Cracking Vintage 80's Wax Packs vs Vintage Rack Packs- Card Quality
Seaverfan
Posts: 80 ✭✭✭
Is there a preference regarding cracking 80's vintage wax vs rack packs regarding quality of card? I've been a fan of rack packs but more recently had much better quality cards with wax packs.
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Very curious if anyone can shine light on this myself.
I think wax packs would have better quality cards it they were stored correctly. You are going to lose one card per pack because of the wax on the card. You may lose 1 or more cards because of the gum.
That said, I don't trust rack packs for a couple reasons. They are too easy to search and there are a lot of people that know the sequence and can tell what cards are in each section based on what card is showing on the top or bottom.
Wax packs for ripping for me all day.
I have had wax packs with up to 4 cards ruined by melted gum and wax stains.
I try to buy a sealed box/case and go with rack.
Factory sets are another option.
As someone who has opened case after case of 1980s cards, the best success rate for condition in order is factory set, rack, vending, wax and last is cello. The hit rate on really strong PSA 10 candidates ranges between 2-4% of pack fresh cards depending on the year and brand of issue. Net, you are often better to just keep them unopened 😉
Rack pack by the nature they are packaged and displayed have the most dinged corners.
^That's why you purchase a unopened rack box or preferably case.
The OP didn't mention year of manufacture, but the packs with no gum and sealed at top and bottom are vastly superior to packs containing gum and sealed with wax.
This is the person to listen to!
I agree that Donruss and Fleer factory sets from 1985,1986,1987,1989 are extremely sharp cards and better quality than similar wax and rack derived cards from the same year.
Cards from these Donruss sets have ever so slightly "rounded" corner cuts but centering for both the Fleer and Donruss can be hit or miss. Also, cards from Fleer glossy sets can stick together and be ruined from this time.
With Topps factory sets from the 80's years its definitely not so clear to me. Some Topps racks are better than wax cards and visa versa. I've thought that early season production cards are better quality than later produced Topps cards from the same year (press blades dull later in the season?)
I like the factory sets too.
It also seems to be based on quality control of a certain year. I found the quality of the 2021 Topps Heritage Baseball to be poor.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.