Unopened in My Collection: 1990 Topps Traded Wax Packs

I have a number of unopened wax packs in my collection; one or two items are a full box, but usually not.  I know sometimes I would buy a box, get bored with the set while opening the box, and decide to keep the rest unopened.  Other times I think I might have bought a handful of packs specifically for my unopened pack collection.  For 1990 Topps Traded, though, it looks like I bought a few packs, opened about half, and put the rest away.

A stack of unopened 1990 Topps Traded wax packs.

I have nine unopened 1990 Topps Traded wax packs, each containing seven cards.  When I first saw these, I really liked the idea of putting Traded into wax packs instead of the only option being to buy the whole set.  But then, maybe it wasn't such a good idea.  Most of the players in the Traded set aren't that interesting, probably.  I liked buying Traded and Update sets for completeness, but opening packs implies two things -- you need to open many packs to get a set, and you get a lot of doubles.

I just looked through both the Traded cards in my plastic storage boxes, and also at my 1990 Topps.  It turns out that I had a bunch of 1990 Topps Traded mixed in with my 1990 Topps, because they're really quite similar.  Now that they're separated out, I found a total of 43 cards of the 1990 Topps Traded set -- suggesting I opened 6 packs of 7 cards each, and maybe 1 pack had an extra card, or maybe I picked up a single card somewhere else over the years.  I also have the complete factory set of 1990 Topps Traded.

Looking on eBay, I see that Topps tried Traded wax packs in 1985, then there were these in 1990, and they did it again in 1991.  I can see why they tried, but in the end, I think the Traded sets aren't interesting enough to want to go through packs.