How Do Grading Companies Evaluate Unopened Packs?

 I've been struggling to find unopened packs at affordable prices.  I accumulated a bunch of extras but since I haven't had any luck trading, I've decided to try to sell some of the extra ones on ebay and maybe buy a few that I need. 

So far, so good.  I picked up one 1971 Football unopened pack.  Of course, that is one set that I will not likely ever complete since every pack with cost more than $20.  

I plan to keep the cards in the wrappers, even if the wrappers are not perfect.  

Does anyone know what criteria are used to grade a pack?  Do they look at the card at all or just the pack - color, borders, etc.?

What would make it worth it to grade a pack?  I cannot imagine that there would be a lot of interest in a common player in the pack, even if it graded as a 10.  

With higher grading prices the last few years, will any of these cards get graded other than the big $ ones?

Where are the Unopened Kellogg's Packs Hiding?

 

Like everyone else my age, when I dug through the box I grabbed the card and ripped it out of the package.  Somehow, not everyone did so.

Once COVID hit, lots more cards came to market.  Collections hidden in basements for years were sorted and sold.  This didn't seem to help me with Kellogg's cards.  I haven't made a dent in my unopened cards in a long time.

1975 Unopened packs?  I have only three of them.  

I am still working on 1971 and 1979 master sets, but I haven't put much effort into that lately.  

I am working on upgraded some cracked cards, since I tend to see the same cards that are more likely to be cracked.  

2025 National Updates From Friday

 I spent about five hours at the show on Friday.  I am sure I missed items, but here are some things that I did see. I bought three cards including a 1975 Kellogg's Johnny Bench.

Many of the tables had display cases of cards only, so it was easy to pass by those after a quick look.  It was disappointing how few tables had oddball and other cards.  

Sets - I saw a graded 1971 Kellogg's baseball set for sale, no factory sets of any kind and a few curled sets.  

Packs - I saw two of the 1970 six-card packs, one with Bench on top.  Both were expensive and badly curled.

One-card packs - I saw three of these at one table.  The guy said he had sold one earlier.

Individual cards were around, but only a few had bulk.  Most of the stacks I saw were at tables with the standard high prices, so I didn't look closely at them.

There are Still Kellogg's Cards That I Haven't Seen - Here is Something

 

This showed up today.  Kellogg's distributed this basketball set of five cards in Canada during the 1995-96 season.  I have four of the cards in their individual packs.  This is the first time I've seen a pack that contains all five cards.  

I am not surprised about the pack with the entire set since the hockey packs with Lemieux and Hull were also distributed individually and as a set.  

Still Trying to Complete Unopened Kellogg's Sets

 

I haven't had too much luck with getting unopened Kellogg's cards since COVID either.  The Kellogg's cards shot up in price and the packs even more so.  I am not really working on the 1970-71 sets since those are out of reach.  Maybe when I get the other ones done I will look into this.

Card collectors will probably respond that the expensive ones will just get more expensive if I wait.  I get that, but I am not concerned about that since I am close to having all of the 1970-71 cards that have been opened.  I am mostly just looking for 1971 variations and 1970 shorter prints / stars at this point.

I have lots of extra unopened to trade.  Here are the ones that I need.

1972 - Seaver, Rose

1973 - Ryan, Seaver

1974 - I need more than half of the set

1976 - Washington (I can trade Gullett) Carroll, Luzinski, Carew, Simmons

1977 Bostock, Cey, Fidrych, Lezcano, Koosman

Surprisingly, I have all of the 1975s.  Since those never show up, I bought them as a set.  I probably have only gotten three or four 1975s unopened ever before buying the set.  They just don't seem to exist.

I also have some extra unopened 1994 Clementes and a few different Japanese Kellogg's cards from 2025-10 that I'd be willing to trade for packs that I need.

Impossible dream collection - I was trying to get a 1970 unopened pack with each player showing on the top.  When packs were under $50 I was getting some of these.