My kids first unopened rip ......

RoseInTheHall · August 22, 2011 10:26PM

Hi guys

As you can see I rarely post, but love reading and learning here.

Needed to quickly tell an unopened rip story .....

Went to a very small, local card/comic show in Greenville SC. Decided to take my 7 year old boy because he's starting to understand sports and figured this would be a good way to expose him to another side of sports.

Well, I give him $10 to spend on whatever he likes. He chooses some Carolina Panther cards, a few Star Wars comic books and had $5 left. The kid actually goes table by table to make sure he spends that last of his money on something good.

He comes to me and says a dealer is offering 7 packs of 1991 Upper Deck Football for $5 and 'that seems like a good deal beacuse you can get a Brett Farve rookie card'. Not wanting to kill the karma (although the cards are worthless and the chances of pulling a Farve are remote) I told him to go for it. So he gets 7 packs with his last $5.

It was a rush when he actually pulled a Farve rookie in the 5th pack he opened. The excitement in his voice and face was something I'll never forget ... I remember ripping packs in 1971 looking for anything Pete Rose and his reaction reminded me of the joy ripping packs used to bring me.

Now, the card is only worth a few bucks (even in PSA 10) but something about this experience brought me back to the days when all I had to worry about was where I was getting my next quarter to buy a few more packs.

Do you remember your joy as a kid ripping packs in the hopes of pulling your favorite player.

Just thought I'd share ..... love the boards.

YogiBerraFan · August 22, 2011 10:31PM

Great story

TonyC · August 22, 2011 10:43PM

Good story; nice to hear that young kids find opening 1991 Upper Deck! Most of the time, opening wax in chase of a particular card is a money pit, but you can't go wrong on 7 for $5.

scmavl · August 22, 2011 10:50PM

That's awesome. It reminds me of when I used my last $2 to buy a pack of '89 Upper Deck (this is in '89, I was 12) at a card shop. I chose the pack carefully and left. I opened it as soon as I got in the car and BAM, there was my Griffey RC. I was so excited, I ran back in the card shop to show the owner.

I still remember which pack I chose and whenever I'm buying one pack of something, I get it from the same place out of the box.

Johnsteph10 · August 22, 2011 11:32PM

Great Story!

It's always exciting to hear of another generation starting to discover cards...

Hallco · August 22, 2011 11:37PM

Along the same lines...I consider my best pack rip ever to be 92-93 Fleer Basketball. It had both the Alonzo Mourning and the Shaq Rookies in the same pack!! At the time, that was huge! Glad he got the Favre he was hoping for!!!!

MBMiller25 · August 22, 2011 11:37PM

awesome post! Congrats to your son, bet it was a blast

onebamafan · August 22, 2011 11:52PM

It's the little things with kids, like the smile he had when he pulled the Favre. Those are the moments i really cherish with mine.

jeffcbay · August 22, 2011 11:58PM

Reminds me of when my brother and I bought some 1989 Fleer (back in '89) and opened them while sitting the bench at our old local baseball diamond (we were 11 and 14 years old at the time). He pulled the infamous Ripken FF card, and were both went nuts! The cool part is, I ended up sending that card in for him a couple years ago, and he landed a PSA 10! I can't believe that card made it all that way and stayed GEM MT.

Dialj · August 23, 2011 12:05AM

I always tell my son about collecting; keep having fun!!! Great story!!

1acid · August 23, 2011 12:14AM

awesome stories all round...

Garabaldi · August 23, 2011 12:23AM

I remember riding my bike to the local card shop to buy 1980 Topps baseball packs to make the set. Still have them in my basement with elastics around the doubles.