Wax Box

A Rare Sight: Mint 1965 Topps Tall Boy 5-Cent Display Boxes

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You’re not going to see many mint 1965 Topps Tall Boy 5-cent Display Boxes on the market; I scanned this one from Mastro’s December 2007 catalog.

This empty box once held 24 5-cent packs, and one or more of them may have contained Joe Namath’s rookie card. Its minimum bid was $300 at the time, but I’m unsure what it closed at.

As I said, the box is rarely found, especially in mint condition. However, you may remember that in September 2017, MileHighCard Co. sold a full unopened BBCE-authenticated box for $145,746 and a box with 21/24 packs for $106,149.

Exploring auction history over the past few years, it looks like mid-grade display boxes have been selling for between $250 and $500.

Happy collecting, and don’t forget to check out The Unopened Archive!

Unopened Packs – To Open Or Not To Open?

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Here’s another great mid-90s article from Sports Cards Magazine about the unopened collecting niche; this one from Doug Koztoski includes info from Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid.

Here are a few key takeaways:

  • “For every pack that is opened from a particular year, all remaining packs are that much rarer.”
  • Doug interviewed Mark Murphy, the Baseball Card Kid, for insights; he was the Steve Hart (The Baseball Card Exchange) of the hobby then.
  • Murphy said that Wax was the pack of choice with unopened collectors; I think that’s still true.
  • At the time, a 1-cent 1933 Goudey Sports Kings pack was ~$600
  • The article highlighted that ’59 football penny packs were pretty common, but a penny pack from ’60 is tough to find.
  • A run of 1950s baseball nickel packs was estimated at $61,500 in the mid-’90s.
  • Fake packs were already very commonplace at the time.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

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.

Some of my most unique unopened writing is released via the paid tier of my newsletter, The Unopened Market Report, but if you’re looking for a particular unopened product photo, shoot me an e-mail.

Baseball

Basketball

Football

Hockey

Other Sports

Multi-Sport

Non-Sports

Unopened Hobby Books, Magazine Articles, and 101s

14 1950’s and 1960’s Topps Display Boxes

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You just don’t see lots with this many vintage Topps display boxes as you used to when Ron Oser Enterprises offered these 14 together in April 2001.

All were described as five-cent 24-count boxes (unless noted) in excellent or better condition. The lot included the following items:

  • 1951 Topps Red Back (one cent 120 count)
  • 1958 Topps
  • 1959 Topps dated
  • 1959 Topps undated
  • 1960 Topps with a “5th Series” label on top
  • 1961 Topps dated
  • 1962 Topps
  • 1962 Topps with “stamps” ad – along with 9 off-condition 1962 wrappers inside the box
  • 1964 Topps (2)
  • 1965 Topps with Mantle, Koufax, & Killebrew – one wrapper inside the box
  • 1966 Topps
  • 1969 Topps Baseball Stamps – filled with 75 stamp albums

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

24 1969/70 Topps Basketball Wax Packs

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This is what we in the hobby would call a “fun rip.”

These 24 GAI-graded 1969/70 Topps basketball wax packs were offered for sale together in Mastro’s April 2004 catalog. The original 24-count counter-sales display box was included, too.

Each 10-cent pack had ten cards and one of the year’s paper “rulers” inserts. The pack’s grades included GAI Perfect 10: 6 packs; GAI Gem Mint 9.5: 7 packs; GAI Min 9: 7 packs; GAI NM-MT+ 8.5: 1 pack; GAI NM-MT 8: 2 packs; GAI NM+ 7/5: 1 pack.

If you didn’t know, PSA started grading oversized packs around the fall of 2023, and most notably, Goldin sold a lot of 14 1969 Topps basketball tallboy packs in March 2024 for $148,840!

The packs’ grades included:

  • PSA NM 7: 1 pack
  • PSA EX-MT 6: 9 packs
  • PSA EX 5: 4 packs

At the time (June 2024), PSA’s Pop Report still only included those 14 packs.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

The 1992 Galovich Report On Unopened Material

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Tony Galovich wrote the following three-page article about “investing” in unopened card packs and boxes for the June 1992 issue of Alan Kaye’s Sports Cards News & Price Guides; it brought about a lot of conversation on Facebook, so I thought I’d share it here too.

You can see that he highlighted some interesting history:

  • A 1953 Topps five-cent baseball wax pack sale for $11k in the summer of 1991.
  • A 1954 Topps cello pack with Hank Aaron showing that sold for $25k in the fall of 1991.
  • A 1934 Goudey wax pack with Jimmie Foxx on the bottom that sold for $20k in 1992.
  • All the 1952 Topps baseball wax packs emerging; including a find of around 800 in Seattle in 1991. He said dealers were paying $5k each for them and that someone had just opened a complete box
  • The find of an entire case of 1953 Topps five-cent packs (Canadian variation) a few years earlier.
  • The sale of a 1951 Bowman one-cent wax pack for $1,500 “recently.”
  • The price appreciation of 1961 Topps rack packs going from $600 a few years earlier to $1,500 in 1992.
  • A 1967 Topps high-number case selling for >$70,000 and the find of 1961 and 1962 cases.
  • The sale of a 1952 Topps high number case eight years earlier for over $200k.
  • He shared market prices for the following football products: 1959 Topps vending box-$2,200, 1957 five-cent wax pack-$550, 1964 Philadelphia rack pack-$450, 1984 USFL set case-$30k, 1972 high number wax box-$3,600, 1960 Fleer wax pack-$250, and 1966 Topps wax pack-$325.
  • From a basketball side he said that 1957 Topps packs were selling for $1k+ and that he heard of a vending case sale in 1991. He also said 1961 Fleer packs were fetching $500+. Also, 1969 Topps boxes were worth >$5k, with packs being >$500. In 1986, Fleer basketball cases were worth $30k, with the rarer 1987 cases bringing $10k.
  • Galovich also talked about how scarce hockey unopened products already were in 1992. 

As I wrote in the intro, I shared the article on the Facebook “Vintage Wacks and Packs” group, and it prompted some interesting comments:

  • One collector asked if the 1952 case was the Mr. Mint case, but that one was for cards from a case. However, another collector mentioned that he knew who sold that case and who bought it and that it sold for $450k, not $200k. Also, that year, NrMt-Mt ’52 Mantles dropped to $675.
  • Another collector mentioned that he’d been collecting since 1970 and had never heard of the ’52 case but had remembered the ’67 case. He also saw first-hand, around 1983, an unopened high series case of 63s.
  • The person who sold the 1954 cello pack with Hank Aaron on top commented that a large horde of Topps high-number boxes was found and sold at the KC show in 1980 between 1962 and 1967 by a retired Topps sales guy.
  • One of the group admins made a note of “the reference to the 1975 cello with Brett on top and Yount on back, BOTH of which just happened to be faced out (a known trademark for a certain someone who was active during that time), illustrates just how long ago star pack were being fabricated.” I suppose I need to republish my old articles about 1975 Topps pack collation.

Happy collecting!

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!

1952 Topps Look ‘n See One-Cent Display Box

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I’ve studied the unopened hobby niche for a while, and this is the first 1952 Topps Look ‘n See One-Cent Display Box I’ve seen. It was offered for sale in an April 2004 auction catalog along with a five-cent wrapper.

The cards from the 1952 Topps Look ‘n See set aren’t particularly scarce, but the unopened material rarely surfaces.

The 6-1/2” x 6-1/2” x 2” EX/MT conditioned display box originally held 120 1-cent wax packs.

Check out The Unopened Archive for more!