PRICELESS

robstar · February 21, 2003 12:45AM

After reading that thread last night about the 75 mini pack and everyones encouragement to open it, I got the itch to open some packs myself. While not truly valuable I opened a 89/90 OPC hockey box.
This contains the RCs of Sakic, Leetch, Fleury, Corson etc..
To add a special dimension to it, I asked my 5 1/2yr old daughter if she would help me open the packs and organize the cards. She has occasionally shown interest in my hobby but we had never done something like this before. She watches the odd game with me as well. GO LEAFS GO.

As I watched her open the packs, she would look at a worthless common and describe how beautiful the colours were and asked if he was a great player. It was usually some hasbeen that I could not even remember myself. She also opened the 2 packs with the Sakic RCs and the Fleury. Afterwards she organized the cards into team sets. While not worth a great deal, the question of value never came up once. For a fleeting moment It was a return to innocence for me.
She kept asking me " why can't we eat the gum " lol
This box can be had for about $25-, but last night it was PRICELESS.

Rob...

srs1a · February 21, 2003 12:51AM

Great story Rob -- I look forward to the day when I can do the same with my daughter (19 months old now, so they'd all end up in her mouth!)

coachh · February 21, 2003 1:12AM

Great story. My oldest son is almost 5. I will have to see if he would like to do something like this.

aconte · February 21, 2003 1:22AM

Awesome story! I hope some day I can do the same.

It brought back some great memories with my dad and brother. It even reminded me of the
old neighborhood when a bunch of us kids use to have so much fun with cards.

Great post robstar!!!!

aconte

aro13 · February 21, 2003 2:12AM

Great post! It is too bad kids cannot open boxes of cards today without their parents having to shell out $100.

SayitaintsoJoe63 · February 21, 2003 2:37AM

Amazing story Rob.
That is what it's all about.......kinda puts it all in perspective.

Thanks for sharing.

JH · February 21, 2003 2:52AM

I used to open boxes regularly with each of my kids until they out-grew it... my daughter used to love to find the game-used and autos.... really made her day.. she always pulled better cards than me, and would brag about it.... my son knew the players, so he would get excited when he found star cards... then when they lost interest, it just wasn't as much fun anymore... I used to open at least a box a week with them... now I probably do only 1-2 boxes per year... I still get the urge to bust something open occasionally, but I focus almost completely on vintage now...

theBobs · February 21, 2003 3:03AM

Great post.

Krems · February 21, 2003 4:09AM

Great post...thats funny about her asking about the gum

FB · February 21, 2003 4:47AM

I have a German Shepard that opened up 3 - 1972 OPC Baseball packs last year - and HE DID eat the gum! And I don't remember the evening being magical!!!!

goodriddance189 · February 21, 2003 5:37AM

Great post! I can tell you, i get more enjoyment out of opening a 1990-91 upper deck hockey box for 12 bucks than opening some jersey and serial numbered rookie card infested new box for $200

SayitaintsoJoe63 · February 21, 2003 5:56AM

A couple of months ago, I got to watch a guy eat the piece of gum from a 1978 Topps wax pack he opened........

BillBob · February 21, 2003 6:49AM

I saw a co-worker do the same with a 1987 pack. He just grabbed the gum and started chewing. We were is shock at first and then started laughing. We still laugh about it.

FB · February 21, 2003 7:24AM

The sad part is - that the gum is probably no worse from a 15 year old pack or even a 30 year old pack than it was when it was new!

SayitaintsoJoe63 · February 21, 2003 7:27AM

Last year, I opened a 1969 Topps wax pack, and the gum was surprisingly pink with just a hint of white cloudy look around the edges.....it was still even soft and bendable to a certain degree before breaking......it smelled exactly as I remembered it when I was a kid, and I admit.....I was tempted to chew it as I lovingly looked through the cards......but, reality set in....and I decided not to chance it.....

MickeyC · February 21, 2003 11:52AM

Quick story....

In 1979, my 3 younger triplet brothers and I were feverishly collecting the Topps cards that year. Of course, brothers will be brothers, and there was plenty of stealing going on between the 4 of us.

There was so much fighting going on that my father intervened. His solution? He took all of the cards and wrote each of our initials on the lower left front corner so we knew whose cards were whose.

I still have a handful of those in my collection that are priceless to me...

Mark

HECK55 · February 21, 2003 3:44PM

Rob - Just to echo the feelings of every one else - It was a really Great Story! My son is 24 years old and we enjoyed a lot of cheap boxes over the years and still "bust a few" packs when we get together. The innocence of the child that has no thought to the "dollar value" but still looks at each card and finds a beauty in it and wants to find one to please her dad is what makes your experience great though. Thanks for sharing - - - Rick

fab4 · February 21, 2003 9:39PM

great story, i would like to share mine. in 1988 my daughter was 4 years old i had about 250 1986 football racks that i bought and was boxing up to sale. they were spread out in the den and my daughter as always was right by my side. and then the question" can i open one" i told her no as they belonged to someone else. then the question came again and again. i finally told her i had them sold for 3.00 each. she turned around and went to her room, i thought she was upset but a few minutes later she came back with her piggy bank and handed it to me and asked how many she could buy. that is day card collecting changed for me . we opened up 25 or 30 racks that night, we both had a blast it only lasted her about a hour but so far it has lasted me 14 years and i still remember her telling her grandmothers about it. she is 18 now and about a week ago we busted 2 boxes of 1994 ultra football i bought cheap.it is just as much fun now as then. and by the way the dealer got mad and didn't take the racks because it was short of what we agreed on, sold them years later and ended up better off, 14 of them had rice rookie on top.

..........fab4..............

hobbyexchange · February 22, 2003 4:42PM

I never took up box collecting before... just couldn't resist, but after reading your story, I think I'll put some boxes away now... may be in my wife's secret vault, so I can do something like that when we have kids.

Thanks.

brucemo · February 22, 2003 5:00PM

<< <i>The sad part is - that the gum is probably no worse from a 15 year old pack or even a 30 year old pack than it was when it was new! >>

I used to ride my bike to Fred Meyer and buy two packs of '74 Topps baseball, almost every day, all summer long.

I ate the gum. It was very, very good.

Recently, I ate gum out of a pack of 1990 Topps. It was very clearly the same gum, but it disintegrated into nothing after a few seconds of chewing, and left a bad aftertaste.

So no, it was way better when it was new.

bruce

purelyPSA · February 23, 2003 2:51PM

Several years back, there was an article in SCD about a major dealer busting open three '52 Topps Series I packs. Nothing major involved ( he got three Bob Mahoneys! Too bad it wasn't three Pafkos). Anyhow, if memory serves me, there was a picture of one of the dealers involved sampling a fat slab of the gum. Now that's gotta be close to the oldest gum sampled there, I'd assume.

Galveston · February 23, 2003 11:32PM

I always hated the gum that Topps put in baseball and football packs, throwing it away as fast as I could. However, does anyone remember the 'banana' flavored gum that came in Monkees cards? It was really good. When it comes to banana gum, I'm a Believer.

PRICELESS

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