Welcome to the fourth installment of Vintage Pack Facts. While there aren’t many collectors who wouldn’t love to rip open a 30, 40, 50 or 60+year-old pack, there isn’t really a readily available knowledge base for all of them. This series hopes to shed some light on one individual release each week in terms of the variety of packaging methods used, prices at the time, a little about the set itself and more.
VintageBreaks.com will often open the packs we’re discussing and we’ll sometimes share those segments so you can have a little fun going back in time.
This week: 1965 Philadelphia Football Rack Pack
- The 1965 Philadelphia Gum football set marked the second year of the company’s deal as the trading card partner of the NFL. Unlike the ’64 set, the ’65 Philly cards carry the NFL logo on the lower right. Once again, the set included 198 cards, with the set checklist created in alphabetical order by the names of the league cities and then by players’ last names. Each team is represented in 14 cards — a team card and another card diagramming a play the team had used.
- There are six Hall of Fame rookie cards in the set: Paul Warfield (No. 41), Mel Renfro (No. 53), Dick LeBeau (No. 64), Carl Eller (No. 105), Paul Krause (No. 189) and Charley Taylor (No. 195). Key veterans include future Hall of Famers Johnny Unitas (No. 12), Mike Ditka (No. 19), Jim Brown (No. 31), Bob Lilly (No. 47), Paul Hornung (No. 76) and Bart Starr (No. 81). PSA Gem Mint 10s of #41 Warfield ($11,027 ) and #105 Eller ($8,283) sold in 2010.
- 1965 Philadelphia cards were distributed in nickel wax packs, ten-cent cello packs and 29-cent rack packs. Each wax box contained 24 packs of five cards each. Cello packs held 12 cards and came 36 to a box. Rack packs held 36 cards–over 18 percent of the set–and sold for 29 cents. During its years of producing sports and non-sports cards, Philadelphia also produced giant, 100-card packs that were sold in the toy aisle of stores but we haven’t been able to confirm whether these were used for the ’65 Philadelphia set.
- The 1965 Philadelphia rack packs consisted of three 12-card cello packs inside an overwrap. Meant to hang on store shelving, they contain a header at the top.
- 1965 Philadelphia rack packs are rare, but have surfaced. In 2011, one pack featuring a Paul Hornung on the front sold for over $1,500 at auction. In 2004, a pair of high-grade racks sold for over $5,000.
- Philadelphia also produced rack packs for its James Bond set in 1965.
- PSA has graded over 29,000 1965 Philadelphia football cards. A little over 12 percent have rated 9 or 10.
- Vintage Breaks has taken a recently purchased 1965 rack pack and sold it as three separate 12-card cello packs. The first pack sold out within 24 hours. Watch the video below:
You can learn more about participating in vintage pack breaks—or just watch—by visiting VintageBreaks.com.
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