General Forum

I have numerous factory sealed sets over the last 20 years and I was wondering your opinions. By far, the vast majority of my collecting is for my personal enjoyment. I don't speculate anymore since I held out trading all those 1989 Topps Gregg Jeffries Future Star cards 25 years ago. I don't own or ever intend to "slab" any of my cards.

I recently opened my 1996 Topps set that I bought many years ago as a "factory sealed" set on eBay. However,  the cellophane did not look like factory sealing. I opened it yesterday out of curiosity and I was very pleased to find everything was there (of course I put it in numerical order) and I think I was even more pleased at the memories of seeing the players and the 96 set was actually a pretty nice looking set. I'm strongly considering opening all my sets currently stored in factory sealed boxes and putting them all in sheets and binders to enjoy again in the future without handling them all.

My question is, do you keep factory sealed sets sealed, or do you open and enjoy them? 

I have a couple factory sets of hockey, some from the 90's and one OPC Update factory set from 09-10 ......... opened em all for my enjoyment. Not sure if I should have but I mean 90's cards are not worth anything anyways ........ lol. The 09-10 OPC I had to open as there were like six inserts randomly put in each box. Curiosity would have killed me otherwise.

Good topic.  

Since unopened material for the years surrounding 1987-1991 is still very affordable, I'm constantly purchasing factory sets, wax boxes, vending packs, and jumbo packs for the purpose of upgrading my personal collection.  Within the past few months, I've probably opened about 5-10 factory sets (@800 ct.), 5-10 wax boxes (@600 ct.), 20 vending packs (500 ct.), and 10 jumbo packs (@100 ct) from 1987-1993 Topps.  

I only keep one complete set of each type stored in a binder with pages, which I'm always looking to upgrade at the right price.  It ensures that I continue to go back and revisit my sets thoroughly.  I sell off the opened material obtained from set upgrades either individually or as pick lots on Ebay.  I look forward to seeing the day when there is almost no more unopened material from the "Boom Era" of the late-'80s/early-'90s. 

The only time I'll save unopened factory sets is when I don't have time to use them for my personal set upgrades.  Right now, that means I still have a few unopened 1989 Topps factory sets and wax boxes as well as some 1988 Topps Traded sets.

Open them up.   

I have several sets that aren't opened. It's only because I don't have enough pages to put then all in. I still have hand-collated sets in boxes. The amount of pages and binders needed for baseball sets from 1978-2015 is ridiculous. That's 38 Topps flagship sets, about 30-35 Traded, 10-15 Fleer, 10-15 Donruss, 5 or 6 Score, 5 SportFlics, and about 6 Upper Deck sets. That's a lot of pages! But, the plan is to liberate all the sets from their boxes and get them all in binders to be viewed. That IS the idea of having a collection. We already have all of the hockey sets in binders. That reminds me, I know we have a few incomplete sets, I should figure out which ones, and get them in the want list.... Thanks for starting this thread!

i think it would depend on the year and who's in it. some sets are just worth a whole lot more sealed. i had a couple factory sets i kepted sealed for the longest time then said the heck with it and opened it just to get a player or two out of there. In the end, i would ask, what is it that you would prefer? the cash for the whole set or a couple players saved aside for your personal collection?

I'm glad to see the encouragement for opening and perusing the sealed boxes, as that was already my plan for the few unopened that I have.  But I do have to chime in with the one negative I'm sure of from doing so.  They sure take up a lot less storage space in those rectangular boxes than they do sleeved in binders.  It's not just the number of sleeves needed as Dan pointed out; it's the storage of the binders.  At least in my bookcases, I can only go "one-deep" with binders, and then maybe put one sideways in front of a few.  In the space of storing 8 "full-size" (660+ cards, let's say?) sets in 3" binders, I could probably fit 12 to 15 of the corresponding factory set boxes.

--Kent

I am all for opening and enjoying the sets and am happy to see others who put the full sets into binders as some in the hobby would consider this a sin.

--Alex

Open 'em.  To me, it isn't really a collection if I can't see what I have.  Keep 'em in monster boxes until you have the sheets.  That way you can look at them and enjoy them.  Cards are fun.  Sealed boxes are not fun.  They may as well be full of sand.

I would say that it depends on the set and why you own it.

Personally, I have some factory sets that I am not going to open.  However, I don't consider myself as having the cards in my collection just because I have an unpened set. If I want the cards themselves, the set gets busted.

There are some sets that I would not open at all at this point.  These sets, like the early 90's Traks factory sets for example, are notorious for having the cards stuck together after being in the package for so long. Where opening the set would almost certainly result in having a pile of damaged cards, I leave them packaged.

-Tom