. An older man, about 70 yrs old, was in line and not too talkative. Finally got him to start talking, he was going to have a Mantle card autographed and ask if it would make the card more valuable. I said, depends on the card and he ask if a rookie card would be more valuable. I said, hell no. And explained why. I ask him, do you have one. He said that his mother was still alive and had called him to ask if he still wanted his old BB cards. They were still in the closet. He picked them up and read about the Mantle show and was going to get an autographed. I ask, you found a Mantle rookie card in the box. He said he had 7 of them as well as Ted Williams rookies and others. Sounds unbelievable but i saw them. Never forget it.
Henry