First Baseball Pack?

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Posted By: Sean

This might be a little off topic but....
.what was the first baseball pack
1951 Topps?

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Posted By: Zinn

33 Goudey?

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Posted By: MikeU

1980 Topps.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Depends on what you consider a pack. The first cards were issued in packs of cigarettes in 1887. The first cards issued in the pack format that you are talking about are I believe the 1933 Goudeys.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: J Levine

Fairly certain that the R316 Kashin cards were packaged as "packs" (flimsy boxes) of cards and they were produced in 1929.

Joshua

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

To change the direction of this thread a little bit (sorry Sean), what was the first pack of baseball cards you purchased? My first pack was 1989 topps (when I was an 8 year old kid).

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Posted By: James Feagin

Some say DeLong's are dated to 1932, which would make them the first gum pack.

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Posted By: Joe Drouillard

Jon,

What a bittersweet memory. 1961 Topps. I was nine. Everytime I would bum a few nickles or dimes I would hustle down to the corner drugstore and buy a pack. By the end of the year I must of had ten #300 Micks in my collection. I was the only Yankee fan in the neighborhood, so everyone wanted to trade me for Tigers and Indians. I would swap a whole team set for one Mantle. Damm. . . I loved that card. Of course, like everyone else, my interest in cards faded a few years later when I discovered girls. I wonder now if any of my Mantles survived?

Best wishes,

Joe

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Posted By: Bill K@sel

Great tangent topic...

First pack purchased was 1981 Topps. I was 8 years old and distinctly remember sitting at the kitchen table organizing all of them by team which were properly then secured by a rubber band and stacked neatly in a shoe box. We'd use a pen and fill in the little box to note we had that player then my brother and I would go down the block and trade with our neighbors. I'll always remember the George Brett All-Star card. I LOVED that card for some reason.

There was nothing like carefully opening the pack and finding an all-star, or in-action, or record breaker card in those early 80's packs. Beats the pants off all the shiny crap in today's market where each pack runs you $3.00 mininum.

My wife implored me to save some of the vintage cards I had acquired when I decided to sell a majority of them off over the last few months. I did, and I'm glad I did. Not only will they continue to fuel my fire for vintage cards going forward, but they'll become my son's some day (I hope).

Bill

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Not sure if you mean in general.....or, our personal 1st BB card packs.

Anyhow, as a kid, my 1st BB cards were from Bond Bread loaf packages in 1947.....not gum packs.

And, my 1st BB cards from bubble gum packs were the 1949 LEAF GUM packs in early Spring of '49.

The last BB card pack that I opened was in the Fall of '52.....and, it was a 5-cent pack; and, I still
remember how really excited I was to find a 1952 Topps Mantle....and, four other cards (Chapman,
Herman, Jeffcoat, and Spencer).


TED Z

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Posted By: JimB

Jay,
Weren't N167 Old Juges issued in 1886? My memory isn't what it used to be, but I think that is right.
Jim

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Posted By: Steve Parmentier

The "big kids" were into their new 1972 packs. I decided that the next year, 1973, I would have mine and join the gang.

We all waited outside for the school bus to arrive, all the while doing what kids do with their cards - trading, sorting, playing.

My jeez, where do the years go - almost brings tears to my eyes.

Steve

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Yes - now these are the stories I like to hear and it's funny how this hobby helps you go back and remember some really good times in your life! To add a little more to my story... I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. I remember it being the summer and my mother and I were at a downtown fair. A small store had a sidewalk booth set up with popcorn, candy and yes - the 1989 topps packs. For whatever reason I wanted one badly. I can remember getting a Powell card in the pack. I probably looked at those cards 1000 times... After that, I was hooked.

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Posted By: Sean

well since im 12 Years Old my first pack is going to be really new..
but i think i remember opening some 2003 ud victory

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Posted By: Jim VB

As a kid, I didn't buy packs until 1966 or so. Prior to that, my family lived in Queens. My dad worked in Brooklyn. The trash hauler at his company also picked up trash at the Topps printer. He kept my dad supplied with every sheet that Topps threw out. Like fools, my brother and I would sit at the kitchen table at night and cut our cards out of sheets. We always had thousands of cards (and would throw them out when next years cards came out.) This continued on from 1954 through 1965.

Brings a tear to my eye, too. (But maybe for a different reason.)

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

The first pack I ever opened was a 1970. With every nickel saved we would run to the store which was a few blocks away and buy what we could. What a thrill if you could afford more than one pack. We were always looking for the Jerry Koosman card since my mother went to High school with him, and my personal favorite was Harmon Killebrew. I had just been talking about how kids now a days don't have the small town store to run to and buy that one pack you could afford.

I do remember saving up enough money one time to buy a whole box, I had to hide it from my mom and leak the cards out here and there so it didn't look so obvious but what a thrill of opening a whole box. The main goal at that time was completing the set and the duplicates were just trade bait no matter who they were unlees they were Twins. My hours of my young life were spent sorting through these cards and I still have them all.

Lee

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Posted By: boxingcardman

There is no answer, really, until you define "pack". As has already been noted, the first baseball cards inserted with product were in the 1880s.

My first pack was 1970 Topps. I think I got one or two packs that summer. In 1971 I really took off. Other big years were 1975 (my parents bought me two boxes as a birthday present) and 1977, where I'd buy a pack as often as possible at the candy store near my school. From 1977-1978 I didn't buy packs at all because my uncle did legal work for Topps and sent me a huge box of their products including a couple of vending boxes every summer. In 1979-80 I bought lots of packs. I fished a lot for error cards in the 1981 offerings and more or less stopped buying modern after that.

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Posted By: Bob Pomilla

As with the "earliest memory of baseball" thread, the year for me, would have been 1957. Don't specifically remember the first pack I opened, but do recall pulling a Mantle. Though I was a Dodger fan, Mantle, being the biggest name in the game at the time, having just come off a triple crown year, was quite a score. My mother had bought the pack for me and I thought she had worked some maternal magic in having the Mantle show up in it! Well, I was only 7!

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Posted By: barrysloate

First pack I bought was 1958 Topps, although I do remember when I was in kindergarten an older kid brought a stack of 1957's to school.

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Posted By: Glenn

First pack I bought was 1986 Donruss. I bought one pack along with a Will Clark card and a Ty Cobb card at the first card show my dad took me to. I think the best player in there was Carney Lansford, but I liked Johnny Ray because he had the highest batting average.

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Posted By: leon

Pack is sort of a relative term. If I am not mistaking Colgans might have come as more than 1 in a tin? Also, I don't think we have ever seen a G & B gum container...or know how they were distributed? Otherwise, the N167's do have an 1886 date and would have come in cigarette packs, I believe. If we are talking about more than 1 card in a pack then maybe Colgans? Also, we know that some T206's were distributed as more than 1 in a pack of cigs.....more recently maybe the Kashin as mentioned or Delongs...

As for my first pack it was probably 1967 or more likely 1968 Topps as a kid.......Good question Sean...

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Posted By: davidcycleback

When someone says card pack, I think they think of a paper 'wax pack,' ala Topps or modern cards. In this popoular sense, the earliest baseball card wax pack I know of are the 1933 Goudey, but there may well have been earlier. A wrapper expert might be the one to give the answer. The first pack I opened was 1977 Topps football, first baseball was 1978 Topps.

I think can all agree, Sean came up with a good question.

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Posted By: Sean

leon are you talking about 1909 E254 Colgans

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Posted By: Darren

M116's were distributed in "packs"

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Posted By: leon

yes, but they are classified as "E254" not E234.... in the American Card Catalog...You are learning ....good job.....Please be careful though about too many questions...everyone needs to have a turn....

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Posted By: Sean

yea i saw that mistake
i edited it
sorry

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Posted By: Zach Rice

I was under the impression that E254s were distributed one card per chip tin. Period advertisements state "Ball player's picture in every package". Though I can't recall the auction or item number, I am positive that Robert Edward Auctions had a freshly opened tin of E254s. Lying on the top of a pile of gum chips was a single card, Ty Cobb.

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Posted By: John E

I think it has to do with how you define pack. I'd say a "pack" is when the card is what's being sold rather than it being a premium packaged with the actual product. A T206 or a bread card wouldn't be considerered a pack as cigarettes or bread is the actual product being marketed. Given this definition, wouldn't the '33 Goudey be the first "pack"?

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Posted By: leon

You might be right as I was just guessing about E254. It would have been easy to throw in more than one card but they were sold more for the gum than the cards back then....

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Posted By: jay behrens

Ju Jus and Colgans were one per container.

Lee is forgetting the first packs were ever opened. There were 1969 Topps football cards. I remember getting Gale Sayers, Larry Czonka, Jerrel Wilson and Jan Stenarud among other players.

I believe it was 1972 when Lee and I box bought a whole box of cards. I'm guess it was series 4 since we had so many cards from that series.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: John H.

I don't specifically remember buying my first pack but 1964 Topps is a good bet because I had a Willie Kirkland card from that set for a long time.

John

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Posted By: Anonymous

Jan Stererud didn't have a Topps card until 1970. Jerrel Wilson was not in the 1970 or 1971 set, so the first year all 4 of those guys were in a Topps set was 1972.

My first pack: 1980 Topps Football.