Vintage Breaks Blog

It's a Saturday morning in 1987 and you're sitting on the living room floor on hot, Sunny day.  You're dancing your cares away with with Fraggle Rock on TV. In your hands is a wax pack of Topps baseball cards.  You can't wait to tear the green wrapper off and look at those 17 wood-grain  beauties before you chow down on that (fresh?) stick of gum.  Hoping to check off players you need like Don Mattingly, Bo Jackson, or Rickey Henderson.  The joy of getting one of the 792 cards you need  to complete the set and the sadness of pulling a fourth Gary Gaetti.  Every break you do with us I go right back to 1987  as I watch your breaks - the highs, the lows, and the memories of when it all began, and think how I still love collecting today.

After I got a little too old for Fraggle Rock (sorry, Doc), dad began taking me to the Albany-Colonie Yankee games - a double A affiliate of the big boys.  In the early 90's, what would be "The Core Four" of the Yankees came through the farm system.  For about $2.00, we'd sit in the section down the third-base line and watch the likes of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera play the game.  I didn't know who these players were back then but did what all kids do - chased them around for an autograph.  To this day, I still own a free t-shirt from a giveaway night with the AC-Yanks logo on the front and Coca-Cola on the back.   Fortunately I was lucky enough to have Mariano sign the shirt, big and bold.  Well, Marino, and the Ball Boy. 

At the ballpark shop stands, the team always stocked baseball cards.  Still loving to buy packs and build my sets, I couldn't resist asking for  a pack.  Packs were now about 65 cents which was still cheaper than the game ticket.  Other than that, not much had changed since 1987.  I'd open the pack up, get excited when I pulled Ken Griffey Jr  and groaned a bit when I saw another Bob Tewksbury card.   I'd eat my $1.00 hot dog and put the cards I needed aside.  After the game, cards I needed went into the binder, and I filled out the homemade checklist I made on graph paper.  I don't even know where to find graph paper these days...

Here we are in 2021 and I still think back to those early days with every pack I watch us break for you.  Whether you're in a break for 1984 Topps chasing Donnie baseball, a Jeter rookie from 1993 Topps, or big hits from a higher-end product like 2021 Topps Museum , I understand what it's like to pull a dud or a card you already have.  I'm with you - my four Gary Gaetti's and I get it.  We make up for those lesser pulls when we see the card you need for your set, or the player you love pops up out of the pack!    

When we break a pack for you, I'm right there back in 1987 in front of the TV, watching Fraggle Rock.  I'm sitting on the third-base side of the AC Yanks, eating the hot dog that I can taste in my mouth as I type this.  I celebrate your big pulls like I'm going to go fill in the square in my graph paper check list as if it's my own!

The next break you're in with us, take a minute and think back to what you were doing when you had that old Topps pack in your hands for the first time.  When you stroll into a ball park, maybe with your kids now, and you smell the hot dogs as the vendor walks by.  There may be a pack of 2021 Topps at the stands in the stadiums for you to give down to the tykes.  In 30 years the little ones will be remembering that moment, like you're reminiscing about right now, when they open a pack to find a Marino Rivera the third rookie.

Perhaps you pull an extra card out of 2021 Topps Museum in your next Vintage Breaks experience that you don't need, but you know the next time you're in a break you'll go back in time to those early days.  Times when you pull a Deter Jeter that brings you back to sitting on the third-base bleacher seats watching a young captain in AA.  Then pulling Cavin Biggio and remembering watching his dad, Craig, collect his 3,000th hit.  I'll be there, going back in time with you.

Be it a personal card for your collection, or if you want to bring your kids into the collecting world, head over to vintagebreaks.com and tell us: How can we help you build your collection?

I may just open your next pack with this song playing: