Nothing symbolizes possibility quite like an unopened pack of baseball cards.

Granted, that statement is subjective. Perhaps somebody who did not spend their childhood chasing after pieces of cardboard would be less impressed by an old wax pack, and even though I don’t know if I’ve ever owned a baseball card printed after 1994 or so, there’s still nothing quite like the sight of an old pack that has somehow gone unopened for decades.

My favorite set is the 1987 Topps collection, which was the first one I spent my allowance money collecting. I’m also not the first person to express my admiration for its 792 pieces of baseball history, depicted within a now-classic layout showing players’ images surrounded by a border designed to look like wood paneling with team logos emblazoned in the upper-left corner.

(One of the best gifts I have ever received was a set of cards with my own picture designed in this style with the Daily Bulletin logo on my last day at our Ontario-based sister paper before I transferred to the Press-Telegram.)

I have had an unopened pack of 1987 Topps cards in its signature green wax pack at my Press-Telegram desk for nearly two whole months. The pack was a chance find at Long Beach Vintage Etc., which is a couple doors up from our Pine Avenue office, and the decision to buy the pack (about $3 for what would have cost 50 cents in 1987) was an easy one.

The hard part was deciding whether to open it. On one hand, as a reporter, it’s my job to seek knowledge, and every instinct that led me to this line of work seemed to push me to tear it open. On the other, the pack seemed to be somehow more special in its unopened state.

This could all be easily dismissed as ridiculous nostalgia for a sport that has not really been as idealistic as people have wanted. The 1987 set included rookie cards for Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, who would be in the Hall of Fame if not for their ties to the controversies of the so-called “Steroid Era.”

Ridiculous or not, I have not opened that pack, but decided to see if I could find more 1987 cards.

No luck at the vintage store. I had to find an actual baseball card store, which are something of a rarity in the modern business world. Nonetheless, I found time to go South Bay Baseball Cards in Lomita and scored a full box of 1987 Topps cards in jumbo cellophane packs. Most of the cards were in mint to near-mint condition, although the bubble gum was something that could probably be measured on a geologist’s hardness scale.

Opening pack after pack, I saw many cards I had seen many times before. Mike Scioscia in Dodger Blue before he wore the uniform of that American League team down the 5 Freeway. Tony Gwynn back when the Padres still wore brown. Several of the Pittsburgh Pirates when they had those cylindrical black-and-yellow hats that were not shaped like other teams’ hats.

I passed out a few packs around the office and facilitated a nice round of baseball card training among working adults. I scored a Tommy John, who I never actually collected while buying packs from the ice cream man for a Pedro Guerrero, whose 1987 Topps card is safely kept somewhere in my parents’ house.

Now I want to open some more. I just have to remind myself that all those predictions about 1980s baseball cards being worth money some day were something less than prescient. At least they look cool.

Andrew Edwards covers breaking news and business for the Press-Telegram. He can be reached at andrew.edwards@langnews.com.