Mike D's Adventures in Wax

[Mike D.]

I wanted something a bit "out of the mainstream" for my first box.

I picked up a 1980-83 Cramer Baseball Legends box. 36 packs of 8 cards each.

I got what I think is a pretty good deal on it too, paying $34.95 delivered.

It's an interesting set, produced over a number of years by a dealer who would eventually start Pacific Trading Cards.

The packs are old school wax packs, and while the condition of some of the cards wasn't great (probably don't pull a lot of PSA 10's out of boxes like this), there were enough in NrMt+to make me happy.

Can't complain about the collation, either. I got two full 124 card sets out of the box.

I am listing the two sets (and wax) box on eBay along with some of the dups.

Two things this starting making me think are that small sets are the way to go for this adventure, and I may be able to break even or may a little reselling the busted boxes...not looking to get rich, but maybe enough to buy more boxes.

Oh, and my 7 year old, who's not into baseball but does collect tractor and Pokemon cards, has decided he LOVES opening packs, so now it's a family adventure.

[bnorth]

I also am a big fan of ripping wax packs. Reminds me of the when I got into the hobby. It also brings back great memories of players I watched back in the day when I actually went to ball games.

Have fun and welcome to the forum.

[tonyo]

Hi Mike and welcome,

I had to google "chicken math" and yep that definitely applies to a few things in my world, including card collecting....

Also, I'm very surprised you got two complete 124 card sets out of 288 cards. I don't buy boxes and open them though, so maybe it's more common than I think.

Looking forward to hearing how you do selling the two sets on ebay. I've been trying to sell alot of my low hanging fruit, and am lucky if some of my smaller sets net me more than a couple dollars.

Have a great weekend!

[steve B]

Sounds like fun!

And tell us more about tractor cards. I haven't heard of them but they sound cool.

[AGuinness]

Welcome to the board! Wax can be fun, although my impression is that if it were easy to break even, more people would do it and the prices would likely increase (thereby making it a scenario where you could no longer break even). Good luck!
I've got two boys, 6 and 9, and we've been opening a box of cards on Opening Day for years. It took them a little while, but they are both totally hooked on baseball cards now!

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by steve B

Sounds like fun!

And tell us more about tractor cards. I haven't heard of them but they sound cool.

My son has liked antique tractors since he was, well, an infant (my dad has half dozen or so old Farmall tractors). A number of companies made tractor trading cards in the 80' s and 90's - Goodyear, Ertl, and John Deere among them.

Not too many different sets were made, and they all seem to cost more than they should, but I've bought a bunch for my son, who loves 'em.

He's not that into baseball, as I mentioned above, but he does love opening packs and sorting them.

[Mike D.]

Thanks for the welcomes, all.

There's only one other person selling the Cramer set on eBay, and they are selling (and have sold) a few for like $44 each.

I listed both sets and the empty wax box for $74.99 plus shipping. If nobody bites, I have plenty of wiggle room to lower the price and still make my money back.

I've already sold a couple dups in lots, about $8 worth to date.

[Mike D.]

We picked up a couple wax boxes of 1991 Line Drive AA Pre-Rookie cards.

The two boxes were $13 delivered, so they were CHEAP.

We pulled a couple of each of most of the "major" cards in set...including two Ivan Rodriguez, two Jim Thome, two Bret Boone, etc.

Still, the set is way to big and too cheap to even bother with trying to complete.

I'll probably sell of the better cards to try to recoup the modest investment here, and I guess I could try to sell off team lots or something, but I"m not sure that'd be worth it.

So, a few lessons:

• Opening packs, even if the contents aren't anything special, is fun.
• Big sets aren't the way to go......small is beautful.
• The paper shredder and the compost pile may be busy from this pack busting project

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I also am a big fan of ripping wax packs. Reminds me of the when I got into the hobby. It also brings back great memories of players I watched back in the day when I actually went to ball games.

Have fun and welcome to the forum.

Same here, always a good time, even if the contents rarely exceed the cost of the box.

[Mike D.]

Strange...most of the packs have the gum on the front of the top card, but a small percentage of packs have the cards in backwards, so the gum is sitting on the sticker side. It seems like there's little rhythm or reason to it...with it happening to random packs in different boxes.

[Mike D.]

Listed the first 7 complete sets on eBay.

Still have a LOT of boxes and packs to open, but probably won't sort any more sets until a few of these sell (if they do!)

[Mike D.]

Today was the former Cranston show, now held in Coventry, RI...a handy 8 minutes from my house.

I didn't get quite as much time to look around as I would have had flying solo, but I brought my little guy and he had a blast.

The dealers and other customers were all very nice to him...I think folks in the hobby understand that we need to get the kids interested for things to continue on. Several gave him small gifts of free cards, free packs, etc. Small gestures that mean a lot!

We made a few purchases for his budding collection, including a few small sets, some 2 for $1 packs, a Ted Williams card, and a box of 1987 Topps packs that are his to open and sort. The box was only $10, and that's the set that started ME collecting 32 years ago!

[Mike D.]

At the Coventry show, we also picked up a rack case of 1989 Donruss.

The case has 72 rack packs, 45 cards per pack (plus 3 puzzle pieces) and we paid $50 from the same very nice dealer we bought the '87 Topps wax box from.

We started opening today. I keep forgetting just how many packs/cards are in a case. I should have bought more storage boxes at the show.