6 Totally Rad Tips For Buying '80s Baseball Wax Packs!
Whether you are a renewed collector or someone who loves chasing legendary cards, buying wax packs from the 1980s can be awesome -- and tricky!
Each “Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter” pack has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets – like me!
This Week’s Newsletter Highlights!
⚾🏈🏀 6 TOTALLY RAD TIPS FOR BUYING ‘80s BASEBALL WAX PACKS!
⚾ SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
🏀⚾🏈 IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS
⚾🏈🏀 WEEKLY READER PICKS!
🏈🏀⚾ CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY!
As a member of the eBay Partner Network and an Amazon Associate, I earn commissions from qualifying purchases. Here’s a link to my Amazon storefront where I link to all my favorite card-collecting supplies. Thank you for supporting our affiliations by making purchases through us! Also, all sports card images come courtesy of BuySportsCards.com.
🏈⚾🏀 6 TOTALLY RAD TIPS FOR BUYING ‘80s BASEBALL WAX PACKS!
Scott Hedrick, one of our favorite Happy Hobbyists, shares some great suggestions on ripping wax from four decades ago!
So you wanna buy some '80s wax?
Well I’m here to tell you, it’s a nostalgic blast to rip through the same packs you did in your youth, or to finally be able to sample some coveted set that you weren’t quite able to afford as a youngster.
While I highly recommend buying wax packs from 40 years ago, there are a few caveats of which I would warn the new buyer.
1. Buy From a Trusted Source
Baseball Card Exchange being first and foremost among my "trusted" list. Also, the head buyer at Dave & Adam's Card World’s head buyer, Reed Kasaoka, is also very experienced and knowledgeable. Personally, I would be very careful about buying any vintage packs or boxes of any value from anywhere else. Many vintage packs on eBay are resealed, and unless you are experienced, you won’t be able to tell. So be careful out there.
2. FASC Beats the Frankenbox
If you are in the market to buy a box, the first choice should always be “FASC,” or “From a Sealed Case.” This means that BBCE certifies that this box has come from an original unopened case from the period, and is thus, untouched and original.
Be aware that FASC boxes do command a premium over regular boxes, but this may be a premium worth paying. While BBCE certifies a regular box’s packs to be unopened and original, a regular box might be what I’ve heard fittingly referred to as a “Frankenbox.” Those packs in that box might all be original to that box, or they also potentially could have been put together from packs that are the remnants of many other boxes.
Think about the example of 1982 Topps Baseball, which has one main “hit.” At any point in the past, someone may have started opening packs from a box, pulled the Cal Ripken Jr. rookie in the 11th pack of the box, and then sold the rest of the packs. Rinse and repeat. And at some point all these partial boxes may have been used to make up a Frankenbox, which obviously would have much less upside than an original untouched box. This is obviously an extreme scenario, but the point is, if you have the choice between FASC and not, I highly recommend the FASC.
3. Wax Packs Ain’t Whack
Let’s say you’re not in the market for a box, and you just want to pick up a few fun '80s packs to rip. Browsing the options, you might see wax packs, rack packs, and cello packs, and wonder about which one of these to choose. If it’s a more expensive set with a high profile card/rookie, I would always recommend wax packs. This is for one simple reason.
Wax packs are much harder to “sequence search.”
Cello packs and rack packs inherently give away some of their contents. What I mean by that is you can easily see the top and bottom cards of a cello pack, and as many as six of the cards contained in a rack pack (three panels, with the front and back card visible in each pack).
Back in the '80s and earlier, cards were usually cut and packaged in a certain sequence. While this isn’t always the case, it’s a very good bet. The sequences of each year are no big secret, and can be obtained with a little looking, if one is so inclined. So, being able to see the cards in a cello or rack pack might be a reason not to buy that type of format.
Let’s take for example 1985 Topps baseball. Back in the ‘90s, when cards were going strong, with Don West peddling them late-night on your TV, the 1985 Topps Mark McGwire Olympic rookie card became a HUGE deal. Gem-mint condition rookies were selling for astronomical sums. A number of nefarious types acquired the sequence to 1985 Topps, and snatched up any of the packs they came across that would have contained the McGwire rookie.
4. Rack Pack Sequences Can Be Figured Out Easier
There's nothing stopping this process from still happening. When I first got back into the hobby, prices of ‘80s wax were still low, and one of my first targets was a 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie. I had never owned this iconic card of my youth because I could not afford it, so I was very anxious to pull one. Well, I looked on the BBCE site, and right away set my eyes on rack packs, as the per-card price easily made it the best deal.
I don’t know how many racks I went through, but it was a number of them, and I never hit a Montana, which caused me to abandon the format altogether. I’m fairly certain now this was because of “sequence searching.” Go with the safer option of the wax pack. I will add, that some wax packs can be sequence searched, as well, though. For example, with little effort, it is not hard to discern the card on the back of many 80’s Donruss wax packs, so this plan is not foolproof.
5. “Pack Fresh” Does Not Equal “Mint Condition"
Finally, there is one other consideration with packs/boxes, and this is what format generally yields the best candidates for grading.
The inexperienced wax buyer should know that you shouldn’t expect to come out of any vintage format with many grading candidates. Quality control was not what it is today, and cards can come fresh out of the pack with numerous issues.
It is my opinion/experience, that the best ‘80s candidates for grading come out of the following formats in this order:
Rack
Wax
Cello
Vending
I believe the sharpest cards, on average, come out of rack packs, with wax not far behind. This is not to say gems cannot be had from cellos or vending packs. Overall, though, I think the quality is a bit higher out of rack pack and wax pack.
6. Rack Packs Don’t Have Gum Stains At Least!
An added bonus about some rack packs is that some of them did not contain the gum that their counterparts did, so you don’t have to automatically be docked all of the cards the gum ruined.
In the end, I recommend wax packs as your best bet for unsearched ‘80s cards in decent condition coming straight out of the pack. Keep these tips in mind when making your purchases, but, most importantly, have fun and happy ripping!
Let us know in the comments what old wax packs you like to rip the most, or which packs you’re thinking about buying section!
🏀🏈⚾ WEEKLY READER PICKS!
Each week or so, I want to point out three things worth checking out in the sports card collecting world!
Mantel App: Please do yourself a favor and download the new “Mantel” app on iPhone or Google, and enjoy a great card collecting community – for free.
That Card…: by John McTaggart, Sports Cards Nonsense: Very cool discussion about how re-centering for a minute, and collecting cards that made us happy as kids, might be a smart move for our sanity.
Card Shows: The Wall Street of the Sports Card Hobby, by Mr. Collect: This piece helps us understand how making moves at a card show helps keep the hobby healthy, and it’s kind of like the game within the game. “That’s what keeps collectors coming back: the thrill of the hunt, the art of negotiation, and the hope of striking gold.”
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win this free card from me! 2019 Topps Living Mike Trout #200!
Which Junk Wax era set held what is considered the very first autograph card chase in baseball cards – and whose autograph was it?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com and you can win this 2019 Topps Living Mike Trout #200 card! Rather than take the first person who answers it right, I’m going to do a random drawing of all the people who answer this question before midnight, Friday, December 27. The winner will be announced in the Jan. 2 newsletter.
Read the Question from Dec. 12: Answer before midnight Friday, Dec. 620. Prize: 1977 Kellogg’s 3-D Super Stars Pete Rose!! The winner will be announced Dec. 26.
Question from Dec. 5: What was the very first card ever graded, all the way back in 1991? – Answer: T-206 Honus Wagner. WINNER: Alan Camuto! Congrats, Alan -- you won the 2022 Throwback Thursday Mark McGwire Incredible Hulk card!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS: #22 of 23
Imhoff breaks down all the moves Fanatics should make, just two years away from when they unify the baseball, football and basketball card licenses in 2026. He shared his first move in our June 20 newsletter, and he’ll continue to share more of these going forward.
No. 22 – GRADING SERVICE
Right now, the one major part of the collecting industry that is missing from Fanatics is card grading. I would look at a few options that including:
Purchasing a company that already exists
Developing our own grading service (lowest on my list)
Partnering with an already established company like PSA/SGC (top on my list).
One of the biggest expenses with buying cards and getting them graded is paying for shipping. You must pay to get cards shipped to you, pay to ship them for grading, and finally pay to get graded cards shipped back to you. That is way too much money spent on shipping.
My vision would be to establish some type of program, specifically targeting the higher-end products with fewer cards in them, that allowed for your box to be opened on site via video stream for the consumer. The consumer would then determine if they wanted any cards graded. If so, the box would be held, the cards marked for grading would be graded on-site, then the entire package would be mailed back to the consumer -- all for the original price of shipping (with option to pay for additional insurance).
This would be complicated and require an on-site grading facility and some way to schedule cards to be opened. I would start it on a trial basis for only top level products and see if it could be expanded as efficiency was developed.
You can subscribe to Patrick Imhoff’s Substack Newsletter here!
⚾CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY: 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson #79
Any Jackie Robinson card makes us happy, to be honest, but his rookie card really makes us smile!
If most cards portray the previous season, then this 1948 piece of cardboard symbolizes Robinson’s rookie season in the majors in 1947, when he made history, breaking the color barrier. That alone should make him a standout rookie, but he would end up batting .297 that season, notching twice as many walks as strikeouts, and he led the NL in stolen bases with 29. His Brooklyn Dodgers won the pennant, and MLB.com ranked Jackie as the greatest MLB Rookie of the Year in history!
The card itself is just a headshot with a yellow background, but I love that the full name is across the front of the card, and that this is literally the first baseball card with a person of color on the front. Very cool.
Coming Next Week!
⚾🏈🏀 11 SPORTS CARD COLLECTORS WE LOVE!
⚾ SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
🏀 🏈 ⚾ IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS
⚾ 🏀 🏈 REMEMBERING ROOKIE CARDS FROM 1952 IN EVERY SPORT!
***Important Card-Collecting Articles on DavidGonos.com***
Connect with David Gonos on:
Email me: mailto:gonoscards@gmail.com
Have a #HappyHobby!
Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)
 | A guest post by
|
1. The case fresh tip i think is great bc if your going to spend some money this has to give you best chance of getting some least likely messed with.
2. Downloaded the App looks cool.
At some point in going to add a Jackie man that card is a beauty.