Thursday, May 5, 2011

Wax Packs

I haven't collected trading cards since the mid-nineties, but after a recent nostalgia fueled eBay session I ended up with half a dozen unopened wax packs. Until the late eighties/early nineties, virtually all trading cards came in wax packages, often with a "bonus" stick of terrible, terrible gum that would often shatter in your mouth and cut the inside of your cheek when you tried to chew it. Since I was more of an indoorsy kid growing up, I was always interested in non-sports trading cards (Garbage Pail Kids, Dinosaurs Attack!, Wacky Packages, etc.) and my recent purchases definitely reflected that (no need to get into details, but let's just say I'm now the proud owner of a pack of Alf cards). While I have no interest in collecting full sets of classic cards, there's just something nice about holding a vintage wax pack in your hands. I told a friend recently about buying the wax packs and he asked, "What did you do with them?" I said, "Well, I took them out of the envelope, looked them over, and then put them away." He laughed, but I hardly regret the purchase.

Rating: 80s%

(Image from timemachinetoys.com)

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Trying to imagine how they could vary up the Knight Rider cards. Not a wealth of characters to work with.

Quammy said...

They made a lot of card sets based on TV shows from the late 70s/early 80s (including a Welcome Back Kotter set) but I'd bet that the Knight Rider set was especially terrible.

They probably sold really well in Germany though.