Here’s another great mid-90s article from Sports Cards Magazine about the unopened collecting niche; this one from Doug Koztoski includes info from Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid.
Here are a few key takeaways:
“For every pack that is opened from a particular year, all remaining packs are that much rarer.”
Doug interviewed Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid, for insights; he was the Steve Hart (The Baseball Card Exchange) of the hobby then.
Murphy said that Wax was the pack of choice with unopened collectors; I think that’s still true.
At the time, a 1-cent 1933 Goudey Sports Kings pack was ~$600
The article highlighted that ’59 football penny packs were pretty common, but a penny pack from ’60 is tough to find.
A run of 1950s baseball nickel packs was estimated at $61,500 in the mid-’90s.
Fake packs were already very commonplace at the time.
Welcome to the relaunched Unopened Archive! It used to have pages with photos of packs, wrappers, boxes, and cases from all the big pre- and post-war releases. This 2.0 version is more of a hub for all my blog posts about different unopened material. Over time, I’ll bring back the old content and add way more—like info about fakes, finds, sales, collation, and all the known products out there.
Some of my most unique unopened writing is released via the paid tier of my newsletter, The Unopened Market Report, but if you’re looking for a particular unopened product photo, shoot me an e-mail.
In “I wish I owned a time machine,” hobby history is this advertisement from the December 1979 issue of The Trader Speaks for “sealed gum cases at the lowest prices ever seen!” And yup, that would be from Mike Cramer’s Pacific Trading Cards.
I shared this image on the Facebook “Vintage Wax and Packs” group, which led to some entertaining comments.
One person said he’d take an infinite amount of 1977-78 Topps Basketball; I agreed since I’ve only ever seen one photo of a wax case.
Another collector asked himself why he hadn’t bought a case for $25, responding that it was about $151 in today’s dollars.
There were a lot of comments about Mike Cramer, who owned the company. By the way, if you have any of his old catalogs for sale, please contact me.
The best comment was, “Funny that the priciest case then is the crappiest one now.” Referring to the 1975 Topps ABC Sports “Giant Stickers” for $40. They must have printed a million of them (and) or sold poorly because they’re incredibly easy to find today; a box was sold on eBay for $8 a few weeks ago.
Tony Galovich wrote the following three-page article about “investing” in unopened card packs and boxes for the June 1992 issue of Alan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Price Guides; it brought about a lot of conversation on Facebook, so I thought I’d share it here too.
You can see that he highlighted some interesting history:
A 1953 Topps five-cent baseball wax pack sale for $11k in the summer of 1991.
A 1954 Topps cello pack with Hank Aaron showing that sold for $25k in the fall of 1991.
A 1934 Goudey wax pack with Jimmie Foxx on the bottom that sold for $20k in 1992.
All the 1952 Topps baseball wax packs emerging; including a find of around 800 in Seattle in 1991. He said dealers were paying $5k each for them and that someone had just opened a complete box
The find of an entire case of 1953 Topps five-cent packs (Canadian variation) a few years earlier.
The sale of a 1951 Bowman one-cent wax pack for $1,500 “recently.”
The price appreciation of 1961 Topps rack packs going from $600 a few years earlier to $1,500 in 1992.
A 1967 Topps high-number case selling for >$70,000 and the find of 1961 and 1962 cases.
The sale of a 1952 Topps high number case eight years earlier for over $200k.
He shared market prices for the following football products: 1959 Topps vending box-$2,200, 1957 five-cent wax pack-$550, 1964 Philadelphia rack pack-$450, 1984 USFL set case-$30k, 1972 high number wax box-$3,600, 1960 Fleer wax pack-$250, and 1966 Topps wax pack-$325.
From a basketball side he said that 1957 Topps packs were selling for $1k+ and that he heard of a vending case sale in 1991. He also said 1961 Fleer packs were fetching $500+. Also, 1969 Topps boxes were worth >$5k, with packs being >$500. In 1986, Fleer basketball cases were worth $30k, with the rarer 1987 cases bringing $10k.
Galovich also talked about how scarce hockey unopened products already were in 1992.
As I wrote in the intro, I shared the article on the Facebook “Vintage Wacks and Packs” group, and it prompted some interesting comments:
One collector asked if the 1952 case was the Mr. Mint case, but that one was for cards from a case. However, another collector mentioned that he knew who sold that case and who bought it and that it sold for $450k, not $200k. Also, that year, NrMt-Mt ’52 Mantles dropped to $675.
Another collector mentioned that he’d been collecting since 1970 and had never heard of the ’52 case but had remembered the ’67 case. He also saw first-hand, around 1983, an unopened high series case of 63s.
The person who sold the 1954 cello pack with Hank Aaron on top commented that a large horde of Topps high-number boxes was found and sold at the KC show in 1980 between 1962 and 1967 by a retired Topps sales guy.
One of the group admins made a note of “the reference to the 1975 cello with Brett on top and Yount on back, BOTH of which just happened to be faced out (a known trademark for a certain someone who was active during that time), illustrates just how long ago star pack were being fabricated.” I suppose I need to republish my old articles about 1975 Topps pack collation.
Vintage unopened sports card material has been a popular segment of the hobby for a while now. One of the more prominent companies and industry leaders in the segment is the Baseball Card Exchange (BBCE), owned and operated by Steve Hart. Steve even authenticates unopened packs for PSA. In June 2020, they posted on their Facebook page about the “X-Out.”
Since not every collector has a Facebook account, I wanted to summarize their post and add more information so that everyone can learn a little more about unopened cards.
In the past, retailers pre-ordered boxes of cards, and if they didn’t sell all of them, Topps allowed them to return unsold boxes for credit.
For instance, let’s say that Topps originally distributed a Baseball Wax Box to a dealer for $20. Then, at the end of the season, Topps would allow the dealers to return that box for a $17 credit. Topps would in turn “re-sell” (blowout) those boxes to dealers for $10. (These numbers are fictitious and just used as examples). Well, they had to have a way to keep the “unsavory” dealers (there might be one or two lurking within the industry!) from buying those boxes for $10 and “re-returning” them for $17. Hence, the “X-Out” was born. When a box was returned, it was given the “X-Out”. From 1981 to 1988 Topps used various markings to identify “X-Outs” on wax, rack and cello boxes in all major sports and non-sports issues.
BBCE
1983 Topps Football X-Out Unopened Box
It seems as though they used everything from a crayon or marker to a 4” paintbrush to put an ‘X’ or a line across the top of the box. This ‘X-Out’ signified that the box had already been returned once, and it could not be returned again.
BBCE
1986 Topps Football Cello X-Out Unopened Box
Often, they just drew a line across the box as well.
1987 Topps Football X-Out Unopened Box
The ‘X-Out’ marking on some years were worse than others. I think that 1984 was the worst as they seemed to very, very generously deface the lids of their boxes that year. Another problem with the ‘X-Out’ is that they usually put the boxes back into the cases without letting the marking dry completely. So, when the boxes are removed from the cases today it results in many of the lids being torn off.
BBCE
The following picture of a 1984 Topps Football Box shows a piece of another box stuck to the top.
1984 Topps Football X-Out Unopened Box
Topps also marked the outside of those cases with “Final Sale” stamp.
You can see “FINAL SALE NOT TO BE RETURNED” stamped on this 1983 Topps Baseball Unopened Rack Pack Case.
1983 Topps Baseball Case FINAL SALE
A few former card shop owners have shared that they received some cases marked “final sale” in which none of the boxes were “X-Outs.” It’s possible that Topps had certain products that could only be returned for a limited amount of time and, therefore, didn’t require marking. Or maybe other products could only be returned by the case. One dealer noted that rack pack boxes that they received were never marked.
Additionally, there are cases from before 1981 that are marked “Final Sale,” indicating that exchange programs started earlier. For example, the 1979 Topps case below shows “Final Sale,” but we haven’t seen any boxes from this era with an “X-Out” on it. I’m assuming Topps noticed some shady behavior and started marking the boxes in 1981.
1979 Topps Baseball Case FINAL SALE
Non-sports cards followed the same pattern, as you can see on the Garbage Pail Kid box which has a black line across it, and the 1978 Topps Jaws 2 Case marked “Final Sale.”
Garbage Pail Kids X-Out Box
1978 Topps Jaws 2 Case FINAL SALE
If you have any other information or comments about “X-Out” boxes or “Final Sale” cases – be sure to share them in the comments section below.
I first discussed the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 FF Error card in an article about expensive baseball card printing errors that was focused on modern cards. In it, I wrote that “Fleer didn’t notice that the Bill Ripken card they released had an obscenity written on the bottom of the bat he was holding. It spelled out, “F**k FACE.” After the company became aware of the error, they released subsequent printings with the words obscured. First, they had a blob of what appeared to be White-Out, then a pen scribble, and finally a black square. Ripken admitted that he wrote the words on the bat to spot it easily as his batting practice bat. Ripken also believes that Fleer couldn’t have missed the error and suggested that they enhanced it to generate extra publicity.”
The 5 Bill Ripken #616 cards have the following populations and approximate prices:
Black Box Over Error – Total Population of 3948 – PSA 8 for ~$18
Black Scribble Over Error – Total Population of 1572 – PSA 8 for ~$30
FF Error – Total Population of 15464 – PSA 8 for ~$70 (The card everyone seems to want these days)
Scribbled Out in White – Total Population of 130 – PSA 8 for ~$500+ (A lot of Variance)
Whited Out Vulgarity – Total Population of 163 – PSA 8 for ~$480
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Box Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Black Scribble Over Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken FF Error
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Scribbled Out In White
1989 Fleer #616 Bill Ripken Whited Out Vulgarity
Now, if you want to pull a 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken #616 FF Error card from a pack, you need to buy a case or an authenticated box from a trusted source with the right provenance.
There is a 5-digit number printed on 1989 Fleer cases. The case you buy needs the right numbering on it, or the box needs to list the 5-digit number of the case it came from. In the picture that follows, 83422 is printed in black ink on the lower right side.
1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 83422
The first digit is the print year, 9 for 1989, and 8 for 1988. The next three numbers represent the day of the year. 001 is for January 1st, 004 would be January 4th, and so on. The last digit is either a location or a shift.
Digits before 90171, January 17th, 1989, have the Bill Ripken FF error inside. I’ve been reading that the error has been verified in cases up to 90191, but I haven’t seen that myself.
The next two pictures and the case above will have the FF error since their codes are under 90171.
1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 90161
1989 Fleer Baseball Case – Code 83281
This 1989 Fleer Wax Box, authenticated by the Baseball Card Exchange, came from a case with code 90122; therefore, it may have a FF error inside.
I’d love to see what a pair of 1978 Donruss KISS Series 1 and II Unopened Wax Cases would command together at auction today!
These were offered in 2002 by Mastro, so who knows how legitimate they were. The Series 1 case was described as opened but untouched, with a few boxes showing rippling from exposure to dampness at some point. The Series II case was described as unopened.
Heritage did sell this 1st Series case for $25,200 in February 2022.
