Unopened material is drying up. Collectors have an insatiable desire for old sports card packs that remain in their original state. Some buy them because they’re hard to find. Others buy them for the thrill you get when you crack into something that’s been sealed for years—sometimes decades. This week, we’re offering one of the latter.
Up for bid is a 1955 Bowman 5-cent wax pack, authenticated and graded by PSA. Inside are six unknown cards—and a piece of gum you definitely don’t want to chew. While a small group of boxes and packs was found in Tennessee many years ago, that particular “find” has long since been distributed among dealers and hobbyists. Any way you cut it, 1950s unopened packs are scarce and extremely desirable. The 1955 Bowman set features the “TV set” design that is very distinctive. Loaded with some of the greatest names from the ‘golden era’ of the 1950s, it was Bowman’s farewell issue. After it was distributed, Topps would buy the company and enjoy a monopoly that lasted until 1981. Vintage wax packs make great display/conversation pieces and if you simply can’t stand it, they are a blast to open. Could there be a Mantle, Mays or Aaron inside of this one? Who knows? There were a whopping—for the time anyway---320 cards in the set. Bowman had more players under contract than Topps and it shows on the checklist. What these old packs sell for for is often difficult to pinpoint. The only thing we know is that we don’t get them very often and we believe that the prices of this type of material are going nowhere but up in the future. They’re not making any more of them!