Another unopened collection thread (Memory Lane update! Still not as good as Tim's... but getting cl

slum22

So the wife is away for the weekend. Which gives me a chance to organize the old collection. My unopened collection currently resides in shipping boxes in the closet in my son's room. So stuff generally just gets stuffed wherever it fits. It is hard to post pics of unopened when pictures of Tim's grand collection is still trending on the forum, but I figured I would take the chance to give an update to my collection while I can. I am not the most focused collector as I am constantly being distracted by completing my 61 Fleer basketball set, buying Kevin Durant PSA 10 RC's, Anthony Davis Auto cards or Andrew Luck PSA 10 cards. Nevertheless, I have waded pretty deep into unopened since getting back into collecting. I caught the unopened bug in my first group break last spring where I bought to 86 Topps FB cello packs and one 87 Fleer BK wax pack and I thought I was being extravagant at the time spending so much on unopened packs. What a slippery slope. My unopened collection really started in earnest this time last year with my participation in my second group break. Anyway, without further ado.

My 1980's baseball run. Pretty much all of my unopened boxes are in BBCE's seal with very few exceptions. I start with 1980 and get to 86 for Topps (missing is the 1981 Topps wax box, which I had until I traded it last week to James in exchange for some FB boxes for my 80's FB run). I also have some Donruss and Fleer boxes. The 81 Fleer box is non-BBCE, I picked it up locally from a guy in town who sells on eBay. I just picked up an 81 Fleer box from BBCE to replace this one. I had no intention of doing so, but it looks like I have the makings of an early 80's Fleer run (I just need the 83 now).



My vending run, 1979-84 (missing 1980 because I stupidly decided to live within a budget). And my cello run, the top is a 78, then two 79's and a 1980 cello box in one stack and a couple 84 Topps cellos in the other stack. I didn't intend to go for the cello run, but cello boxes are selling so cheap compared to wax right now I just think there is value in going in that direction. Oh yeah, and a couple oddball items. The unmarked box is a 1981 Topps Coca-Cola Boston Red Sox box and the top box is the 77 Topps Cloth Stickers wax box. Also, not pictured is the 1981 Topps Cello box that is boxed up (for the same trade that will net me the FB boxes).



Some loose packs from BBCE I have picked up over time. Sorry I missed out on the 77 OPC packs this past week. You snooze you lose I guess. I saw those and I was about to buy some but waited too long. Oh well, I have the four in the picture here that I picked up last Black Friday so that will have to do for now.


Also not pictured are some items I have paid for but I am waiting on from Steve: 1975 Topps Mini Wax Box from the Memory Lane auction, 3-79 wax packs, 1-72 OPC wax pack and that 1981 Fleer Wax Box.

Next up, Football!

jmaciu

That is a nice pile of wax and cellos. You have built yourself a great collection.

jordangretzkyfan

Great run of 1970's and 1980's material...thanks for sharing the pics!

baz518

Great collection. It never gets old seeing other peoples' unopened collection. I'm in the same boat, with almost my entire collection boxed up in my boys' closet... one day I hope to dig through and get a thread going.

belz

So amazing...Thx for sharing!!!

ReggieCleveland

Great collection, thanks for sharing the photos.

I especially like the Coca-Cola Red Sox and the Cloth Stickers. Do the Coke packs look just like regular 81 packs?

MantleFan23

You've managed to assemble a great unopened collection!!! I really love the cellos! Great job!

Jeremy

Gemyanks10

It's threads like these that keep me coming back to the boards. Awesome stuff, and hope to have a nice collection like that for myself someday! Very envious of you guys. Thanks for sharing man!

Jimmy

grote15

Great stuff, Steve! The 82 OPC wax box is a tough box to find. 78 and 79 cello boxes are cardboard gold these days, too!

galaxy27

Man, everyone is UNLOADING on this Sunday. Great, great stuff, Steve!

jfkheat

Very nice looking collection. I appreciate you trading the 81 wax and cello boxes to me. Those filled a couple empty holes in my collection. I hope you enjoy the football boxes I sent. What all football do you currently have?
James

Dboneesq

Congrats on your wax collection. Enjoy and KEEP BUYING! lol

slum22

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I love seeing everyone else's posts on what they collect, unopened, PSA HOF cards, sets, autos, etc. Seeing those posts have really made me more interested in the hobby and expanded my collecting interests, which has been great for my enjoyment (and bad for my wallet). So I like to share when I get pickups I am excited about, because maybe it will spark some interest in someone else too.

James, I am glad the 81 wax and cello boxes are going to a great collector. Happy to help you fill your runs. I will have to find those boxes at some point and refill the gaps I have created in the trade, but I thought it was a good trade on my end because I have been really wanting to complete my football wax run and I really liked your non X-out BBCE boxes. So thanks for swinging that trade with me. I will be posting pics of my football and miscellaneous stuff later today hopefully.

slum22

Here is the football portion of my update. I have a 1980's run. Pictured are BBCE wax boxes beginning from 1981 thru 1986. The second 1986 box is actually from DACardworld and marked "from a sealed case". I may still send to Steve to get it in his wrapping even if it takes away the FSC designation I think it will be worth it. Thanks to James, I will soon expand my run from 1981 thru 1986 to 1980 thru 1987 for my BBCE wrapped run. Thanks again James. Very excited to get those boxes soon. The 1988 boxes are where I stop as I don't like the Topps 1989 product and it pretty much junk anyway. I want to work backwards and eventually pick up some 70's boxes. I really should have jumped on the boxes I saw last year when they were on Steve's site (I know, a lot of us are saying that about a lot of products). Not pictured: I have a 1983 Topps Cello box (it is the only cello box I have and I am not sure I want to get into those too or not).




I am taking my son out for a while, but I will be updating the last pics of my unopened collection a little later today. Just some odds and ends of unopened packs. Thanks for looking everyone and thanks for the great comments so far.

baz518

Great football run, super jelly of those non x-out 84 fb boxes. It's the one wax I'm missing from my run. Great addition to that baseball collection. Do you focus on one sport more than the other? Great boxes for both, either way.

slum22

Baz518--Thanks, actually only the top box is a non X-out for the 84. The other one is an X-out unfortunately, and not the best eye appeal even for an X-out. The saving grace on it, is that it is marked "from sealed case" by Steve so it has that going for it, LOL. I probably enjoy the football side of the collection more as I have a greater connection to the players in the boxes. I remember watching those players play more. I grew up watching football from the time I was about 5 or 6 around the first 49er Super Bowl run. I didn't watch baseball until 1987 when Will Clark took off for the Giants. I actually just pick up whichever boxes offer the greatest bargain at the time. The bad thing about not being narrow in a focus is that you get sidetracked and can end up spending a lot of money. The plus side is that you can take breaks when you get bored or when you can't find the right card, box, pack or price and focus on another part of your collection.

slum22

Continuing on with football. Here are some on star on top packs. Obviously, I am a 49er fan. Not pictured here is a GAI graded 1981 Grocery Cello with Montana showing face up. It is just hard for me to get to it. I would like to pick up a 1986 rack or cello with Jerry Rice showing on front but the back will do for now. The cool thing about that pack is that I forgot I had it. I bought it at some point when I was in high school at a local card show and it had been sitting in my old room at my parent's house until I went to visit last fall and started digging through my old collection. Nice surprise! The Young RC pack was an eBay find and the 85 Montana and Lott RC packs were BST finds.

slum22

I recently picked up a bunch of 1981 racks from Steve. I thought they were a great deal at $30/each. If you look closely, that is Steve Largent peeking from the cell of the left. I didn't even know about wax trays until I saw one posted on the forum here. I really love the way they look. I would like to get more in baseball and football. For now, I have been stocking up on the 79 Footballs because they have been surfacing at reasonable prices lately. Given the prices of boxes being where they are, it may be more reasonable for me to get wax trays or racks for my 70's runs in FB and BB.

grote15

Great stuff, Steve! I don't collect football, as I can barely afford baseball, lol, and never really got into buying football packs as a kid, but always enjoy seeing the product, as it is still my favorite sport.

And I always love seeing wax trays in any sport...and the value of those has risen quite sharply over the years. Hard to believe there was even a question in a thread not too long ago that 79 trays were going to eclipse $65 a tray rather easily after seeing Shane buy a case for that price. Suddenly, the price for that case looks mighty appealing, lol..

slum22

Thanks Tim. Seeing the stuff that you and Mike have shared with the forum (along with the excitement of the group breaks) really went a long way in inspiring me to pursue unopened collecting. I wish I had stuck with collecting through the years or at least that I would have started back even a year earlier as prices seem to have escalated to a point where I will have to be strategic in what I purchase from now on. Yes, that case seems to have doubled (or more) in a short period of time, considering Steve basically sold out of his 79 wax trays at $150 before most people even knew they were on the site. I got into collecting cards in the late 80's. The first packs I opened were 86 Topps FB and 86 Topps BB and some of the 85 Topps wrestling (shout out to Dpeck and the wrestling collectors out there!). I was always a much bigger 49er fan than Giants fan until Will Clark burst on the scene, which is why I like the FB side of collecting so much. I love the wax trays. If you ever want to clear out some space and move some of your extra wax trays let me know .

bigdcards

Great collection! I couldn't agree more about the wax trays. They are a favorite of mine as well.

slum22

So I am still not in the same zip code, or even county, as Tim, but I am looking to move into the same state with this update. Here are my latest pick ups. Very excited to get all of them.

First up, big thanks to James (jfkheat) for making an unopened trade with me that allowed me to complete my 80's FB wax BBCE run (1980-87). He sent me bookends 2x1980 and 1x1987 box and a spare 1982 box to boot in a recent trade we made. I love that his boxes (now my boxes) are the non X-out variety from an aesthetic standpoint it is very nice.


Next up some modern baseball. Nothing too extravagant here. Topps ran a 50% off special and I can't pass up 50% off anything, LOL. I don't even know what these products are. I will probably open the blaster with my son as it showed up a little banged up. The Bowman I may break or just put away for a while.


I hadn't bought any unopened for about a month and got an itch. Scratched that itch with a few Probstein auctions. I think 82 and 83 are underrated. Great HOF RC's, Ripken and then Boggs, Gwynn and Sandberg. I already had a couple 82's but these are the first 83's I have bought. The 83's are marked "from sealed case" so that is a bonus.


I saw this 81 Fleer box on the site a couple weeks ago and thought for $55, "why not? I don't have one of those". I think it is a pretty good deal, even if the cards themselves are some of the blandest and ugliest from the decade. Wrapped up are 3-79 Topps BB wax packs (purchased before the price hike to $55/pack) and 10-77 Topps FB wax packs. I thought these packs were a crazy good deal at $45/pack, given what boxes go for, so I bought what Steve had at the time. With the price hikes of the late 70's packs, I thought I'd zig while others zagged and picked up the 72 OPC wax pack from Steve. Very happy to get some affordable 70's wax packs. I will have to save up for boxes (or win some sort of lottery) so the packs are nice to get in the meantime.


Finally, I have been waiting for a while to receive this. I have been kicking myself for the past 8 months for not getting one of these from Steve last fall when they were sitting on his site. Thanks to Dave, Mike and Tim for putting out a winning bid on this for me. My brand new 1975 mini wax box from the Memory Lane break

MantleFan23

Slum...you've made some great purchases! Congrats on the 75 mini box!!

Jeremy

jfkheat

Steve, thanks for the kind words. We both got boxes we needed in that trade, 81 Topps baseball wax and cello boxes for me. Your collection looks great. Have you got your other football box back from BBCE yet?
James

slum22

Jeremy--Thanks, I am fired up about the 75 mini box. I've been wanting one for a while. Decided to take the plunge and splurge on this one. Got lucky we won it in the break.

James--I am still waiting on the last football box. Steve has shipped it, but knowing the transit times for his shipments, I am expecting it mid, late next week. Can't wait to see how it looks. I will definitely post an update when I get that one. I am almost as excited for that box as I am for the mini box!

jmaciu

Steve, you are building one fine collection.

grote15

Terrific additions, Steve! I just ripped a few 75 minis packs from ML this afternoon~now, it's your turn!

slum22

Jmaciu--thanks, I have been watching your collection come together too. I think we started posting on here around the same time. It has been nice to see your collection grow the same time mine has. I'll look forward to your next update!

Tim--yes, I have been monitoring your break tonight. Congrats on the Yount RC! I am not a ripper, but based on my group break history maybe I should open some mini packs. Last year, I purchased six mini packs over two group breaks. I traded one pack to another board member (as part of an unopened trade) and sold 4 (to a different board member to help pay for this box) and opened one myself. The pack I opened had a very sharp Fred Lynn RC. I was told the four packs I sold contained a Brett, a Yount, a Ryan and Aaron HL. No reports on the pack I traded.