I don't know if many people are collecting unopened promo packs or maybe some oddball packs that are hardly ever seen. I decided to start a thread about promo packs I might have seen just once or have hardly ever seen or just some oddball ones.
I used to keep some rare packs unopened but then Todd said he always opens them. It makes sense because cards can stick together over time if they get warm or if even a tiny bit of moisture gets inside. Someone once told me not to buy unopened packs of those Karl Art promos (Dimension X, Space Bananas, Epoch, etc.) because the foil fronts have often stuck to the backs of the cards in front of them. It was better to open them when they were new so look for loose singles if you're interested in them now. I have seen unopened packs of those in the past few years.
Anyway, here's a scan of the First International Billiard 5-card promo (sample) set from 1993. I had heard of it but I didn't recall ever seeing one until last month at a flea market.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,
Posts: 5667 | Location: San Jose, CA, USA | Registered: December 23, 2002
YEah I never keep unopened promo packs, cello or otherwise. I picked up a shrink-wrapped set of one of the Avatar Projects efforts, Satisfaction I think, and the cards were stuck together. Pieces of one card ended up on another. And cello-packs yellow over time so there's that. I never understood the purpose of unopened unless you have plans or hopes to sell later. Same thing happened recently with a set from a Devo-inspired video game. Little specs of white left by pieces of the cards coming off.
Plus, unopened is unappreciated. In my opinion of course. I have no beef with sealed pack collectors, I recognize it is a segment of the hobby, I just don't understand the reason. But then again, I am a simple mountain boy, and your world frightens me.
Posts: 2469 | Location: Maine | Registered: August 04, 2001
Here's a Super Country Music 4-card promo pack (Tenny Cards, 1992). This pack might have been rather easy to find back in 1992 but it's hard-to-find now. It's not in-demand so if you did find one, it might cost you just a few bucks or maybe ten bucks at most.
The cards inside are unnumbered but so are the ones in the regular set. As noted in another thread, I looked for an image of the back of the regular John Anderson card which shows on the back of the pack. It turned out that the text was different so the card in the pack is an unmarked prototype.
I have the regular Holly Dunn card too and will open the pack to compare the two now that I have images of it sealed. It seems likely that all four cards are unmarked prototypes.
Posts: 5667 | Location: San Jose, CA, USA | Registered: December 23, 2002
Originally posted by catskilleagle: Here's a Super Country Music 4-card promo pack (Tenny Cards, 1992). This pack might have been rather easy to find back in 1992 but it's hard-to-find now. It's not in-demand so if you did find one, it might cost you just a few bucks or maybe ten bucks at most.
The cards inside are unnumbered but so are the ones in the regular set. As noted in another thread, I looked for an image of the back of the regular John Anderson card which shows on the back of the pack. It turned out that the text was different so the card in the pack is an unmarked prototype.
I have the regular Holly Dunn card too and will open the pack to compare the two now that I have images of it sealed. It seems likely that all four cards are unmarked prototypes.
Here's a 9-card Star Wars Widevision promo pack that was a mailaway through Pepsi. Todd already discussed recently in his Data Plates thread. The cards do not say "Pepsi" on them so the packs and singles might have been overlooked by many collectors back then and even this year. I saw a pack sell for $15 because Pepsi wasn't in the title nor description. I'm still not sure what the going-rate on this is - maybe around $50 now. It would be interesting to see where an auction ends at.
Be aware that a couple of sellers have tried offering a 3-card pack as the Pepsi promo pack but those cards are just the SWP1, SWP2, and SWP3 which were easy to find in the 90's and still easy to find. The real Pepsi promo pack contains 9 cards.
Posts: 5667 | Location: San Jose, CA, USA | Registered: December 23, 2002
The easiest way to tell these are Pepsi promo cards is the lack of the hologram widevision stamp in the bottom right corner. The Pepsi promos have a grey matte color.
Originally posted by Zane DeVan: The easiest way to tell these are Pepsi promo cards is the lack of the hologram widevision stamp in the bottom right corner. The Pepsi promos have a grey matte color.
there's some PCE DataPlate on this somewhere....
Posts: 2469 | Location: Maine | Registered: August 04, 2001
Originally posted by cardscout182: DANG Jess, I wanna join you at a flea market!! You find the coolest stuff mate...
yeah I don't have those flea markets up here in the sticks. Just tiny ones, and they just sell flea-ridden stuff and dusty sports-card dumped boxes. I should move closer to the food source, but I'll take my low-to-no population instead.
Posts: 2469 | Location: Maine | Registered: August 04, 2001
The flea markets in this area are in high school or junior college parking lots. There used to be more of them. My stepdad used to go to as many as possible. He'd look for records, guitars, books - all kinds of stuff. He gave me some cool books including one on sea monsters. We lost him in 2019.
I went to one last weekend. One regular seller had a mix of 60's and 70's singles. It was the same lot I picked from a couple of months ago (I bought a few Nu-Card Dinosaurs and a Scary Monsters Scare-Cards Horror Hosts set) but with no additional cards. I noticed all the Target Moon cards were gone. Other than some Johnny Lightning packages with cards (ones I already had), I didn't see much else cardwise.
Anyway, here's a pack (Big League Cards, 1988) that was offered as a 1-card pack with gum, but when I received it, I saw it was a 4-card pack, and when I opened it, it was actually a 5-card pack promoting Robert Klein's short-lived 80's talk show on the USA Network. As with 70's cards, the single pressed against the gum got stained over time but is still in decent shape.
It's another offering by Big League Cards that I had never heard of before. I don't know the source (maybe a trade show giveaway).
Posts: 5667 | Location: San Jose, CA, USA | Registered: December 23, 2002
This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle, 
