Here’s a really cool item from Mastro’s Classic Collector Auction in June 2006: a 1947-66 Exhibit Baseball unopened partial cello box of 25 packs.
The catalog didn’t include any lot descriptions, but the pack on the right has Ernie Banks’s Bat on Should card on top (he also has a portrait variation), and the pack on the left shows Gil Hodges.
Also, while these arcade cards historically were meant for vending machines, Adam S. Warshaw, in his book Exhibit and Related Arcade Sports Cards, wrote that for a short time in the 1960s, ESCO tried to sell cards in cello packs, noting that the unopened materials are worth far more than the cards inside them.
The box shows that ESCO also had cello boxes with T.V. Cowboys, Jet Planes, Recording Artists, and Sport Cars.
Also, ESCO may have distributed these boxes with paper promos. Lelands sold a nearly complete cello box (28 packs) in December 2005 for $2,289, which included a “Jumbo Baseball Trading Cards” example.
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