Not all it's cracked up to be

 

I've written many times about how I adore Kellogg's 3-D sets from the '70s and early '80s. They are my favorite oddball and food issue of all-time, born out of childhood and breakfast mornings staring at the back of cereal boxes.

I love them.

And they're breaking my heart.

Not only have I been struggling to acquire new ones the last year-and-a-half due to the rise in prices on those cards that previously no one wanted, but their brittle nature is causing me to question whether it's worth it to pursue them anymore.

An example:

I discovered this cracked 1976 Kellogg's Reggie Jackson in my box of Kellogg's cards a few months ago. I was crushed.

The '76 set is complete and just about every one is pristine, there's only one that I can think of that has some wear and yellowing. Nothing has cracks. I just love the beautiful white borders contrasting with the red-and-blue stripes on this set. But cracks -- oh, no -- that's all I see.

The other reason it was so devastating is that this card was a gift, from reader R.C., who generously sent it before I was even seriously trying to complete this set. It meant a lot, as I took up the project, to know the Jackson was safe in my hands without a mark.

Now it has marks -- and not minor nicks on the side or corner that I usually excuse, but GREAT, BIG, CRACKING.

It took me weeks to decide what to do about this and finally I decided to buy another one. I just couldn't let this card be the only subpar example in my complete set.

The card arrived over the weekend. It's my first purchase of the new year. Please note that it arrived in a top-loader. We'll be discussing this later.

The new card is not as nicely centered as the previous one but I can live with that. What I can't live with is for this one to crack, too.

I wish I could be one of those collectors who can gather these cards with cracks galore, they certainly would be cheaper and cause much less heartache, but I just can't do it. I think it's because these were the height of card technology when I was growing up (yet, they weren't placed in gold packs or behind the counter, but amid cereal flakes. Don't tell me I didn't grow up in the best time).

Because of this, the Jackson incident made me wonder if my storage system was an issue. It's possible the card cracked during the Great Binder-Brett Encounter in which I discovered my '78 Kelloggs George Brett card cracked after a binder fell on my stack of Kelloggs cards underneath. That caused me to move all the Kelloggs cards into a box of their own.

 

Most of my Kelloggs cards are now stored in individual top-loaders in the double-long box that I brought home from a card show a few years ago. Here's a look:

 

There are around 420 Kellogg's cards in this box, everything I have from 1970 through 1982, except for the 1973 set and most of the Dodgers, which are stacked separately, on a shelf, outside of direct sunlight (so temperamental, these Kelloggs cards).

I've taken pains to make sure I don't unwittingly crack them. I don't squeeze cards into the box and I don't knock the box around. In fact, I rarely touch it, taking cards out individual only as needed.

I've placed them in top-loaders because for a long time that seemed to thwart cracking. Now I'm wondering if it isn't the cause. The cards are so temperature-sensitive, could the restricting top-loader be preventing it from "breathing"? 

After the Jackson card discovery, I found this, from the same box, also in a top-loader:

Ouch.

There's a new one in my cart as I write this, but I don't know if I want to buy it now, because:

 

Oof.

And ...

The '77 Brett, TOO??????? I haven't even upgraded the '78 Brett yet!

Very disheartening.

Those were the only examples of cards that seemed to magically crack by just sitting in that box.

So is it the top-loaders? The Dodgers are also in top-loaders and, except for one time, they have been free of cracking. The only difference between those and the boxed ones are the Dodgers lie flat while the boxed ones are standing upright.

I don't want to put them in pages because they've cracked in those and with all the page-turning in binders, I'm squeamish. I could take them all out of the top-loaders, still keep them in penny sleeves and then set them ever-so-gently into a room-temperature box. But I get paranoid about the cards curling, which may be why they crack in top-loaders.

(Please note that none of the cracks have appeared in Kelloggs sets from 1979 and 1980, which makes me appreciate those skinnier cards even more).

So, I'm not sure what to do, and I am always hearing conflicting advice on these. Perhaps, they are just too sensitive for me, and with the prices as they are, I should move on to something that isn't going to be so soul-crushing because I can't stop loving them.

And until I figure that out, I won't be re-buying that Cruz or any other cards that happen to crack or any new Kelloggs cards either.

*Sigh* Maybe collecting these isn't all it's cracked up to be.