I can't get away from this set

 

A couple days ago I was sitting at my desk at work when a co-worker walked in to start his shift.

I greeted him and asked him how his sale of his childhood card collection was going. He's the one who brought me his amazing collection and asked me to appraise it. It's the first time I've asked him about it since and it's been going well, slow and steady, just as I figured.

 

We resumed working when not more than five minutes later, my boss came around the corner with two boxes in his hands and a question for us, "you guys have any use for these?"

 

I recognized them right away as Topps vending boxes, but I had no idea from what year since Topps used the same drawing of a 1950s boy and girl, madly pasting their baseball cards into a scrapbook, for years and years.

 

My boss had heard us discussing cards and had apparently heard it before because he had taken those boxes from his mother's home with the intent of unloading ... er, seeing if we wanted them.

 

I am always hopeful when the gift of cards come my way, especially when I don't know what it is. But that hope was dashed when I heard the year "1987." Yeah, (*shrug*), OK, I'll take it. We each accepted a box.

 

My co-worker was still unsuspecting. "More to add to the collection for the dealer!" he said. I dashed that notion immediately.

 

It's still cool, especially getting it from my boss, even if it is the most ubiquitous set of all-time. I've never owned a vending box. I've never seen those card vending machines that were stocked with these boxes. That was pretty much before my time.

 

For those like me who barely knew what these are, they contain 500 cards from the set. The cards apparently are immediately cut from full sheets and packed in vending boxes. They're key for condition-conscious collectors because the cards never encounter wax or gum damage.

 

But the boxes include whatever comes off the conveyor belt, so there are always dupes. You aren't getting 500 unique cards.

That's what it looks like opened.

Cynical collectors will suspect that someone has tampered with these boxes and removed the "good" cards. This doesn't look tampered with. I don't know the back story with these. I am assuming that these were childhood cards of my boss, he's about that age (he's younger than me). But I don't picture him being a "remove the good cards" person. He has shown almost zero interest in sports in all the time I've known him, I suppose they could've been removed back when he was a kid, but like my worker friend, he probably left cards behind a long time ago.

Anyway, none of that matters. I've completed 1987 Topps already and have no desire to add a second set. I can't even upgrade anything because I was "gifted' with a well-conditioned set seven years ago.

I don't need to say that I'm sick of the '87 set, especially this year with all of the Topps tributes on top of the '87 tributes they've been doing for the last decade. There is nonstop devotion to this set on Twitter, too, and I can't get away from it. Now I've got a 500-count box of dupes.

But just to show appreciation for the gesture (I'm sure I'll get a few "I wish I had a boss like that" comments), I thought it would be interesting to go through the box and see what was in it and what wasn't.

 

First off, I got a whole lot less dupes than I thought. I was prepared for something like eight Rick Leach cards. But the most I got were two of several players. (I don't have time to put the whole rundown here, but maybe I will later).

 

Second, it's possible that some of the "hot" cards of the time were removed long ago. I noticed quite a few missing rookies and young stars, such as the Bo Jackson card, the Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire cards, the Barry Larkin and Will Clark rookies, Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla. All that is left is pretty much Jamie Moyer and Pete Incaviglia.

I turned up several stars though, Cal Ripken, Mike Schmidt, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Gary Carter, Orel Hershiser and Reggie Jackson. But no Dwight Gooden or Don Mattingly or either of the Pete Rose cards.

 

Every one of the five checklists were in the box plus a couple duplicates. Hmm.

I suppose the only way to confirm would be to see what is in my co-worker's box ... or ask my boss. But I'm not nearly curious enough to do either of those things. Like I said, the set is finished.

I have a lot of extra 1987s now. I don't think I'm ever going to get this set out of my house or ever avoid mention of it.

Anybody need any?