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Introduction

Hey folks - my name is Tomas, and I'm a collector in the San Francisco Bay Area (though I grew up on the East Coast). I started collecting Star Wars cards as a child, picking up a pack every Sunday after church. I still wince a bit when I remember putting the Star Wars stickers all over my bicycle. As time went on, I continued collecting with Empire and RotJ, as well as Garbage Pail Kids, Batman, Fright Flicks, Dinosaurs Attack, etc. Some time in the late 80s, I started collecting single unopened packs of cards. It felt like a natural progression to go from a kid opening packs of cards every weekend and trading doubles with his friends, to being an older kid who enjoys owning an unopened pack instead of the whole series. I'm happy to have found this site, and to learn that there are others who share my strange little hobby. And I'm definitely jealous that Philadelphia and Chicago have Non-Sport Card shows. There doesn't seem to be anything like that on the West Coast.

8 comments

8 Comments

NonSportDude24

Nov 09, 2022

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I'm over here in Northern California as well. We have a few sports cards shows but I think in the 30 years off and on I've collected I have only ever witnessed one or two booths with non sports cards outside of MTG or Pokémon. And most of them were 80s Ninja Turtles,gi joe, and 70s Elvis. One guy back in 2017 Tri Star show had old 70s baseball unopened and one pack of late 60s man on the moon. Slim pickings for non sport here on the West Coast.

Wax Pack Dude

Oct 16, 2022

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Hello Tomas welcome to the forums. My collecting started out much like yours. Single packs of mainly 1960s-1990. I got sidetracked recently and have been acquiring full boxes (It’s mikes fault, he forced me to go halfsies on a huge deal about a year ago). Here is a pic of about half the merch.

nonsportwax

Oct 14, 2022

I've been taking pictures of the packs for sale at various shows for the past few years. Check out the "Pack Sightings" page.

This is definitely a niche section of an already niche hobby! I suspect the non-sport card collectors can't quite figure us out and the sports guys think we're all crazy.

Do you have a list of packs you are looking for?

Wax Pack Dude

Oct 16, 2022

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Replying to

I bought a Yule Laff pack about 10 years ago and it remains one of my favorite packs in my collection. They pop up about once a year or so, we will keep our eyes out for you.

DJ Tomas

Oct 18, 2022

Replying to

I've been loving the photos of packs from the various shows. My wife calls them "nerd porn" and she's not wrong. Do you collect the sellers' info? Do you find that they just sell at the conventions, or do they sell/ship throughout the year?

His name was Adam

Oct 18, 2022

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Replying to

A few of the dealers also sell on eBay. I've figured out who couple are and if I see something interesting, I contact them privately and work out a deal which saves fees etc. Some will trade also. You can start tracking sold prices for items you are interested in to get a feel of the real values of things. Many of the listed eBay prices are just ridiculous - like 5-10 times what similar things have already sold for. It's also important to take a good look at the pack before you buy. For example there was a GAI 9.5 pack recently sold with a large tear in the wrapper which obviously happened after it was graded. I see more tears in PSA packs than GAI whose holders seem to protect the packs better. Too bad GAI is out of business. On the other hand, PSA grades are more reliable that the later GAI stuff.