Hypothetical Value of Unopened Packs

[Leon]

I think many, if not most, packs are worth more unopened. Such a gamble but it would be cool to pull a Wags or a Plank....or a T210 Jackson ...none of which I will ever afford unless I win the lottery.
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[jchcollins]

I think the concept is very cool, and I admire those who are into high-end unopened - but I don't have near the risk tolerance I would need to play that game myself. I like watching YouTubers who bust unopened vintage like Just Collect, etc. But I would never pay hundreds or thousands of dollars myself to speculate on something like that. I too am leery of the fraud possibilities with that kind of stuff.

[jingram058]

There is no way, zero chance, I would trust ANY pack for sale not to have been tampered with, unless I found it myself in some attic, basement or warehouse. And that's on top of the gamble of some star or HOFer being in the pack. I remember well the good old days of 1967 opening pack after pack after pack to get Mantle.

[gonefishin]

Originally Posted by jingram058

There is no way, zero chance, I would trust ANY pack for sale not to have been tampered with, unless I found it myself in some attic, basement or warehouse. And that's on top of the gamble of some star or HOFer being in the pack. I remember well the good old days of 1967 opening pack after pack after pack to get Mantle.

James, you make some good points. What if you have some vintage, unopened packs, where you are 100% positive of the provenance of where they came? What if the packs were so scare that people thought they never existed? What if you could actually see at least one of the cards in the pack and it is worth 10K plus? What if you had some graded by PSA and they are authentic, graded and sealed?

What would you do? What would anyone else do? I would REALLY like to know.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

James, you make some good points. What if you have some vintage, unopened packs, where you are 100% positive of the provenance of where they came? What if the packs were so scare that people thought they never existed? What if you could actually see at least one of the cards in the pack and it is worth 10K plus? What if you had some graded by PSA and they are authentic, graded and sealed?

What would you do? What would anyone else do? I would REALLY like to know.

If the pack is factory sealed, how could you see what is in it? Only way is to tamper with it. I do remember that only occasionally you would buy a pack not fully sealed, perhaps one leaf loose from the other. You could perhaps see the bottom card (sorry, I never saw any 1 cent, one card packs; first packs I bought were 1967).

[gonefishin]

Originally Posted by jingram058

If the pack is factory sealed, how could you see what is in it? Only way is to tamper with it. I do remember that only occasionally you would buy a pack not fully sealed, perhaps one leaf loose from the other. You could perhaps see the bottom card (sorry, I never saw any 1 cent, one card packs; first packs I bought were 1967).

Good question James. The first cello packs that I know of were produced in 1967, and you could see the bottom card. There were 2 cards in the pack, not 1.

[packs]

I've had a few 50s one cent Topps packs in the past. I remember the 1959 one cent packs to be really thin and if you held the wrapper tight to the card and up to the light you could make out the player.

[rand1com]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

Good question James. The first cello packs that I know of were produced in 1967, and you could see the bottom card. There were 2 cards in the pack, not 1.

Cello packs were available much earlier than 1967. Not sure of the exact earliest year but I have seen them from the late 50's.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by jingram058

If the pack is factory sealed, how could you see what is in it? Only way is to tamper with it. I do remember that only occasionally you would buy a pack not fully sealed, perhaps one leaf loose from the other. You could perhaps see the bottom card (sorry, I never saw any 1 cent, one card packs; first packs I bought were 1967).

Many wax packs have wrappers that let you see at least part of the card on top and/or bottom. So you might be able to see the card number through the pack. Like you can with the 86 fleer basketball stickers which are always on the back.

Some baseball packs from all years have areas on the front you can see part of the card through. You just have to be really good at identifying the cards from only seeing a little bit of it.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

James, you make some good points. What if you have some vintage, unopened packs, where you are 100% positive of the provenance of where they came? What if the packs were so scare that people thought they never existed? What if you could actually see at least one of the cards in the pack and it is worth 10K plus? What if you had some graded by PSA and they are authentic, graded and sealed?

What would you do? What would anyone else do? I would REALLY like to know.

I will tell you one thing I would not do and that is trust that ANY graded pack was unopened.

When I first joined this forum there was a member that sold tons of graded star packs. Turns out he personally put all those star cards in the packs and resealed them. After being busted on here because he posted a card pick up that was later the exact card in a graded pack. He said it was beyond easy to get resealed packs graded.

[CurtisFlood]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

James, you make some good points. What if you have some vintage, unopened packs, where you are 100% positive of the provenance of where they came? What if the packs were so scare that people thought they never existed? What if you could actually see at least one of the cards in the pack and it is worth 10K plus? What if you had some graded by PSA and they are authentic, graded and sealed?

What would you do? What would anyone else do? I would REALLY like to know.

I don't swim in that pool.

[packs]

The pack will never have anything as good as what it "could" have inside. I buy the current year Bowman product year after year, open it and get nothing. But if I just didn't open it I'd make three or four times what I paid every time. Alas, I can't help myself.

[jethrod3]

Originally Posted by packs

The pack will never have anything as good as what it "could" have inside. I buy the current year Bowman product year after year, open it and get nothing. But if I just didn't open it I'd make three or four times what I paid every time. Alas, I can't help myself.

As a general rule, I think you are right, but I can never say that a pack would never have anything as good as what it "could" have inside. Case in point: In the late 90's or early 2000's I bought a couple of different unopened packs from reputable sources at a National. One was a 1970 6th Series Topps Baseball pack and the other was a 1986 Fleer Basketball pack. I pulled spectacular Willie Mays and Pete Rose cards from the 1970 pack, and was lucky enough to pull the Jordan card from the 1986 pack. The baseball pulls exceeded my expectation (was thinking I'd just get 1 star card at best--I'd purchased it because it was the first year I started collecting, but never opened a pack myself that year, so I treated myself to the pleasure of opening a 1970 pack) and the Fleer pull met my hopes and dreams as it was the only realistic shot I had at the time of owning a nice Jordan rookie. But generally, yeah, with the priced unopened vintage product is going for these days, it's the equivalent of buying a high-priced lottery ticket.