Cello Box

The Unopened Archive

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Welcome to the relaunched Unopened Archive! It used to have pages with photos of packs, wrappers, boxes, and cases from all the big pre- and post-war releases. This 2.0 version is more of a hub for all my blog posts about different unopened material. Over time, I’ll bring back the old content and add way more—like info about fakes, finds, sales, collation, and all the known products out there.

If you’re looking for a particular unopened product photo, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

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Unopened Hobby Books, Magazine Articles, and 101s

1947-66 Exhibit Baseball Cello Boxes

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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.

36 1959 Topps Football Cello Packs

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PSA has slabbed 141 1959 Topps Football Cello Packs; I have to presume a few of them are crossovers from when Mastro sold this lot of 36 GAI-graded 2nd-Series examples in August 2004.

The Global Authentication encapsulated slabs included seven Mint 9s, two NM-MT 8.5s, two NM-MT 8s, 19 NM+ 7.5s, and six NM 7s. A bunch of stars were visible on the top or bottom, including Kramer, Mitchell, Parker, Jones, Tittle, Robustelli, Lebaron, and Taylor.

The lot also included the fully intact display box, advertised as in Ex/Mt condition.

These days, most individually PSA-slabbed 1959 Topps Football cello packs have settled at a base price of ~$1500 (despite their high pop) but can sell for much more with stars showing or a touch less if they’re in rough shape.

1964 Philadelphia Football Cello Box

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Sotheby’s auctioned this 1964 Philadelphia Football cello box in 1993. It looks amazing in B&W with all the packs laid out. However, given BBCE wrapping/authentication, it’s unlikely to see a box displayed like this again!

Sotheby’s described the lot as a “full box of 36 ten cent packs, Cello packs have a printed blue, red and yellow wrapper, box is only good condition, packs are untampered with and mostly mint condition.” They expected a final price between $4,000 and $5,000.

While the black-and-white image is pretty nice, they’re actually super colorful, impressively designed, standout display pieces. Of course, they aren’t cheap anymore; Heritage sold this example first-year issue 1964 Philadelphia Football cello box for $32,400 in May 2000.

1969 Topps Display Box Proof Sheet

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Here’s a 1969 Topps Cello Box Proof Sheet. Notice both the purple and red box variations on the single sheet.

The sheet was described as a large 29” x 38” uncut final process sheet that contains six complete 24 count ten cent 1969 Topps display boxes, with each box containing the color photos of Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, Bob Gibson, Pete Rose, and others. The sheet was folded down and across at the center over the years and was listed as in VG condition.

Here are examples of both 1969 Topps cello box variations.