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jtlee321
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One particular series really dug itself deep into my collecting soul and that was the 1991 Donruss Elite series. I remember hearing all the rumors about dealers going around to the local Costco's with metal detectors and searching the boxes for the Elite cards. I didn't really think it was true, but never knew for sure. I just knew that I had to have one! I wanted the Sandberg Auto really badly. I had never seen one until the local shop owner had one for sale in his case. I asked to look at it and he handed it to me. I remember examining it throughly and taking note that it seemed a little thicker than the standard card stock of the base series as well as it being a bright white card stock. After that examination I knew there had to be another way to find them, one that was plausible for a kid my age without the means to buy a metal detector. I bought a handful of packs and while opening them, I noticed that the wax paper was very thin and fairly transparent where the white baseball wrapped around the side of pack. So I grabbed the next pack and started to examine it before opening it. I knew the puzzle piece was at the bottom and that it was white and fairly thick. So I pushed the edge of the white baseball on the pack and sure enough, I could tell where the blue base cards met the puzzle piece. I thought to myself, surely if you can see the puzzle piece then you more than likely can see if an Elite card was in that pack. My brother and I wanted to test that theory.
At that time you could find '91 Donruss at nearly any store that opened it's doors. So we went to the local Fred Meyer that had several boxes of cards on the shelf. We started grabbing packs and pressing the sides of the pack to look for that elusive treasure. We made it through around 6 boxes when I came across a pack that looked almost like it had 2 puzzle pieces in it. I showed it to my brother and he said we should go buy it, so I did. We got outside and I started pealing open that pack, feeling a bit like Charlie opening that candy bar hoping to see a golden ticket staring up at him. Low and behold there was not an extra puzzle piece in that back but an Elite card. I can't remember for sure which one it was, I want to say it was the Barry Bonds or Rickey Henderson. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I told my brother it worked!!! So we rode our bikes to every store that was within riding distance for us. Then we started taking the bus everywhere. By the time a few weeks had gone by we had 7 Elite cards plus we had pulled the Nolan Ryan Legends card. Our friends thought we were heroes and could not believe we had found all those cards. They begged us to tell them how we did it. We refused to give up our secret.
Eventually we traded away all of those cards for boxes of the newest and hottest boxes coming out. What we were finally left with in the end were 5000 count boxes full of common cards. We had a great time beating the odds that summer. That was not the last of our schemes of beating the odds in the sports card market. If anyone is interested I could tell you a little bit about the 1992 Topps baseball gold card instant win game. LOL
Anyway's i have started getting that itch again to collect the entire set of 1991 Elite cards. I am thrilled that it won't cost nearly as much as it would have back in 1991. Every time I see one those memories come rushing back and it's a thrill. I want to display them on my wall and tell my kids about them and what they meant to me as a kid.
That was a fun read.
Today pack searchers get crucified but you were just kids figuring it out on your own. Nowadays, you see and hear about grown men sitting on the floor of Walmart with their plumber's crack showing while they search all the packs that innocent kids should be buying.
The world sure has changed...
saucywombat@hotmail.com
Welcome Justin
That was a fun read.
Today pack searchers get crucified but you were just kids figuring it out on your own. Nowadays, you see and hear about grown men sitting on the floor of Walmart with their plumber's crack showing while they search all the packs that innocent kids should be buying.
The world sure has changed...
It was a different world back then. I could not imagine doing that as an adult. I know that pack searching is frowned upon now. But pack searching was in it's infancy back then.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
saucywombat@hotmail.com