[rainier2004]

My journey is complete, I have all 180 Cracker Jack cards that I was seeking…it’s over.

In May 2010 it all started with correspondence to Anthony Nex and Rick Rockwood via the Collectors Universe board. I was absolutely hooked and decided to go full bore on these cards. With that and some research I made my first two purchases being a destroyed Peckinpaugh from ebay for $35 (overpaid and have since upgraded) and 3 commons from Rich which were beautiful to my eyes. As I picked up a card here and there, I won my first big CJ lot. I learned this worked well and scored some bigger cards in the Plank and Alexander.This score brought the count into the 30’s on the 176-card set.

The holiday season of 2011 came in and so did the CJ lots. Over the course of December through February I made 3 large purchases including a rather large “raw” find from a 1914 guy. In these lots I found the power in upgrading my set from these huge buys, selling and having quite a bit of control in what I want in my set and what to sell. I had to decide what qualities were more important to me in a CJ. I decided I wanted to rid the set of cards with pinholes, writing, pieces missing and trimming which were a few.

I started placing a premium on overall color and then looking at registration. When I was said and done with these 3 large lots I had 140 cards and the 1914 Chance. I decided to get a card for every player that Cracker Jack ever produced totaling 180. I also decided to get a couple other 1914s if the price was right to add to the set, mixing and matching my set.


October of 2012 was a good CJ month. I went into a large lot of CJs with a buddy that netted me 52 more cards which I used as 23 upgrades and 6 new cards including the mighty Joe Jackson. I had also decided to ad the Bresnahan no #. I had 13 cards to go including the Cobb, Wagner, Rickey, e145 Cashion and 9 commons.

At the National of 2013 I picked up my Wagner from Glenn Mechanick and then the Cobb through another board member that also came from Glenn…I was only missing J McGraw, a card I had owned 5 copies of at various times and sold all of them! Then today I finalized the deal, with card in hand for the McGraw...Thanks Edward. My wife was amazing during all this and I met so many great friends through this. Barry, Jared, Pete, Tony, Ken, Mac, Rich and Anthony have all helped me so much along the way, thanks fellas.