New to my unopened collection: 1986 Sportflics

I said that I've purchased a bunch of Sportflics, and am continuing to post them. There are two main thrusts of this: the 1986 Sportflics Decade Greats set which I started going through, and an unopened box of 1986 Series 1 Sportflics. Today's post focuses on the unopened aspect.  As was usual back then 36 packs came to a box.  I opened six packs leaving 30 for my unopened collection.

Outer sleeve.

A "Big Six" card attached to the inner box, showing Wade Boggs and Willie McGee.

The box comes with a white outer sleeve that you remove, to reveal the retail box and packs inside.  The retail box comes with a single card glued on.  I don't think it can be salvaged, since they must have used a bunch of glue to keep it on there.  I suspect different boxes get different cards; this box has a "Big Six" card, number 183, of the so-called triple crown.

Don Mattingly and Dave Parker pictured.

Darrell Evans and Dale Murphy pictured.

Of course no one won the 1985 triple crown, but this card features the AL and NL league leaders in each of the triple crown categories.  We have Wade Boggs, Darrell Evans, and Don Mattingly for the AL, and Willie McGee, Dale Murphy, and Dave Parker for the NL.  I've taken the photos so that you can see all six players.

Pack back.

You can see the pack fronts in the three images above.  Here's the pack back, with a partial checklist printed on the top half.  They let you know that you can write them for a complete checklist of Series 1, and they also let you know to watch out for Series 2.

Thanks for reading!  I'll post the cards I got from the six packs I opened in due course.

New to my unopened collection: 1981 Topps stickers

A while ago, for my small Mike Schmidt player collection, I bought one silver foil Topps sticker; I think the silver ones were the All-Stars.  That one sticker brought back some memories, and so I added some more Topps stickers to my unopened collection with a box of 1981 Topps Stickers.

Box of 1981 Topps stickers.

Box back, with a message addressed to "Mr. Dealer."

Fortunately such things are plentiful on eBay, and even though they've survived intact for 40 years, only cost a few bucks.  I like that the box has messages addressed to "Mr. Dealer," encouraging the retailer to also stock the albums.

Two unused albums.

Album back.

Speaking of the albums, I picked up two of them, in their original condition.  I'm not sure what I plan to do with all of this.  Part of me wants to open the stickers and see if I get a whole set into the album.  Another part of me wants to leave it all as it is.  So far that second part is winning my internal argument.  But with the albums, I could use one and still have one blank, if I want.  The album back has endorsements from Reggie Jackson, George Brett, and Jim Palmer.  I'll add that I find it odd that Brett has no logo on the front but he does on the back.  Pete Rose has a logo on the front.  Why did they blank out Brett's uniform on the front?

100 packs of stickers.

Upon opening the box, I think that 100 packs of stickers look like a lot of packs of stickers.

Fronts of sticker packs.

Backs of sticker packs.

Here are the fronts and the backs of the packs.  Again, George Brett is logo-less on the front.  And at 15 cents per pack, we're looking at not even 4 cents per sticker.  In current dollars, we're talking about approximately 11 cents per sticker. 

Inside front cover.

My favorite feature of the album is inside the front cover, on the bottom left, there's a space for you to put your own picture.  Your picture would then face the 1980 AL pitching leaders.

Phillies and Pirates.

Each team has a page in the album, and there are some extra pages for league leaders and All-Stars and whatnot.  I like that the Phillies and Pirates ended up next to each other, and that in 1981 they were the two most recent World Series winners.

Inside back cover.

Finally, we end with the back cover, which faced the Giants.  The back cover includes the offer to complete your collection.  You could send a dollar to get 10 stickers of your choice.  So they're getting a premium by charging more than double what the stickers retail for, but you're getting to be definite in terms of which stickers you get.  I remember that anytime I tried one of these albums, I would give up completing it long before I came close enough to consider their completion deal.

Thanks for reading!

My Unopened Collection, Part 4: My Recent Orders Arrived

Yesterday a couple of eBay packages arrived, and I can finish my series on my unopened collection.  So this post is part 4 of 4.

6 unopened packs of 1984 Fun Food Buttons.

When I posted my 3 Fun Foods Buttons the other day, I said that there didn't appear to be unopened packs available on eBay.  I'm glad I searched again.  I don't know if I just didn't search well enough the first time, but there are a few lots of them available now.  So I bought some.  I ordered 5 packs, and the seller threw in one for free.  I considered opening one but decided against; I think these make a nice group in my collection as they are.

Pack back checklist #1-#45.

Pack back checklist #46-#90.

Pack back checklist #91-133.

There are three possible backs of the package, and I'm glad to have received all three.  They each give a partial checklist.  I don't know if the buttons inside come from the list on the back of the pack -- I think it's possible, since the three I have all are numbered over 100, which is consistent with falling in the third checklist, numbers 91 through 133.

A 1987 Topps wax box.

The 1987 Topps wax packs.

Everything else I ordered is much more conventional.  I wanted a 1987 Topps wax box.  I have about 3000 cards from 1987 Topps, so now I have even more.  I mostly got those 3000 cards one or two packs at a time, but I did buy one full wax box back in the day.  I can tell I had exactly one full wax box in part because I only have two of the cutout cards from the box back -- Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson.  There are four possible boxes, and on this box, I again got Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson.  Bad luck to have gotten a repeat, but at least I like both Rice and Henderson.

A 1987 Topps cello box.

The 1987 Topps cello packs.

I also bought a 1987 Topps cello box.  I have never bought a Topps cello box before.  I have a specific memory of a 1987 Topps cello pack, though.  A friend of mine was in the shop that was more or less my main card shop, Collectors Depot, and the owner asked my friend to call me.  He was trying to sell a 1989 Topps set, but they had just come out and he was missing a couple of cards, all commons, from one set.  He wanted to know if I had any of the mising cards.  I looked, and I did.  I remember one of the players was Dante Bichette.  While Bichette went on to be a four-time All-Star, I don't think anyone had heard of him yet, in our part of the country at least.  The next time my dad could take me, I dropped off the cards, and the owner asked what I wanted for them.  It was for something like 3 cards valued at .03 each.  I said, how about a 1987 Topps cello pack?  He said sure, it's worth $1.50, but whatever, I did him a favor.  Now, I have a whole box.

I might as well comment on the price.  The wax box and cello box were each $12 (plus shipping) from Baseball Card Exchange.  Circa 1990, these would probably have gone for, I'm guessing, about $25 for the wax and $35 for the cello, maybe more.  Prices have almost doubled since about 1990; so $12 today would be just a bit more than $6 back then.  This would have been unimaginable back then, since cards were only supposed to go up in value. 

2 1985 Donruss wax packs.

5 1987 Donruss wax packs.

I also got two 1985 Donruss wax packs.  I have a certain fascination with some of these sets, because they went by entirely without my noticing.  I was just a kid, and I had some cards from earlier in the 80s, and I collected seriously starting in 1987, but there's a gap of a few years.  I like how 1985 Donruss represents the 80s aesthetic, with a border that looks like some geometric pattern floating in space.  I also bought 5 1987 Donruss wax packs.  I have a specific memory of my grandmother driving me to her house, and us stopping at the drugstore; I think there was a Happy Harry's (a local drugstore of the time, since purchased by Walgreens) behind her house.  They had Donruss baseball cards there, and I bought a pack (or she bought me a pack).  She only lived about 10 miles away from us, but for some reason there were different cards available in her neighborhood.  (This was just the start of my collecting, so I am sure I hadn't been to a show yet, and maybe not even a card shop; I just bought the cards that were available in the stores I went to, and that had been Topps until that point.)  I have a 1987 Donruss Barry Bonds rookie card, which I expect (but have no way of confirming) that I pulled from the pack I bought that day.  So, now I have a few unopened packs of 1987 Donruss.

10 1988 Topps wax packs.

7 1989 Donruss cello packs.

While 1987 Topps was the most important set to me, the set that got me into collecting, I sure bought a lot of 1988 Topps, too.  I found the design a let-down after the 1987 wood grained cards, and honestly I still am disappointed in it.  But I considered buying a wax or cello box of 1988, too, before deciding that was too much.  I settled for a few packs, and decided 10 was a good number.  I might want to someday open some 1988 Topps, so now I have some.  And, I also got 7 1989 Donruss cello packs.  It's funny, because I feel like there's no way anyone needs any more 1989 Donruss than they already have.  But while I said that I never bought a Topps cello box before, I did open up a 1989 Donruss cello box back in the day.  I wanted a few packs to go along with that memory, and found a lot of 7 available on eBay that seemed to fit my goals.

I'm 42 years old now, and I expect these to sit unopened in my collection for a long time.  Maybe when I'm an old man, I'll feel nostalgic enough to open some of these.  Or maybe my son will want to when he gets a bit older.  In any case, if I have any urge to open packs, especially 1987 Topps, at any point in the future, I think I'm prepared.  Thanks for reading!

My Unopened Collection, Part 3

Here we are, with Part 3 of my unopened collection.  This covers everything originally in my collection and purchases from the past year.  There is a Part 4 coming in the next few days, once I receive the stuff I recently ordered.

1989 Topps Big packs: 5 from Series 1, 3 from Series 2.

1990 Topps Big packs: 2 from series 1, 10 from Series 2.

Topps Big.  I loved Topps Big when it came out, and I have a bunch from 1988, 1989, and 1990 that I did open.  To remind you, I've said that we moved houses at the end of 1988, and that meant leaving behind my card collecting friends.  Topps Big is a perfect example of something I thought was cool and fun and would have liked to show those old friends and trade with them.  But instead, I bought these, looked at them, and just put them away.

8 packs of 1988 Donruss All-Stars/Pop-Ups.

4 packs of 1989 Donruss All-Stars/Pop-Ups.

I've shown extensively my 1986 Donruss All-Stars (the complete set), and I've posted before on the other oversized Donruss All-Stars that I have.  For 1988 and 1989, they went to regular-sized cards, and I bought them, too.  I opened a few and left some intact, and here we have my 8 packs from 1988 and 4 packs from 1989.

2 packs of 1992 McDonald's cards.

I posted these two packs of 1992 McDonald's cards once before.  I had friends who worked at a local McDonald's.  They gave me free food sometimes.  They couldn't get me free cards, though -- the manager kept them locked in the safe, since baseball cards were so valuable back then.  I came by these honestly, however you got the cards -- buy a value meal and you get some cards, or something like that.

24 packs of 1990 Sportflics.

I bought a box of 1990 Sportflics, and I guess I opened 12 packs and left these 24 unopened.

1 each of 1988 and 1989 Fleer wax packs.

2 1990 Upper Deck and 1 1992 Upper Deck foil packs.

Now we have a few base set packs.  I showed in Part 1 that I have an entire 1988 Fleer wax box.  I guess I have one additional 1988 Fleer wax pack, and one 1989 Fleer wax pack for good measure.  The 1989 is marked at 75 cents, which seems a bit expensive.  It must have had a premium attached, perhaps because of the possibility of a Billy Ripken.  I've said many times that I wasn't into Upper Deck, and I really have many fewer Upper Deck cards than the other main issuers.  I don't have nothing, though, and thus I have these three unopened Upper Deck packs.

1 1988 Score mylar pack, 1 1989 Score mylar pack, and 2 1990 Score mylar packs.

I really liked Score when they first came out.  I guess that's why I saved a couple packs, one from 1988, one from 1989, and two from 1990.  People paid attention to the material the packs were made out of, and these were called mylar packs as opposed to wax, cello, or foil.

2 1988 Donruss wax packs, 4 1990 Donruss wax packs, and 1 1991 Donruss Series 1 wax pack.

A handful of Donruss wax packs, two from 1988, four from 1990, and 1 from 1991 (series 1).  Not sure that's there's anything else to say about them.

2 packs of 1992 Donruss and 2 packs of 1991 Stadium Club.

2 packs of 1991 Fleer Ultra and 1 pack of 1992 Donruss Triple Play.

Then we have two packs of 1992 Donruss, when they went a bit upscale, two packs of 1991 Stadium Club, 2 packs of 1991 Fleer Ultra, and 1 pack of 1992 Donruss Triple Play.  The 1992 Donruss, the Stadium Club, and the Fleer Ultra have price tags on them: 50 cents for the Donruss, 75 cents for the Ultra, and $3 for the Stadium Club.  That $3 price tag illustrates why I never bought much Stadium Club or even Upper Deck.  Also, you really see here the incredible proliferation of sets by even 1991.  It was way too much to keep track of.  I never understood the point of Triple Play, except for the idea that if you make yet another set then someone will buy it.  I bought just a few packs. 

As a final note, I'll say that I love the Kodak logo on the Stadium Club pack.  Kodak today barely still exists and seems to be staking its future on cryptocurrency, but back then it meant something.  Thanks for reading!

My Unopened Collection, Part 2

This time we have Part 2 of my series, showing the entirety of the unopened part of my collection.

5 packs of Swell Baseball Greats.

5 packs of Pacific Senior Baseball.

In the late 80s, everyone wanted to get in on selling cards.  There was an Exxon station near my dad's office that had a big card section.  That's where I got my Swell and most of my Pacific cards, and I kept some packs unopened.  Here we have 5 packs of Swell Baseball Greats, and 5 packs of Pacific Senior Baseball.  I did open a bunch of both of these, but I guess I kept a few intact.

3 packs of Pacific Legends.

5 packs of Pacific Legends, 2nd Series.

I really like these Pacific Baseball Legends that I got at the Exxon.  This was the same gas station where I believe Dad bought my 1988 Score set that he surprised me with one morning.  And also where I got my 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken "FF" card; if you bought the 1989 Fleer wax box from them, you could open it right there until you found the FF card.  If your box didn't have one, then they'd give you one.

6 packs of 1990 Minor League Cards.

9 packs of 1990 Topps Traded.

I think I probably got these minor league "pre-rookie" cards there, too.  They tended to stock stuff I didn't see in the card shops.  These 1990 Topps Traded, though, could have come from anywhere.  I thought it was neat at the time to get wax packs of the traded set, but then realized after opening a few that most of the players in the traded set aren't very interesting.  I kept a bunch unopened, then.

4 packs of 1990 Umpire Cards.

1 pack of Pacific Tom Seaver.

I've shown some of this stuff before.  These four packs of 1990 Umpire Cards probably came from the Exxon, too, and the Pacific Tom Terrific probably did as well.  I'm not sure why I bought the Tom Seaver pack; it's the only one I have, I don't have any of the set opened, and I don't care that much about Tom Seaver anyway.  I mean, he's fine and all, but Steve Carlton was the great pitcher of my youth.

1 1988 Topps Rack Pack.

Then, we have some more conventional stuff.  Here's a 1988 Topps rack pack, showing the glossy All-Star card of George Bell, and regular cards of Lenn Sakata and Herm Winningham.

4 1988 Score Rack Packs and 4 1990 Score Rack Packs.

2 1988 Donruss Rack Packs.

I have a few more rack packs.  Four 1988 Score, four 1990 Score, and two 1988 Donruss.  At the time, I had a bunch of 1990 Score that I bought soon after it came out.  And then soon after that, it seemed like 1990 Score was scarce!  It became very valuable!  But not really; now it's as worthless as all the other stuff. 

6 packs of 1984 Topps Rub-Downs and 5 packs of 1985 Topps Rub-Downs.

Finally, I'll conclude this post with these Topps Rub-Downs, which I acquired and posted about just recently.  I kind of regret buying them, because the novelty wears off pretty quickly with them.  But I'll just keep them tucked away with all the other unopened stuff.

Thanks for reading!  I have one more installment coming on my older unopened stuff, before I get to the bunch of 80s unopened stuff I just ordered.