Back in June of 2020, I went to an awesome card show held in an old Forever 21 store eighty-five miles away. I'm not the biggest fan of driving that far for a show... but this time around... it was totally worth it. The amount of cool stuff I picked up at bargain prices easily made up for the money I wasted on gas.
Today's post revolves around an item I purchased at that show. It's an uncut sheet of 1982 Topps team leader cards... which contains twenty-seven cards divided into three nine-card panels.
This sheet was sitting in a dealer's 5 for $1 box and I snatched it up and put it into my stack as soon as I could. I really like the 1982 Topps set, but that's not the main reason I wanted this sheet. I wanted it because I had never seen one before.
It's taken me seven months, but I've finally gotten around to look into this mysterious uncut sheet. I started with Beckett's website, but they only mentioned that it was part of a mail-away offer. TCDB provided a little more clarity by stating it was a wrapper redemption offer... which led me to search eBay for wrapper scans. That's where I found this:
In case you're wondering if these cards are any different from the ones pulled from packs... they are. You can easily tell the difference by turning the sheet over:
I'm 98% sure I owned some of these. If I remember correctly... I used them to house my Empire Strikes Back cards.
As you can see... Topps used a white cardstock very similar to the Tiffany sets that arrived two years later.
Back in 1982, there were only twenty-six MLB teams, which means there was one spot Topps needed to fill on this sheet. They ended up using it to advertise two storage options for their customers.
The front featured these "easy-to-carry files" that kids could store their cards in:
The back featured the popular card lockers from the 80's:
I definitely owned one of these lockers (doubt it was the Topps brand) that I used to store my 1981 Fleer baseball set at one point.
These are the type of card show purchases I love, because I added something different to my collection (although it's not easy to store) and it motivated me to research the item and learn something new. That knowledge is well worth the 20¢ it cost me.
By the way... this is part of the same purchase that included the uncut sheets of Hostess Cards and oversized Donruss Puzzles I wrote about back in September.
I'm not exactly sure when this show is coming back and even if it does... there's no guarantee this dealer will be there. And even if he does set up... who knows if he'll have cool stuff like this again at these awesome prices. But if I'm available... it's worth me taking the risk and wasting the gas to get there.
Well that's it for today. Here's your question of the day...
Did you ever take advantage of wax wrapper offers?
If so, what did you buy?
I look forward to reading and responding to your comments. Happy Thursday and sayonara!
18 comments:
Wow, nice research, Fuji. Great bargain, too! The closest I've come to taking advantage of a wax wrapper offer was when I sent away for some Topps stickers I needed way back when I was a kid. (I think you'd get to choose 10 stickers for $2.00.)
I've got a couple of 1982 wrappers for you (2 variations); I'll bring them to Serramonte (Saturday). Interesting that the player used for the storage box photo is obviously Ron Cey (with the team logos removed); I sent one to Greg/Night Owl a few yrs ago for his collection and he'd never seen it previously.
In the 70's I got card lockers from the Topps 1974 wrappers ,I used to keep all my cards in them until I discovered 800 count boxes.
Cool. I've never seen those before.
This was a common practice for Topps in the '70s, in which you could order the entire set of team card checklists (which morphed into the team leaders cards of 1982) from wrapper offers. I believe it started with the checklists in which the signatures were on the front of the card in '73/'74. Unlike the '82 leaders cards, the offer was also on the back of the 1975 Topps team cards and that's how I learned of being able to get the full sheets, which my brother and I ordered that year. I still have a few of them (didn't keep the sheet intact) as well as one or two from 1977.
And, yes, I still have that Cey storage box from mr haverkamp.
Really awesome card show pick up. Wow. They look awesome and the research aspect sounded super fun. No, I never did any wax packet redemption offers.
That is awesome. I opened, many, many, many packs of '82 cards and never bothered to send in for those. Kind of wish I had. I do have the '83 wrapper redemption however.
Oh wow, that is such an amazing find (in a 5 for 1$ bin no less!) I've never seen those before either, they look so cool.
No I didn't but wish I had.
Never wrappers but I did get a complete set of 1991 Topps via Bazooka Joe comics.
Wow, nice snag. I never did submit any wrappers for anything, but I would have snagged that one as well. Super cool.
I think I mailed away for exactly one wrapper redemption offer a while back - think it was something involving 2011 Topps. Can't remember what exactly it was so I guess it couldn't have been that great.
I have one of those Cey storage boxes. Used to keep the '83 Donruss Cobb puzzle in it.
I don't think I ever did wrapper redemptions, but tried some the in-pack promos, such as Sluggers fantasy and draw your own card (for a chance to win a trip or something).
Those are really sweet looking cards! I bought two Durham Bulls team sets last year in sheet form, framed them both, and they look great. When I was a kid, I used to always do the glossy All-Star sets, but those weren't a wrapper redemption for long. At some point, Topps had a contest card with the offer and set details on the back.
Back in 1974 I got a similar team checklist sheet, but I think that was the only time I ever did that
I got a lot of 5x7 cards from a mail-in offer in 1981. The cards look great and the player selection was impressive - 10 of the 15 are HOFers. Others - Rose, Garvey, Parker, Bell, Cooper.
gregory - i took advantage of that sticker deal a few years ago, but they were panini stickers. i bought a bunch of japanese soccer player stickers from a world cup set.
mr haverkamp - i remember night owl writing about that cey box and tried to find it, but failed. looking forward to seeing you and catching up at serramonte
sg488 - that's pretty cool that they had those sports lockers back in the 70's too. i bet they are worth a ton of money in nice condition
gtt - me either. always fun to learn new things about cards
night owl - i vaguely remember the checklist mail-in offers. i think the 1974 one came with the set i purchased. i remember that post on your blog and tried to find it so i could link it, but failed.
peter k steinberg - glad to see you're still around the blogs. you still collecting strawberry and kruk? if so, have some set aside for you that i'd like to send your way
crocodile - the 83 LL sheet is pretty cool. the thomas/jackson split card stands out to me
sean - i really enjoy oddball items like this... especially for the price
johnnys trading spot - with all of the collections you purchase, i'm guessing you have most of them anyways
nick vossbrink - i think i have a few singles from the 1991 bazooka set in my collection. didn't realize it was part of a complete set redemption offer though. very cool.
sumomenkoman - it'd be pretty cool if bbm did wrapper redemptions.
nick - i did a quick google search and discovered they had a wrapper redemption for some 60th anniversary black diamond cards (that look like shiny 1952 topps)
anonymous - nice. kinda want to add one of those storage boxes now.
the lost collector - i first remember those draw your own cards in the 90's. i think collector's choice had them.
the snorting bull - while writing this post, i thought about those glossy all-star sets. i remember the contest cards inside of packs, but vaguely remember them being on wax wrappers too.
the shlabotnik report - i'm pretty sure i own the team checklist cards from the 1974 set. didn't realize they were originally released as sheets though.
runforekelloggs - i didn't realize those 5x7 cards were a mail-in offer too. i opened some of the ones that came in regional team packs.
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