Here is a question for you... if you had every single cello pack that was produced in the 1970s, how much would your collection be worth? If you guessed an estimated $4,500 plus, you would be correct!

For those of us that do not have a full 1970s cello collection, lets take a look at each year and discuss the best cellos to collect for that particular year. Since the term Best is pretty relative, I will try to explain my selection. I look forward to hearing what you all think too.

1970

Baseball Cello

The real cello pack is the Retail cello (they come in a green box that states 33 cards for 25 cents), not the grocery cello which are thin, have no Topps markings and do not come in a box

Have you noticed that most 1970 BB retail cellos seen on the market are from Series 3? Interestingly, Mr. Mint auctioned a box of Series 3 1970 cellos back in the mid 1990s. Given the low volume of real cellos on the market, and given the fact that almost all are series 3, it makes you wonder if they all came from that box. If so, why do we not see many others and these could be very, very undervalued!

1971

Football Cello

I love these packs and they are definitely on the pretty scarce side too, with only a handful coming up for sale each year.

1972

Football Cello

It seems that with the production of 1972 FB, Topps shifted from using a boxed cello to using a plastic wrap with a price label on it. This packaging was ultimately used for the rest of the 1970s.

1973

Baseball Cello

For some reason, one year there are more 73s and one year there are more 74s up for sale. Either way, if you were to combine the volume for both 73s and 74s, it would be below 20 per year.

1974

Tie between Hockey, FB and BB

The OPC Hockey are few and far between, but the BB & FB cello packs are real sleepers. Go ahead and track these yourself. See how many BB or FB are up for sale over any 90 day period. My guess based on historical trends, is that you will not see more than 4 cello packs combined across an average quarter.

1975

Baseball Cello

Three words... Brett and Yount... These are readily available on the market but this is a very, very popular set and these sell very well!

1976

Football Cello

Very popular cellos due to the possibility of the Payton rookie... These regularly sell very strongly in the $60 - $85 range

1977

Baseball Cello

This could be an undervalued pack. The set has big name stars, a high dollar rookie in Andre Dawson and for the most part, these packs are not available in overwhelming quantities. These packs are generally available ungraded, somewhere in the $30s range. I would not be surprised to see these grow into the $40s or maybe $50s range (ungraded) over the next couple of years.

1978

Baseball Cello

There aren't a ton of FB cellos floating around, but even if you open them, you do not have the opportunity to pull a Molitor or Murray or even Morris rookie!

1979

Baseball or Football, Football or Baseball... Does it matter?

I guess I would take BB because of the possibility of pulling an Ozzie Smith.

This was fun! So please be sure to comment below and let me know what you think. Perhaps we will do this for Wax and Racks in the future.