Opening 1970's Topps basketball wax - any fun discoveries?

TheCARDKid

It's been awhile since I've opened up any 70's Topps wax. I'm expecting a nice collection of 77/78 packs to arrive next week (the 1st PSA 10 Jabbar, Maravich or Erving would be nice too )

I've also been thinking about buying some 74/75 or 76/77 packs.

Has anyone had any big pulls lately from the decade? Any cool stories to share?

MonstersOTG

A year or so ago I opened several (over 15) GAI graded basketball wax packs from 1972/73 to 1975/76 and I pulled at least one card that graded PSA 9 out of each pack. The worst pack that I opened only had two cards worth submitting and both got straight 8's and the best pack I opened was a GAI 7 1975/76 pack that had six total gradable cards, two were PSA 8's and four were PSA 9's including a Bill Walton!


I also see that your using my Ty Cobb icon that I uploaded, Good choice!

Paul.

milbroco

Over the past year I haveopened about 8 to 10 packs of the 1976 cards. I have done pretty well getting a Jabbar, Barry, Maravch, Bing, Cunningham, and the All Star cards of Barry, Cowens, Erving, and several other Hall Of Famers. I should get them graded.

Now you have my pack opening urge running again. I guess I will be on ebay tonight looking for some packs.....from trustworthy dealers hopefully.

I Almost forgot, I also bought a 1980 Topps cello pack which had very loose cello packaging. Naturally I thought it was resealed but realized I got lucky when the second from the last card was the Rickey Henderson rookie.

Thanks,

Bob

rana

The basketball sets are fun for me because they are smaller and easier to complete. I put together a 1977 Basketball set with about 80% from wax and the rest from 2 partial partial sets I bought from someone (I have a bunch of dups, if anyone wants to trade). Those cards were a lot of fun to open, though the normal centering and print snow issues made it tough to complete in NMMT. But now I've got the set in new pages, and it looks beautiful. I also did something similar with 1978/1979, though only about 1/3 from wax for those. Those two sets are cheaper and easier to find unopened. I also bought a 1978 basketball GAI 9 box I plan to leave sealed.

I upgraded about 25% of my 1976 basketball set from wax last year. That is probably my favorite basketball set of all time, since I love the stars of the era and the large format cards. I got several PSA 8-9 quality cards from those 8 or so packs. The 1976 star duplicates I have for trade are Erving AS (3), Jabbar (2), Jabbar AS, B Jones, Gervin (2), Maravich AS, Frazier, Hayes, Hayes AS, Williams, Archibald (2), Archibald AS, McGinnis and lots of commons from NMMT to EX.

I also opened up 2 1974 packs recently and 1 1975 pack (my oldest opened packs). I did get a PSA-7 quality 1974 Chamberlain (a bit OC) and a PSA-8 quality scoring leaders with McAdoo, Maravich, and Jabbar. The sad thing was the 1975 pack - it had water damage on the cards, so all were ruined. It did contain an otherwise very nice Bobby Jones RC, which is one of the cards I really need to complete that set, so I was heartbroken, but that is the chance you take with unopened material (even from your own collection or reliable sellers)!

In more modern stuff, I opened 2 1980 Topps packs recently and got a Magic Johnson RC (not the one with Bird+Erving!). I've also got other unopened stuff I'm planning to leave sealed (one of each of the major issue Basketball, Football, and Baseball packs from about 1974 - 1990).

TheCARDKid

Out of all basketball packs, the one that offers the best "bang for your buck" is probably 61/62 Fleer. The BBCexchange has one for $1,000 (GAI 7).

Considering that there's only 66 cards in the set, each pack is very rich in content. Leaving the OC's and other qualifiers aside, the 9 or 10 potential is very high.

Buccaneer

I still fantasize about reliving part of my childhood and open a pack each of 1970 Topps baseball, football and basketball. To this day, opening those packs that year when I was 10 (esp. a couple of football ones since they were in my Christmas stockings), was my fondest "unopened" moments of my collecting years. I shared that before here and I still like one of the replies, "you would be better off [financially] to take a spin around the block in a Big Wheel."

brianwintersfan

Well I have been working here and there on a 75/76 set and have had the best luck with packs.Have got a lot of nice grades including my main man Brian Winters(SGC 96).Would love to buy a box but I haven't been able to find one in the last year or two.

NickM

TheCARD - I saw someone bust 2 '61/'62 Fleer packs once. He got 3 major cards in one pack - Baylor, West In Action, and Russell In Action; and 3 major cards in the other pack - Attles, West In Action, and Wilkens.

All the cards in both packs were MC L/R.

From stories I've heard, there have been entire boxes of this set with every card miscut.

Nick

Stone193

<< <i>TheCARD - I saw someone bust 2 '61/'62 Fleer packs once. He got 3 major cards in one pack - Baylor, West In Action, and Russell In Action; and 3 major cards in the other pack - Attles, West In Action, and Wilkens.

All the cards in both packs were MC L/R.

From stories I've heard, there have been entire boxes of this set with every card miscut.

Nick >>


Nick
I'll back that up - friends bought packs from the Prince of Cards back in the early 90's when they were much more affordable and most packs had rough cuts or OC's to MC's.

your friend
Mike

TheCARDKid

As an update, I got my 77/78 Topps packs today.

To my suprise, the first card I saw in the first pack that I opened was a Parish rookie. Alas, it came with the usual snow and printing problems. Cool card though.

No other strong PSA 9 stars, most would be 8's, or 8 (PD)'s. I might get some of the commons graded.