1968 Topps Empty Baseball Card Box

For Christmas, my step-daughter and her husband got me a gift certificate from Ebay.  I recently found an item that I've been looking to acquire  at a decent price and ended up winning it.

It is a 1968 empty box that contained the individual packs of baseball cards that year.  I am especially fond of it for 2 reasons:  The first is that as an 11 year old in 1968, it was at the peak of my collecting youth.  Second, there is a picture of Mickey Mantle on the box.

Incidentally, the packs I put in the box are not from 1968 but rather 1979.  I can't afford even one 1968 unopened pack of baseball cards.

The box will forever be special to me for another reason.  I won it on the day my step-daughter gave birth to her first child, a precious baby boy named Wyatt.

Thank you Jason and Laura for both gifts!

1968 Topps Baseball Cards

The Topps Baseball Card set from 1968 consists of 598 cards. Here is a wrapper the cards were packed in.


The cards have a tan mesh border. Here is a group of New York Yankee cards.


One of my favorite cards in the set is this card of Roger Maris. It was odd seeing him in a St. Louis Cardinal uniform as I only remembered him as a New York Yankee. But the picture of him is a classic pose.



There were some variations of cards issued in the set. Here is the card of Ed Brinkman. If you notice, the card on the left has his team name, Senators, in yellow while the card on the right has it in white.



I was 11 years old in 1968 and couldn't wait to watch the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox. Boston won the American League pennant on the last day of the season in a multi team race. I did not like the teams in the 1965 or 1966 World Series so this was going to be exciting. For Game #2, I was in school as a fifth grader and the Boston pitcher, Jim Longborg, was pitching a no hitter in the game. Usually someone had a radio (maybe even one of the teachers!) so we would get a recap of the game now and then.

While I wanted to rush home to watch the end of the game, I couldn't because I had Patrol Duty outside Whittier School in Dunellen, NJ. But luck was with me that day as I was right outside Harneds, a small mom and pop grocery store and whoever was running the store had a radio on listening to the game and it was loud enough for me to hear! Longborg won the game but he lost his no hitter with one out to go. Here is the card regarding that game.



I remember it like it was yesterday!