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

[brunswickreeves]

As a kid, I pulled a Chris Webber Behind The Glass # G7 from '93-'94 UD pack at a card shop in a NH mall. The owner offered me $125 on the spot for it. However, the Beckett price guide wasn't due out til the following month, so it's value was TBA. I thought I struck gold!

[jethrod3]

For me it would probably be the Aaron/Mays/Ruth All-time leaders card from the 1973 Topps baseball wax packs. A PSA 9 mint card #1 sells for much more than I would have guessed.

[obcbobd]

Must be the 69 Jackson RC. I bought a few packs of 68s but never got a Ryan.

[JustinD]

Honestly growing up as a kid of the late 70s and early 80s, I don't remember getting very excited about the valuable pulls I had when I actually pulled them.

I would get excited about the big names I recognized and any and all Tigers. Rose, Ryan, Yaz, Jackson...those were the excitement. I had piles of 85' McGwire's don't remember treating them any different than Johnny Grubb as he was unknown to me. The big excitement was getting that yearly price guide the next year and digging through the card to find what rookies were gaining momentum.

I think my best win as a kid was not all the baseball rookies I had stockpiled but going into a tiny little card shop in Frankenmuth Michigan on a family trip and finding the black-markered overstock boxes of 1984/85 Topps Hockey. My brother and I didn't collect hockey and knew little about it. However, we were young and valued quantity over quality, just how many sets could we build as these discarded boxes were marked at a lowly 5 bucks each and we had saved a few weeks of chore money.

We each bought 3 boxes, ripped them and they sat. Then we went into a LCS in western Michigan and saw the Yzermans at 40+ a piece. Let alone the other great rookies in that set. Due to the size of that set, we had 30-40 yzermans, and piles of the other RCs. We ran the trading game for years just dumping dups at prime demand. At dollars on return, that was a windfall for a couple of paperboys, lol.

[ClementeFanOh]

Interesting thread resurrection. The funny thing in my case is that, despite
my baseball leanings, my two most valuable pulls as a kid were the 76 Topps
Walter Payton rookie and the 80-81 Topps Bird/Magic/Erving. Sadly, neither
are still with me. Trent King

[bnorth]

I never collected as a kid. In the early 90s I pulled some chrome Mantle insert that was worth a couple hundred at the time. I looked it up a few years ago and it is now a few dollar card. Still have it someplace.

Pulled a lot of Bill Ripken F Face cards back in the day. Those are by far the coolest.

[fkm_bky]

Nothing too special for me. Ricky Henderson rookie as a kid, and then a Tom Brady numbered rookie as an "adult". Didn't think much about the Brady at the time and slid it into a binder. Found it about a year and a half ago and it helped me fund a T206 M. Brown purchase

Fun thread!

Bill

[Rad_Hazard]

Originally Posted by brunswickreeves

As a kid, I pulled a Chris Webber Behind The Glass # G7 from '93-'94 UD pack at a card shop in a NH mall. The owner offered me $125 on the spot for it. However, the Beckett price guide wasn't due out til the following month, so it's value was TBA. I thought I struck gold!

I have almost the exact same story! Mine was pulling a 1993 Ultra Michael Irvin Auto at my LCS and being offered $120 on the spot from the owner and turning it down. Still have the Irvin to this day!

[guy3050]

Really can't remember mine probably a Lafleur or Dryden Rookie, here is my son's best pull when he was 8years old a Carey Price Ultimate rookie shield , he was wearing his Carey Price Jersey when he pulled the card

[steve B]

I'm not sure, the two-three that turned out the best

1969, Reggie Jackson. Bought one pack, and opened it in the car sitting with dad, he mentioned that Reggie was pretty good. Somehow the card survived 5 years of the toybox and a move. I still have it, but it's a bit worn.

Collected mostly as a kid from 73-4 till whenever you figure being a kid ends.

all the better rookies from 74,
Missed Yount and Brett

Gretzky rookie.
Bird/Erving/Johnson - oddly also pulled from the one pack I opened. LCS guys said it was a great card, I should buy some packs. Bought two, got the card in the first pack, didn't open the other.

Still have them all.

[jbsports33]

1980 Topps Henderson RC!

[mrreality68]

some cool stories and pictures here.

sadly for me. I do not recall what I pulled or values. We just bought packs of cards, cracked them open so what we had and then

1. Traded cards
2. Flipped Cards
3. Put Cards in spokes.
4. fling the cards (for distance competition and other odd reasons)

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

I remember pulling an OPC Eddie Murray RC from a pack. What's odd is that the pack was purchased at a store in Hyannis, MA while on a family vacation. What was a wax box of OPC doing there? OPC were manufactured in my hometown, so it was rather funny that I had to travel to Cape Cod for this pack as opposed to just walking down to the corner store. In a very Zanadakian move, I still have all the cards from the pack, as well as the wrapper. Also in the pack were Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose.

[lampertb]

Probably either an '89 Topps Jerome Walton (with the rookie trophy!!) or 1990 Upper Deck Kevin Maas.

[stlcardsfan]

A 1976 Walter Payton RC. Submitted to PSA a few years ago and it came back an 8!

[Yoda]

A Willie Mays from a '51 Bowman pack bought at the local general store.

[Andrew1975]

1984 Topps Don Mattingly RC, pulled from a pack I purchased at Hall's Nostalgia in Arlington, MA. I was nine years old, but still remember how excited I was... even as a die hard Red Sox fan.

[GasHouseGang]

When I started collecting again, I only had a small stack of cards left from my youth. Probably the best card in the stack was a 1973 Clemente. I'm sure all the others went into the spokes of my bicycle.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by ClementeFanOh

Interesting thread resurrection. The funny thing in my case is that, despite
my baseball leanings, my two most valuable pulls as a kid were the 76 Topps
Walter Payton rookie and the 80-81 Topps Bird/Magic/Erving. Sadly, neither
are still with me. Trent King

Like a few others I also pulled the Bird/Magic rookie, but I did what Topps wanted kids to do and took the cards apart. I was 13, and where I live there were no card stores or shows, I had no idea that a nationwide hobby existed. How could you put this set together without taking the cards apart?

[abothebear]

I spent a lot of my allowance on packs. I still have most of my childhood collection. i don’t think any of those cards are more than $8 today. Some of my better ones from the mid-80s are dinged up too much to be anything. Oh! I just remembered I have a Jerry Rice RC from a pack that survived the satchel bag I kept my football cards in. It’s probably worth around $25-$30.
35 years, almost a dollar per year in value gain! So glad I bought all those packs!

[jethrod3]

I was just thinking....
Given that my wife is always reminding me that I still act like a child, I think it's totally valid for me to count the time a couple of years after we were married and she attended a National with me in 1994. At that show, I walked up to Mark Murphy's table, bought a 1986 Fleer basketball pack out of a freshly opened box, and proceeded to pull a Jordan rookie card. And of course I proceeded to act like a child opening a prized present on Christmas morning. Thus, I think this card should count!

[ejharrington]

Gretzky rookies

[LuckyLarry]

When my mother died in 2004 I made a final sweep of the attic to see if I could find any of my childhood cards before we sold her house. I found a 1967 Topps #163 Vic Roznovsky and a handful of 1962 Post baseball cards I cut from the box as a nine year old.
Larry

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Like a few others I also pulled the Bird/Magic rookie, but I did what Topps wanted kids to do and took the cards apart. How could you put this set together without taking the cards apart?

Ditto, except at that time I did know that, as a collector, I should not separate them at the perforations. But I still did it.

Brian

[LACardsGuy]

75 Brett or 76 Payton. Of course, I was 6 and looking for Garvey and Youngblood

[Cliff Bowman]

I answered this way back with a 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan, as far as other cards a 1981 Topps Joe Montana in football and countless 1977 Dale Murphy cards in 1977 and Eddie Murray cards in 1978 in baseball. I remember buying several packs of 1979-80 Topps hockey cards and 1980-81 Topps basketball cards but I honestly don't remember pulling a Gretzky or a Magic-Bird-Erving but I probably did and didn't realize what I had. If I had kept all of the comic books I bought off the racks in the early to mid 70's and sports cards I bought from packs in the late 70's to early 80's in the same condition I could retire now, but countless others can say the same thing.

[rjackson44]

Had tons of them ,,roses aarons yaz ..would flip them in the schoolyard got them at the local bodega union city nj...great memories

[JCM2009]

Montana rookie

[isiahfan]

Originally Posted by ksabet

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

In 1985 he wasn't a big deal...or even really a deal yet!

[terjung]

Joe Montana and Cal Ripken rookies

[brunswickreeves]

I posted pic of my CWebb, which I've kept for nearly 30 years!

[Rich Falvo]

Somehow, buying very few non-baseball packs, I pulled and saved Bird/Magic and Gretzky rookies. The Bird/Magic got an 8 and the Gretzky got a 4 when I sent them to SGC a few years ago.

[ullmandds]

meh...i have no recollection???? 77/78 reggie jackson? 80 henderson maybe???? 2nd year montana? early jordan? Nothing too exciting.

[Bicem]

Barry Sanders Score rookies

[ParisianJohn]

When I was 6 in 1982 my father bought a box of Donruss wax packs and let me and my older sister rip them open. That was cool as the year before my father bought a box of 1981 Topps cello and said, "We're not opening these", and put them in a drawer in the living room. I still have those unopened cello packs 42 years later.

Back to the Donruss set and at the time I was more excited getting players like Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson, but I did pull five Cal Ripken Jr rookies, all of which I still have raw and in great shape.

For my birthday in 1986 my father bought me a box of Topps football wax packs. I was kind of disappointed as I loved baseball and only watched postseason football. But as I opened those cards, read the stats on the back, and created a separate pile of those cool and glossy "1,000 Yard Club" cards I became a football fan and started watching regularly for many years. While opening those packs I pulled 3 Jerry Rice rookies. Awesome! I continued getting football cards through about 1991 or 1992.

I had a small, square walk-in closet as a kid and stored all my cards on the floor in there along with my first generation Transformer toys. I left them there when I went to college out-of-state where I stayed after I found work. Whenever I'd go home to visit my parents I'd look at many of those old cards.

A little over a decade ago my father passed away and then my mother soon after. About six weeks after our mother's funeral my brother, sister and I planned to meet at our parent's house to pack up some stuff, meet an attorney, and meet a guy who would do an estate sale. My sister and I were coming from out-of-state but our brother was local. The day before we were to meet our brother emailed that he was sick and couldn't come, but said he'd stopped by the house by himself earlier. When my sister and I got there all my cards and Transformers were gone. Every single one. We called my brother and he didn't answer. After we were done for the weekend he replied and said he would return the cards to the house by himself the next weekend. No apology or explanation.

A few months later, as we got close to spring, we were to meet again at our parent's house as it was going to be put on the market. Once again my brother was "sick" and couldn't make it. When my sister and I got to the house I checked the closet floor to see that my brother had returned almost all the baseball cards (the 1986 Topps Super set was gone) but no football cards and no Transformers. To this day that rat bastard claims he never saw or took any of them, though they were all there at the time of our mother's funeral. Knowing my brother, I think he took everything and probably decided the Transformers, the oversized Super set and the football cards were junk and he trashed them all when returning the rest of the baseball cards.

My sister and I sometimes amuse ourselves and "plot" robbing his house when we know he's on vacation. If society wouldn't frown on it I may also kidnap his daughter and hold her for ransom for Jerry Rice and Optimus Prime.

[Al Parker]

I vividly remember pulling a '57 Ted Williams from a pack and being thrilled. Only other cool card I recall in detail was the '59 Corsair Outfield Trio from the high number series. Don't where either of them are now, but I trust they found a loving home.

[conor912]

My dad bought me a box every year for Xmas. In 1993 he got me a product I’d never heard of….Upper Deck SP. I remember pulling at least 4 cards of a guy named Jeter. I’d never even heard of him before, but I was 13 and a Red Sox fan, so Yankees were shit cards. I have no doubt they ended up in the trash at some point. Still waiting on that time machine….

[2dueces]

1966 Namath was a fun pull. 4 1986-87 Michael Jordan’s between friends in 1990

[ajquigs]

Great question. I think it would have to be 1973 Topps Schmidt. Still part of my ‘73 set.

[todeen]

Not as cool as others, but I was 10 when I pulled KGJ, and 15 when I pulled Jackie.... when it still meant something to pull a relic card.

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

[67airborne]

Can’t say I remember what card was the best I ever pulled from a pack. Unfortunately my brain was clouded with wants of Detroit tigers. Any earlier 70’s Kaline cards. Of course getting those rookie cards of Ron Leflore and Mark “the bird” Fidrych were huge. When I was maybe 6 I guess I remember my mom taking me to Sears. They always sold crap that as a kid I had no interest in. So I would run around like a wild man in between all the clothes and most times would lose my mom and need to have the store call her on the pa. Anyway one time they were selling what in my mind I would like to think were complete sets of 1974 Topps. I’m sure now that I probably drove my poor mom crazy for that box of cards. I remember it being shaped like a complete set and when I opened it, it had all the Aaron’s at the front. Needless to say I pulled them all out broke them up into teams and proceeded to wrap them up with rubber bands. Years later I never found any of the cards that would of been stars of the time. I’m sure all the older kids I hung out with got anyone decent. But I had no shortage of Ed Brinkmans,Chuck Seelbach and Ike Browns.
On another note. I got one of those game used bat pieces when topps was doing t206’s years ago of Ty Cobb. I’m sorry but that thing looked like a wood chip out of the flower bed. Lol
I gave my dad some 90’s hockey cards and he took an interest in it and he bought a couple packs. They were older packs and the first one he opens pulls out a Wayne Gretzky auto. After he passed I had it graded to preserve it and it sits on my sons self now. All of my dads cards from the 40-50’s his brother took after he went in the army.

[DVCARDS]

My big years for ripping open packs was mid to late 60's. Being a Mets fan I was excited to get any Met plus any of the big stars like Mantle, Mays, Aaron. When a new series came out my parents would let me get a box. Dont remember maybe there were 24 packs to a box. Was always trying to get the cards I didnt have by flipping or trading. Doubles ended up in bike spokes. Fun times.

[egri]

Most valuable that I pulled as a kid was probably Cal Ripken Jr. Topps and Donruss rookie cards that I pulled in 2007 buying wax packs. I bought so many packs it would have been cheaper to just buy them outright, but 12 year old me was deadset on getting them the old fashioned way.

[ValKehl]

Probably this Mantle card, which I sold in December 2021 REA auction:

[Bigdaddy]

I started ripping wax in 1977 and though some years were more focused than others, quit around 1989. Not sure what the most valuable card I pulled from a wax/cello/rack pack was, but I guarantee that it was worth more when I pulled it than it is now. In the 1980's, pulling a Mattingly, Strawberry, Gooden, Ripken, UD Griffey or other hot RC was like a winning lottery ticket.