General Forum

In 1985 or 1986 I found a gift shop with three boxes of 1975 Topps Baseball rack packs that were being sold for the 1975 price. It was the kind of place that sold more candy molds and cross stitch patterns and these were their only trading cards. I made the most beautiful set from those boxes. Wish I still had it.

in 1997 i bought the last pack in the box of stadium club baseball from a local card shop and pulled a Jeter/Pettitte co-signer card...

In the mid 2000s I found a dealer who wanted to retire and sold me a lot of 1970s cards at incredible prices. I think he was the original owner of the cards. I completed the 1971-72, 1976-77, 1977-78, 1978-79 and 1981-82 Topps sets from him, and got most of the cards I was missing from 1979-80 Topps, 1986-87, 1987-88 and 1988-89 Fleer from him, among others including stacks of 1969-70 and 1970-71 Topps. I pretty much cleaned him out of his basketball collection, and while I don't remember exactly what I paid, I want to say it was around $100...for all of it. I also got several Boston Celtics team photos, the only ones in my entire collection, and the complete 1980-81 Topps Team Posters inserts. It was worth the 5 hour one way trip to see him for sure.

Billy, in the early 90s I used to buy unopened packs of 1986 Fleer basketball for $100 each from my local shop and I swear I never got burned. I always came out ahead but it sounds like you did much better than me. And again, I wish I still had those 86F basketball cards, especially the Barkley.

I've had quite a few that have included large lots of 100's of vintage Topps and Bowman baseball from 1948 through the 1970's.  Since I only purchase on a deal, my near complete collection of vintage Topps and Bowman cards will have to speak for itself, as I don't recall particulars of my best finds.  

Nice. 1986-87 Fleer is a set I've never opened a pack of. I'm 4 cards short on the set but I know I'll never be able to afford the Jordan. 

I've told the story many times now and it was only been a year, last rack pack of UD Series 1 hanging at wal-mart in the till area and decided to grab it for shits n giggles, get home a ba-bam I pull a Connor McDavid rookie. =D Enough said.

Thats easy 1954 topps whitey Ford  1946-47 exhibts peewee reese 

I have 3 that I can't decide which was best. You decide! I'm numbering them by when they happened.

#1 - In 2005, I was at an Auto Zone store doing some out-of-town contract work. I was waiting for my boss to pick me back up from doing work at a different AZ store across town. While I was waiting, I saw a mostly full retail box of 2003 Press Pass Eclipse NASCAR packs. I asked the cashier how much they really were b/c the box said $2.99/each. They were 2 years old and I wasn't going to pay that. She scanned one and it rang up for ONE PENNY. I bought all 18 packs for 20 cents! While I didn't pull any AU's or MEM cards, the common base cards were booking for $2.00 at the time with parallels at twice that. Inserts were booking for $5+ each. I pulled over $200 in BV from those packs and THAT was what got me back into collecting NASCAR cards (they were a bit hard to find around here at the time without any LCS).

#2 - In 2009, I bought a hobby box of 2009 Upper Deck Icons MLB cards. That box was fantastic for me! I pulled an Ozzie Smith Lettermen Patch card SN40 (that was my #1 wish to pull) AND a Pablo Sandoval RC/AU card SN100. I almost instantly traded the Sandoval RC/AU for my MLB White Whale - a 1979 Topps Ozzie Smith RC card (in about a grade 9 condition). Even better was the timing. The Sandoval has plummeted in value over the years, but the Ozzie remains constant and now has a BV of 3x the Sandoval.

#3 - In early 2011, I bought a hobby box of 2010 Press Pass Legends NASCAR cards. It contained the highest BV card I have EVER pulled! I pulled a Racing Families Quad Autographs card of the Force family #'d to 25 with a BV of $300 (now $350). The card had AU's of NHRA multi-time champion John Force and all 3 of his racing daughters (Brittany, Courtney, Ashley). I traded that card for a Jimmie Johnson AU card SN25 AND a Mark Martin 3x race-used MEM card #'d to 5. I still have both of those cards.

When I was about 13 (circa 1978), I bought a box of baseball cards from a neighbor kid for ten bucks. Maybe 400 cards. Turns out they were great. 1970 autographed Pete Rose. 1970 autographed Jim Kaat. Dozens of 50s and 60s Hall of Famers and stars. Those cards still make up s huge portion of my pre-1970 collection. 

Always felt just a little bad, but it's not like I actually knew what I was getting. 

V3