Missing the thrill of openning packs

[jhyde77]

There are two ways I like to open packs. The first is finding some cheap junk wax. I bought some '82 Donruss packs at a Flea Market last year for $1 each. I ended up opening 12 packs and pulled a Ripken RC. Even though it's a low value card, I consider it one of my favorite pulls. I also bought a box of '89 Fleer at the Flea Market and pulled the Ripken FF and the Griffey.

The other way I like to open packs is by picking a set and buying packs or boxes that go towards it. I spend more money buying the boxes, but its fun to see if I get any good inserts. I'll usually rotate buying boxes for a couple of different sets, so I might be working on a set for a few years.

[dherm360]

About every month or so I'll get a few random boxes just to bust. Last month I pulled a Sugar Ray Robinson Cut 1/1 so you never know. Never the less it is still fun for me to bust wax.

[wfubob]

I recently started building '05 Topps Chrome and '08 Heritage with my sons for their birth years. Did so by buying a couple or 3 hobby boxes off the interwebz, then trading lots of duplicates with other collectors online. Must say that pulling the inserts is great fun (especially for my boys). Pulled a couple very nice autos, and sold them to pay for the boxes, basically.

We've had so much fun that we're building '12 Heritage and '12 Bowman now, the same way (with a few blaster boxes from Walmart/Target thrown in too). If you pull a few nice inserts and don't care about saving them (we don't, just building the "Base Master Sets"), you can get pretty close to the sets paying for themselves and having all the box rip fun for free.

[JasonL]

I have had the same sort of issues in the past....where I collect mostly pre-war, with a fair amount of 50s and 60s. But to get my fix of opening packs, I buy cheap 1980s wax and have fun re-living my childhood for like $10-30 per box. I can't even bring myself to buy modern packs because they are so expensive.

The best fun I've had with this recently: 1986 Fleer Star Stickers! Awesome!

[jhyde77]

I've been really wanting to open a box with some early to mid '80s rookies. The rookies I want sell fairly low, but the boxes are $100. I could just buy the singles, but its not as fun.

[mcgwirecom]

I miss the perceived (or maybe real) scarcity of getting baseball cards.

When I was a kid in the early-mid 70's we only had a couple places that we knew of to buy cards. The 7-11 and the 5&10 store. The only product was Topps and they never got in more than a box or two at a time. I think they were about 35 cents a pack or so. My mom would let me have whatever change was in her purse to go to the store. We would head over there and all buy a pack or two, slowly open them and hope to get a Hank Aaron card! That was our Holy Grail! We didn't know rookies would be worth anything! At the start of the season it was easy to find them, but as the summer went on they would always be out! You'd be 3/4 of the way through a set and couldn't find packs! we would ask the cashier "can you look in the back please?" Sometimes you would get lucky and they had a box somewhere. Other times they would get mad at you for asking. The lady at the 5&10 told us, "you guys are a pain in my ass." That was the first time I ever had an adult say a bad word to me!

LOL By the end of summer it seemed impossible to find any packs. Sometimes another kid would tell you he saw some in the next town over so you would try to get your parents to stop at this store in the next town as you drove by. I remember one September actually seeing a new box at the 7-11 and freaking out. opened some packs and saw some new cards that said "TRADED" on them. What the hell is this? LOL And interestingly the gum was still soft! WOW! we would spend a lot of time trying to trade cards with friends to get what you needed to finish. I think I was like 12 cards short and figured I would never finish. but a friend gave me his old Baseball Digest and I saw an ad for this guy named Larry Fritsch who would sell you cards for pennies. I wrote him a letter and send cash in the mail! He sent me the cards I needed and stamped that I had a credit of a few cents LOL. Years later my friend still had my letter with the credit stamped on it. We were amazed how we had to try and finish a set. I thought it was cheating to do it that way but I needed to finish.

A few years later a friend of mine's parents got divorced. First time anyone I knew had this happen. His father would get him on the weekends and he would come home with a whole box of baseball cards! Where the hell do you get a whole box! The stores near us wouldn't sell you a box! Anyway after that the hobby started taking off and everyone bought in boxes or cases! Took all the excitement right out of it. I think things need to go back to the old days. One set, no inserts or parallels. make a lot less of them. Make it tough to finish. Bring back bad collation, I like getting 3 Hank Webbs in a pack! LOL I know its a pipe dream, too much money in making a lot of product.

[tcjsavannah]

I miss not only the thrill of opening packs, but I miss the thrill of getting a good star card or one of your team in a pack nowadays when, instead, it seems if you don't get an auto card or a relic card or a short print card, it registers as a colossal disappointment.

I got a little of it back recently when I found out that a player who played at my school was in the 2011 Bowman Draft Picks set. I bought a retail box at Target and was thrilled to get his base card, more so than the relic or the chrome cards that I got in that box.

[MBMiller25]

I get the itch from time to time, and usually will purchase a box from my childhood. 89 UD or 90 Leaf are a couple that I couldn't afford to purchase as a child that I can now. I still get a thrill pulling an 89 UD Griffey or 90 Leaf Frank Thomas RC. Every now and again, I will but 82 or 83 Topps searching for the rookies of Ripken, Gwynn, Sandberg, and Boggs.

[jhyde77]

Originally Posted by mcgwirecom

I miss the perceived (or maybe real) scarcity of getting baseball cards.

When I was a kid in the early-mid 70's we only had a couple places that we knew of to buy cards. The 7-11 and the 5&10 store. The only product was Topps and they never got in more than a box or two at a time. I think they were about 35 cents a pack or so. My mom would let me have whatever change was in her purse to go to the store. We would head over there and all buy a pack or two, slowly open them and hope to get a Hank Aaron card! That was our Holy Grail! We didn't know rookies would be worth anything! At the start of the season it was easy to find them, but as the summer went on they would always be out! You'd be 3/4 of the way through a set and couldn't find packs! we would ask the cashier "can you look in the back please?" Sometimes you would get lucky and they had a box somewhere. Other times they would get mad at you for asking. The lady at the 5&10 told us, "you guys are a pain in my ass." That was the first time I ever had an adult say a bad word to me!

LOL By the end of summer it seemed impossible to find any packs. Sometimes another kid would tell you he saw some in the next town over so you would try to get your parents to stop at this store in the next town as you drove by. I remember one September actually seeing a new box at the 7-11 and freaking out. opened some packs and saw some new cards that said "TRADED" on them. What the hell is this? LOL And interestingly the gum was still soft! WOW! we would spend a lot of time trying to trade cards with friends to get what you needed to finish. I think I was like 12 cards short and figured I would never finish. but a friend gave me his old Baseball Digest and I saw an ad for this guy named Larry Fritsch who would sell you cards for pennies. I wrote him a letter and send cash in the mail! He sent me the cards I needed and stamped that I had a credit of a few cents LOL. Years later my friend still had my letter with the credit stamped on it. We were amazed how we had to try and finish a set. I thought it was cheating to do it that way but I needed to finish.

A few years later a friend of mine's parents got divorced. First time anyone I knew had this happen. His father would get him on the weekends and he would come home with a whole box of baseball cards! Where the hell do you get a whole box! The stores near us wouldn't sell you a box! Anyway after that the hobby started taking off and everyone bought in boxes or cases! Took all the excitement right out of it. I think things need to go back to the old days. One set, no inserts or parallels. make a lot less of them. Make it tough to finish. Bring back bad collation, I like getting 3 Hank Webbs in a pack! LOL I know its a pipe dream, too much money in making a lot of product.

I'm with you on going back to the '70s. But think of how hard it would be to collect as an adult if it was a kid's hobby again. It would be like now collecting a kid's toy with very little value.

[7nohitter]

i have about 20-30 boxes of 1982 Donruss and Fleer in my attic somewhere....a few years ago I opened one (because I was 'dying to open packs) and pulled a Ripken RC....but my favorite card was the Carl Yaz (don't ask me to spell it)...also pulled an awesome looking Ryan that I gladly added to my collection!