Hobby Box question

[HasselhoffsCheeseburger]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Just curious...did you get any "star" cards? Or what you might have anticipated? One of the items collectors look for when trying to determine if a box has been opened and pre-sorted is if the star cards were pulled.

I think that might go a long way towards answering your question.


Z Wheat

Even this isn't infallible. The collation in the 80s was atrocious. I've opened 5 straight boxes of 1987 O-Pee-Chee that I knew were 100% legit without getting a single Barry Bonds card. On the other hand, I've opened a single box of 1985 Leaf that yielded five Roger Clemens and four Kirby Pucketts. I've seen a few collectors accuse a seller of resealing wax simply because they opened two boxes and didn't get a particular star card. You can't judge wax on whether you got the best card in the set.

The best thing to do is to learn what to look for in sealed wax so you can spot bad wax before you open it. Cellos and rack packs are an entirely different story as sequencing is available and many people are resealing those. I wouldn't buy vintage cellos or racks unless they came from a reputable dealer and it was a fresh box pulled from a sealed case.