This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/2/2022
The Topps company was a dominant force in the sports card trading market for well over a half-century, but just 15 years after their inaugural baseball card release, the company struck gold again with one of the most popular and extensive non-sport franchises in the history of trading cards, starting with the 1967 Topps Wacky Packages die-cut series. It seemed implausible that in a golden age of baseball, paced by future legends like Mantle, Mays, Clemente, and Aaron, kids would buy Wacky Packs instead, but Topps once again had it right. Featuring parodies of consumer products, the cards provided a humorous take on items commonly found around the house, making them popular with young and old alike. The franchise would later become one of the most popular trading cards as a sticker series, but this original offering was for die cuts that could be removed and affixed to surfaces by a gummed reverse. However, not everyone appreciated the humor, and Topps received several cease and desist letters from companies that, at the time, owned the products being parodied. Replacements for the original 44-card series were created that ballooned the collection up to 56 cards, with the replacements taking the same card number as the one being replaced. Other, more forward-thinking companies, saw the popularity of the cards as an avenue to free advertising and a chance to increase their market share, and the franchise remained popular all throughout the 1970s. Individual cards from the original 1967 series have been known to command well into four figures for PSA 10 GEM MINT specimens. The featured unopened box is a rare survivor from days long past, hosting 24 five-cent packs. The box is sealed and authenticated by Baseball Card Exchange (BBCE), the foremost authority on unopened material. There are very few unopened boxes of 1960s material that are even in the same league, in terms of value and rarity, that this once-in-a-lifetime offering!