NEW YORK (AP) — The excitement building in your chest. The hunt for the right card. And that chalky, sugar-dusted stick of gum. For countless baseball card enthusiasts across multiple generations, nothing compared to scraping together a few coins and racing to the corner store to grab a wax pack.
Some fans couldn’t wait — they’d tear the slightly sticky paper wrapper apart and flip through all the cards at once. That frenzied approach gave rise to the still-popular term “ripping wax,” used even now to describe opening card packs, despite the fact that actual wax wrappers haven’t been used in roughly 35 years. Others preferred to savor the moment, sliding out one card at a time, maybe peeking at just a corner, or flipping the pack upside down for suspense. No matter your method, it felt like the only right way to do it.
“There is something inherently magic about peeling away the paper of the wax pack. There’s something visceral about it, taking the pack to your face and smelling it,” says Brian Pirrip, owner of collectible business M1NT. “It’s something about the mix of all these scents — the wax, the gum, the cardboard — that transports you back to a different time.”
Trading and collecting baseball cards has been woven into the sport’s culture since the 1860s. But the wax pack as we know it made its debut in 1951, introduced by Topps as the go-to way to deliver cards to eager young fans.
Cracking open a fresh pack was always a rush. Would you pull a future Hall-of-Famer like Brooks Robinson, or a lesser-known player like Sixto Lezcano? It didn’t matter much — Pirrip describes the feeling either way as “an innocent joy.” After opening, the real fun began: scaling cards, flipping them, wheeling and dealing to turn a pack of 15 into 20. Those cards went everywhere you did.
Driven by history, stats, and legend, baseball card collecting caught fire during the nostalgia wave of the 1980s and grew into a massive industry. The market eventually became flooded with cards, pushing prices down — but that same abundance of beloved players has sparked a renewed enthusiasm for hunting down and opening old wax packs.
Modern foil packs offer their own thrills, with collectors chasing autographed cards, refractors, and other premium inserts. But for many, nothing beats the feel of tearing into a wax pack and biting down on that thin pink rectangle of gum.
Pirrip has carried his passion for the hobby across 47 states, watching face after face light up the moment a favorite card appears.
At a recent evening event held at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, Pirrip brought out a box of 1987 Topps cards and invited guests to rip some wax. Cards featuring Nolan Ryan, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, and Kirby Puckett drew audible gasps from the crowd. But even players whose names hadn’t been spoken in years brought smiles to people’s faces.
“It instantly transports people to a happier time,” Pirrip says. “You can’t get that with anything else.”
This story is part of “American Objects,” a recurring series marking the 250th anniversary of the United States.
