They're counting on you not remembering

 

Forty years ago, Topps and Kmart teamed up to release the first boxed set through a retail chain, which touched off those now familiar and ubiquitous sets from Topps, Fleer and many department stores that lasted through the 1980s.

But the 1982 Kmart set was unique when it came out. I know. I was there.

My brother worked at Kmart at the time. One day he came home from work to tell his fellow baseball-card-addicted brothers that Kmart was selling some sort of new Topps set in individual boxes.

We were intrigued.

Everything about this was new. A 44-card set all in one mini box? Never heard of such a thing. You can only get them in one particular department store? Wild. I was instantly jealous of my brother. He had access. My brother picked up a box almost immediately. We could afford them even on our paltry salaries. I remember each box costing $1.97.

 

But getting a box was more difficult for me. I don't remember what time of year it was but maybe I had school to go to, and I still had that dumb paper route. I remember thinking I wouldn't be able to get to Kmart until Saturday. But it shouldn't be any problem because my brother said there was whole wall of them as you walked into the store.

Then my brother had an update: they were going fast. They certainly were. By the time I was able to get there on the weekend, they were gone. The local Kmart loaded up the wall again. And they were gone again.

I marveled over my brother's lone box. Each card was a duplicate of the individual cards that represented every AL and NL MVP from 1962 through 1981 (Kmart was celebrating its 20th anniversary with the set as the store began in '62). It was very similar to the 1975 Topps MVP subset, which I knew very well.

That took out some of the excitement of the set for me -- most of these were repeats -- but I still wanted it. New card sets didn't come around very often in the early 1980s. You had March/April and cereal boxes and that was about it. Anything new was fascinating.

 

But the thrill of the set faded away as the months went by. I began to notice in the mail-order collectible catalogs that came to my home that the Kmart set was selling for much cheaper than almost everything else. Then, in the yearly Beckett Price Guide, I would notice the 1982 Kmart set, with those familiar three columns of M, EX and VG, sold for freakishly low prices. The VG price was 1 cent, which I had never before seen in the Price Guide. And it stayed that way for ensuing price guides each year. The 1982 Kmart set become known to me as The Cheapest Set Ever Made.

 

The set was released in abundant quantities. It's probably the first junk wax set of the '80s, as defined by the most overproduced. The reports are that speculators -- gotta love those speculators -- bought up loads of the cards (probably cleared out my Kmart) and then found no takers because, as I experienced, the thrill didn't last long.

So, now, move ahead 40 years.

I still didn't have the set. I don't know why. I just never got around to getting it. I've owned all the Dodgers in the set for years and years. And I've come across assorted '82 Kmart cards in repacks and such. It just didn't seem like anything I needed. Until a couple of weeks ago.

I thought: It's been 40 years, I really should have that. I started looking around ebay for a set. Should be cheap. Nothing more than 6 bucks sounds about right.

OK, it seems there are a few people who are counting on you not remembering.

They're hoping you didn't experience 1982. Hall and Oates, Joan Jett, Eye of the Tiger, Harvey's Wallbangers. They're hoping it Hurts So Good.

But I was there. I saw those prices in Beckett. I don't care how many people are collecting cards now. Nothing in those boxes comes out to $29.99.

Fortunately there are just as many reasonably priced '82 Kmart box sets. They aren't exactly rare. I selected one of those and it arrived the other day.

All right, it doesn't look as shiny and clean as the picture on the ebay page (which is at the top of the post).

But everything else was relatively sharp and intact.

There it all is. I can't believe it took me 40 years to get this thing.

 

Honestly, this is the only card I really wanted. We died over this card in '82.

There was just one issue, though, with the box, which I should have known. But that's the one thing that even I didn't remember.

 

That's right. There was gum. Everything had to have gum back then.

 

The foreign object.

I braced for a damaged card as I saw the gum slide out before most of the cards.

Weirdly the cards weren't in numeric order. I don't remember how they came out of the box back in '82. The 1977 Rod Carew card, No. 31 in the set, was the first card in the stack out of this box.

And the last card, No. 21, -- oof ...

Double oof.

The card on top of the Dick Allen, the 1969 Harmon Killebrew (card No. 15), shows a slim gum stain on one edge, which isn't much and I have another one in my collection anyway.

But I had to go back online and get a fresh-and-clean Allen card separately.

I really should've gotten that box when my brother worked at Kmart. If we weren't so stingy with our money at the time, I would've asked him to get me a box, too.

Oh, and ebay hucksters and speculators are stupid.