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July 17, 2026

Stacks and stacks of wax packs, now obsolete, summon the joy of baseball-card childhoods

By HOWIE RUMBERG
Associated Press

AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills [enlarge]
Collecting and trading cards has been part of the baseball ecosystem since the 1860s. But the wax pack emerged as the delivery method in 1951 by Topps.

NEW YORK — The anticipation. The chase. The powdery, sugar-coated board of gum! For generations of baseball card fans, there was nothing like scrounging up some change and sprinting to the store to buy a wax pack.


 
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