Best and worst unopened stories
MorrellMan
Posts: 3,238 ✭✭✭
I'd love to hear from the board's best and worst stories about their own experience of opening packs/boxes/cases. I'll start with mine.
Best: Halloween, 1960 - I got a 1 cent 1960 Topps pack thrown into my bag along with the candy and apples and other junk. I opened it that night and it was a 1960 Topps Mantle #350. Still have it.
Worst: Opened a 1985 vending box and you know those 1 or 2 cards that are always laid flat on top and nicely creased from being folded over the other cards? Yup, a McQwire rookie.
Best: Halloween, 1960 - I got a 1 cent 1960 Topps pack thrown into my bag along with the candy and apples and other junk. I opened it that night and it was a 1960 Topps Mantle #350. Still have it.
Worst: Opened a 1985 vending box and you know those 1 or 2 cards that are always laid flat on top and nicely creased from being folded over the other cards? Yup, a McQwire rookie.
Mark (amerbbcards)
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
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Recently cracked open a $325 1978 Baseball vending box, graded GAI 9 mint, in hopes of finding a few gems. I submitted a grand total of 4 worthy cards to PSA: 1 Yount and 3 commons. They were checked in a few days ago... waiting for grades
Chad
But, I did pull a nice Ripken rookie. It's at PSA right now. Hopefully it will pay for at least half of my cost on the box.
JEB.
Dave
Now collecting:
Topps Heritage
1957 Topps BB Ex+-NM
All Yaz Items 7+
Various Red Sox
Did I leave anything out?
Worst: Almost anything modern that I've purchased in the past few years. I get some nice looking cards every once in a while, but nothing beats good ol 'vintage' cards!
Worst: Paid some big $$ for a 1977 topps baseball vending box, total dud, every card in the entire box had 1 or 2 corners bent. Not one card worth getting graded.
Mike
<< <i>I'd love to hear from the board's best and worst stories about their own experience of opening packs/boxes/cases. I'll start with mine.
Best: Halloween, 1960 - I got a 1 cent 1960 Topps pack thrown into my bag along with the candy and apples and other junk. I opened it that night and it was a 1960 Topps Mantle #350. Still have it.
Worst: Opened a 1985 vending box and you know those 1 or 2 cards that are always laid flat on top and nicely creased from being folded over the other cards? Yup, a McQwire rookie. >>
Yikes, really? The irony is, you would have been much better off keeping that penny pack unopened. 1960 is the toughest penny pack around, and sells for more than anything but '52 and '53. Did you keep the wrapper? Even that is worth a lot.
Joe
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
My best open was a 1980 vending case that I bought from Mark Murphy. It produced 10 PSA 9 Hendersons, a Brett PSA 10 (I believe it's the one that Rob had in his set), plus a few other star in PSA 10.
My best set purchase was a 1975 Topps set on Ebay (about 9 months ago). The seller stated that is was primarily from racks so I hit the BIN at $475. It was gorgeous. It produced a Yount 9, Rose 9, Winfield 9, Brett 8, Ryan/Carkton 9, Stargell 9, McCovey 9, tons of low pop 9's, plus a ton other stuff that I forget. I think I came out to about $4000+ on that set. If I could find those more often, I would sit on my lazy butt all day and look at cards for living.
Used to working on HOF SS Baseballs--Now just '67 Sox Stickers and anything Boston related.
Then, I opened it - and every card back had part of another player's card on it. How does that happen? Every sheet was off. So there went my investment.
-Mike
Worst: during the '98 season, buying a "sealed" 1985 Topps 6-box rack case from one of the best-known unopened dealers in the country, and getting all of *3* McGwire rookies out of it (2 got 8s, and 1 would have been a 6 at best). After being repeatedly insulted for questioning the quality of the source for that particular case, I was out $2500 and my all my future business went elsewhere. Still pissed about that one ...
Robert
best....i've never in my life opened a good box, or even broken even. that's why i stopped buying them 10 years ago!!!!
lsuconnman@yahoo.com
Almost best: Was in small farming town in mid west and stopped at an old tobacco shop. Inside there was inventory on the shelves from the 50's - 60's. I asked the old man behind the counter if he had any old baseball items in his basement that he never sold. He told me he had boxes of baseball cards that he has had for years and that he would sell me cheap. My heart raced as I when down into the basement looking for a famous "find". Turns out to be 1987 topps baseball. One case soaking wet! My heart broke, I had dreams of unopened 50's vintage. Oh well, can't win them all.
Glen
What a tremendous letdown it had to be when you thought you hit the jackpot and it turned out to be 1987 topps !!
Best - Got a McGwire and Eric Davis rookie out of the same pack back when Eric Davis was superhot.
Worst - Opening a 1986 Donruss box and getting 13 Ozzie Guillen rookies and no Jose Canseco or any other cards that even resembled a star or good rookie card.
worst: opened a sealed box of '89 Donruss straight from Smart & Final in 1989. [I know it hadn't been tampered with. I was there when the stock clerk brought out 2 sealed cases, slit them open, and started taking the boxes out. I bought 3 boxes.] EVERY pack was short several cards. The packs had from 8 to 12 cards in them, and averaged just over 10 cards each. Donruss customer service was entirely unhelpful and kept insisting that it could not have happened as I described. I eventually opened the other 2 boxes. Both of them had extra cards in many of the packs, but most of the cards from those packs had wear on the corners and edges because the wrappers were too tight.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
Need to buy something for the wife or girlfriend? Check out Vintage Designer Clothing.
I bought a wax case (I know, I know) about three years ago, and managed to pull a total of five Griffeys. Another one to remember occured last year, when I bought a box of '84 fleer. Half the cards were creased(?), and what wasn't creased was off center.
I've had precious few good pulls, although I did once by a box of 2000 UD baseball and pulled a Griffey jersey, which at the time was ranked as the #1 hot card by Tuff Stuff.
2nd Best: The absolute very last pack of 89 Fleer that I opened had the Billy Ripken "Rick Face" card!!! Not that valuable now, but I lived near Baltimore and it was selling for $50 that summer.
3rd Best: 1991 Topps Redemption mail-in Gold cards: The only decent card was a Cal Ripken
Worst: The entire summer of 1989 buying UD foil packs trying to get a Griffey. Finished a complete set but had to buy Griffey for $9.
Also collect Ripken & cards of UNC Basketball players in UNC Uniform
MSN Messenger: fins2left00@hotmail.com
I bought a box of 74 Wax about two years ago. All the packs looked good. I opened the first pack and it had 8 cards in it. I remember opening these as a kid and I don't remember any Topps pack having less than 10 or 12 cards. I checked the outside of the pack but there was no reference to the number of cards. I opened pack #2. This one had 10 cards in it. I was starting to get a little nervous. Out of the first two pack I think the best card was a Lou Brock. On to pack 3. I got about half way through the pack and guess what card showed up...........................
A 1977 World Series card. At least it was the one with Johnny Bench. What are the odds on that. Finding a 1977 Topps card in an 1974 unopened pack. It must have been a special insert of Future Wold Series Moments. After many emails I finally got the seller to give me his phone number. I called him and explained what happened. About two days later he sent me an email stating that he sold the box a few months ago, the buyer kept it for a few days and then returned. He must of swapped the packs. I do give credit to the seller because he apologized, refunded my money in full stating it was his problem and not mine.
Enjoy,
Doug
Good: Recently opened a box of 1994 Leaf Certified Rookies - Got an ARod. It graded a PSA 9
Shane
Collector of Vintage Golf cards! Let me know what you might have.
Worst, was about 5 years ago or so when psa 9 '89 upper deck Griffeys were going for $300 or so, I bought a box and it actually yielded not one single beckett listed card. It was a box with every pack consisting of nothing but commons. Very strange, but it really appeared to be a legit box. It was one of my last ventures into modern cards.
<< <i>I opened a box of 2001 sp authentic golf and pulled around 40 autos. I even got my picture in the beckett mag for that one. Odds of pulling autos were 2 per box. I was getting 2-3 per pack in most packs. >>
I think that story rates a "Holy Crap!"
Tabe
www.tabe.nu
Nice pull though.
Beckett followers live in a fantasy world, it's always fun when they discover the huge disparity between Beckett "values" and actual values
Dave
Now collecting:
Topps Heritage
1957 Topps BB Ex+-NM
All Yaz Items 7+
Various Red Sox
Did I leave anything out?
WORST: In around 1985 I bought about six 1977 Topps packs, hoping for a Murphy rookie. I was pretty clueless at the time, so I thought nothing of the fact that the wax seal on the back came off so easily, and chalked it up to dumb luck that the biggest stars I got out of the whole deal were Tommy John and Gaylord Perry.
Funny this thread came back up now. Last night, I opened a 1977 Topps vending box I bought a few months ago. I was suprised at what I found - 2 Ryans (1 gradeable, a potential 9 ++), 2 Bench, 1 Murphy RC, 2 Brett (1 gradeable), 1 Ryan RB (not), 1 Yaz (a blazer!), and a ton of semi-stars. Problem is, including the Ryan, Brett, and Yaz I mentioned, I found a total of 16 cards to be gradeable (out of 500). That includes commons. Every time I open a vending box, I find corner dings on a large percentage of the cards, and in this box, a lot of seriously o/c cards. Still, nice to know the box was clearly not searched, and it was a blast to open.
Worst - Bought a 55 1 cent All American pack several years ago from a prominent dealer. Paid $200. Yep that does read "two hundred". I opened it because I would have paid twice that for the wrapper at the time. The wrapper was perfect not a nick, tear or worn spot. The card however would not have graded a three. All four corners were worn round and there were multiple creases. Fortunately, the gum was not damaged during any of the creasings and the gum matched the exact size and shape of '79 Topps BB. And all the other packs I had from the 50's had huge sticks of gum, fortunately this small piece was damaged during the abuse. Must of been some kind of futuristic gum size test pack.
Fuzz
I will bring the 89 Upper Deck's back. Was at my cousins wedding in 89, and my grandma's neighbor knew I collected and did shows. He asked me if I knew anything about the new UD, as he collected baseball odds and ends and had seen them. At the time they were selling for $50-60 a box. He then tells me the local 7-11 had boxes of them. We leave the wedding, hit the 7-1. They had 15 boxes. Got em for $28 each. Was told they could order me more. Got another 30 the following week, had a show the same weekend. Sold all of them except the few we opened for the Griffeys, which I think were moving for $12.
Was a great turn around and for a small dealer, the 40 or so boxes of UD the hottest thing around, had many in awwe.
A bad one.....2001 Upper Deck Gold..Enough said !
Jeff
All Help Is Needed And Apprciated!
Best : 1967 Topps football pack picked up on eBay :
Filled with what turned out to be all PSA 8's including a Namath.
Worst : 1961 Fleer 1st Series football pack picked up on eBay :
No insert, no gum, just a couple of 1st AND 2nd series EXMT O/C cards. Seller disappeared.
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
Best - On my Birthday last year i opened four GAI 9 1972/73 Topps Hockey packs and out of the 40 cards inside 27 came back from PSA as ether a PSA 8 or 9.
Worst - I Opened a gem mint looking GAI 9 1971/72 Topps Hockey pack last year and every card in the pack had a top right corner ding! All the cards looked awesome but none were worth sending to PSA becouse of the ding.
some more recent stories : after I sent off my last submission a few months ago , I opened some packs , 75 pack yielded a yount rookie and a 73 pack yielded a clemente o/c , brooks robinson , ryan leaders and bench leader card . those were nice packs. on the down side : opened a 68 baseball and got a clemente all star o/c came back psa 9 o/c
What happened to the '79 Ozzie?