Hypothetical Value of Unopened Packs
 

If there was a way to guarantee a pack has never been opened, just wondering what the value of unopened ones might be. Any thoughts on what the value of an unopened t206 cigarette pack, 1933 Goudey pack, 1952 topps pack, etc etc etc might be.

All sorts of other factors have to be added to the equation, like what (for Topps-era cards) series the pack is from, etc.

https://net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=332745

This guy posts from time to time.

I have severe doubt when it comes to any supposed unopened packs, graded or otherwise. Just because something is incredibly expensive doesn't make it real. I'm not going to refinance my house over a pack of baseball cards, or any cards.

It's really all just based on a gamble over what cards or cards might be in the pack.

If I had the money, I'd pick up some more modern ones as uncommon items on their own. But not at the prices that assume it's got the important stars rather than just a common or two.

I think many, if not most, packs are worth more unopened. Such a gamble but it would be cool to pull a Wags or a Plank....or a T210 Jackson ...none of which I will ever afford unless I win the lottery.
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I think the concept is very cool, and I admire those who are into high-end unopened - but I don't have near the risk tolerance I would need to play that game myself. I like watching YouTubers who bust unopened vintage like Just Collect, etc. But I would never pay hundreds or thousands of dollars myself to speculate on something like that. I too am leery of the fraud possibilities with that kind of stuff.

There is no way, zero chance, I would trust ANY pack for sale not to have been tampered with, unless I found it myself in some attic, basement or warehouse. And that's on top of the gamble of some star or HOFer being in the pack. I remember well the good old days of 1967 opening pack after pack after pack to get Mantle.

The pack will never have anything as good as what it "could" have inside. I buy the current year Bowman product year after year, open it and get nothing. But if I just didn't open it I'd make three or four times what I paid every time. Alas, I can't help myself.

James, you make some good points. What if you have some vintage, unopened packs, where you are 100% positive of the provenance of where they came? What if the packs were so scare that people thought they never existed? What if you could actually see at least one of the cards in the pack and it is worth 10K plus? What if you had some graded by PSA and they are authentic, graded and sealed?

What would you do? What would anyone else do? I would REALLY like to know.

As a general rule, I think you are right, but I can never say that a pack would never have anything as good as what it "could" have inside. Case in point: In the late 90's or early 2000's I bought a couple of different unopened packs from reputable sources at a National. One was a 1970 6th Series Topps Baseball pack and the other was a 1986 Fleer Basketball pack. I pulled spectacular Willie Mays and Pete Rose cards from the 1970 pack, and was lucky enough to pull the Jordan card from the 1986 pack. The baseball pulls exceeded my expectation (was thinking I'd just get 1 star card at best--I'd purchased it because it was the first year I started collecting, but never opened a pack myself that year, so I treated myself to the pleasure of opening a 1970 pack) and the Fleer pull met my hopes and dreams as it was the only realistic shot I had at the time of owning a nice Jordan rookie. But generally, yeah, with the priced unopened vintage product is going for these days, it's the equivalent of buying a high-priced lottery ticket.

If the pack is factory sealed, how could you see what is in it? Only way is to tamper with it. I do remember that only occasionally you would buy a pack not fully sealed, perhaps one leaf loose from the other. You could perhaps see the bottom card (sorry, I never saw any 1 cent, one card packs; first packs I bought were 1967).

Good question James. The first cello packs that I know of were produced in 1967, and you could see the bottom card. There were 2 cards in the pack, not 1.

I've had a few 50s one cent Topps packs in the past. I remember the 1959 one cent packs to be really thin and if you held the wrapper tight to the card and up to the light you could make out the player.

Statistically the odds are wayyy against you on opening a vintage pack to find something good. And even if you do get extremely lucky to find a star player, what you think the centering (among other things) might be like ? If you must go for unopened packs, I wouldn't touch them unless graded first. And then I would NEVER ever open them up. Honest best of luck whatever your decision.

Many wax packs have wrappers that let you see at least part of the card on top and/or bottom. So you might be able to see the card number through the pack. Like you can with the 86 fleer basketball stickers which are always on the back.

Some baseball packs from all years have areas on the front you can see part of the card through. You just have to be really good at identifying the cards from only seeing a little bit of it.

Cello packs were available much earlier than 1967. Not sure of the exact earliest year but I have seen them from the late 50's.

Yes, long odds but a guy pulled a 1955 Bowman Mickey Mantle from a live break at the National a few years ago, maybe 2018, and it graded PSA 9 at he National that year.

The slots for the 9 cards in the 5 cent pack were a grand a piece as well as I remember and the Mantle value at that time(obviously much higher in today's market) was $50K so a decent gamble.

Of course, the other 8 slots all lost most of their thousand dollar investment.

There may be individual packs, I'm not sure when the first cello's were issued. The ones I have are from 1967, but they are not from the U.S.

I did purchase a 1958 Christmas cello a few years back, it had a Mantle showing. I opened it and sent all the cards in - most came back a 6 or 7. I've attached a picture of the Mantle.

The Christmas rack packs were repacked cards and were put together for promotions. They were not issued by Topps. The cards were mostly less than NM condition similar to your Mantle.

True, but I'm not sure how far back you can realistically authenticate them. There was more 3rd party repackaging going on back in the day than just the Christmas racks.

Yes, I knew the Christmas cello's were repacked. My thinking at the time I bought it was the surface should be in good shape. I was correct. A 6 is not a 10, but it's tough getting a high grade in any 56 Topps. I have a complete set that is mostly 6 and above. I'm happy having the Maris and Mantle in a 6.

I will tell you one thing I would not do and that is trust that ANY graded pack was unopened.

When I first joined this forum there was a member that sold tons of graded star packs. Turns out he personally put all those star cards in the packs and resealed them. After being busted on here because he posted a card pick up that was later the exact card in a graded pack. He said it was beyond easy to get resealed packs graded.

I don't swim in that pool.

True that most vintage 6's will have nice to very nice / NM quality surfaces if nothing else. If you can live with a little OC and still very square if lightly touched corners, 6 is a really nice vintage grade. Many decently centered 6's would have been called "mint" with a straight face in the 1980's by dealers. Things weren't quite as precise back then.

I made a mistake in my earlier post, my 58 set - not my 56, is in great shape. Maris' rookie is a 58, not 56.

Just came across this thread and wanted to add an existing example for consideration and wild estimates of value.

What’s the estimated value of the ONLY PSA encapsulated Sport Kings pack?

The twist/bummer is you can tell exactly what card is in it and it’s a card that no one cares about.

Does that completely tank the value? No mystery in this pack, you know exactly what you’re getting…#9 Ed Blood.



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Wow, interesting nonetheless


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So I take it those are one card per pack. I wonder what the gum might have done to the card by now? Chances are it stuck to the back of the card anyway.

My guess is if you are Blood related you would care/be very interested in this unopened pack.

Brian

No, not even if you were related.

Hypothetical Value of Unopened Packs
 

My limited experience is that goudey gum in a foil wrapper doesn’t age well, but in a wax/paper wrapper it does much better. So might not be too bad.

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Even if a pack is truly unopened it doesn’t mean it has average odds of getting a certain player. Suppose it is known that there cannot be more than two cards of the star player in any box. Someone buys the box and opens packs till he gets two cards of that player. Then he sells the remaining packs as unopened. Those packs would then have no chance of getting the star player.

To clarify my quandary, Ed J Blood was an Olympic Skier in 1932 and 1936, who never reached the podium. Now you don't need to bother looking him up.:D

Well if it’s 1981 Donruss there might still be 27 of that player left in the box.

;)

A supposedly untampered with, unopened pack is a curiosity to me and no more. That's as far as it goes. Zero chance I would pay what to me is a small fortune on the minute chance of some card maybe, but way more likely not, being in it.

Every once in a while, the gambler in me thinks, "What the hell?"

But then I always come back to just figuring it's easier to just buy the card(s) that I want, rather than mess around with unopened stuff in the hopes that I might get something cool, particularly since even pack-fresh cards often don't grade that high.

I've had a few 1959 Topps unopened one cent packs over my time in the hobby. I never doubted their authenticity but if you held the wrapper tightly across the card and shined a bright light on it, you could make out enough of the name on the card inside. I chose not to open them as well.

Any card next to gum in an old pack will be stained. This means every one cent pack with gum has a stained card. Am I missing something?

I think it depends. The only old packs I've ever actually opened were 1951 Red Backs because they used to be cheap and available whenever. Sometimes the caramel inside would stain one of the cards but other times the card weren't stained at all.

unopen packs
 

I think its a terrible " odds game" ,

When you look and see what cards are possible based on the series..its still a long short

60s packs with 5 cards in them

then even if lucky enough to land a star.... the wax stain/ the centering...quite a risk

1933 Goudey
 

Back when I knew Ted Koch, he told me about a buying trip from the 1980's.

He said he and his buying partner found a box and a half of unopened 1933 Goudey packs in the basement of a closed down hardware store. After buying them, they rushed back to their hotel to open them and see what they had.

What they had were cards with gum stuck to them so hard that it was almost impossible to remove the gum without damaging the cards. They kept the cards but not the wrappers or boxes.

In hindsight, he said that after opening a few packs and seeing what the cards were like, they should have just kept everything unopened and sold the packs and boxes as they found them.

David

Ha! I got about 7 checklists in one pack

Do you own a time machine?

My biggest regret of which is probably others is not buying the 1986 Fleer Basketball box or even a few packs when you could have for $9.00 per box or .25 cents per pack..

This killed me

If you could have the contents of a newly opened 33 Goudey pack, but you had to chew the gum that came with it, would you do it?

All day long.

$5 per box around here (Rose's), and hand collated sets about the same at the local shows.

If one is truly dedicated to the hobby, I think this has to be the answer :D