A snowstorm in July is never, ever a good thing on cardboard

It started as a simple idea for some summertime filler breaks ... but this old pack turned out to be a reminder of something else to consider.

It's a 1993 Bowman jumbo with 22 cards inside -- 20 of them being shots at a Rookie Card for New York Yankees icon and Hall of Famer Derek Jeter as the big find. Jumbo packs also include a pair of foiled cards from the 708-card set that doesn't include a single thing otherwise.

It's all gas, no breaks -- at least if base cards are your thing.

There are no insert cards, no parallels, no hits ... just cards (a few with foil, but nearly all without). The only chase beyond landing your specific wanted name here are the RCs -- there are almost 200 names in the set (27.5 percent of it to be precise) being a first-year MLB card appearance.

So ... what did I find this time?

I didn't find The Captain, but I did find another notable Yankee newcomer -- an Andy Pettitte Rookie Card -- that looked like he came straight from Mount Everest. I found a whole lot of snow on that and many other cards here -- but not all of them -- in the $5 pack I just opened.

So, what's the deal?

At some point in their 32 years of wrapper incarceration, the cards' gloss stuck together and the only way to get them apart was to crack the ice tray (if you don't get that, ask the parents) and then carefully peel them apart card by card. All that snow on the front is where ink that's now missing is adhered to the back of the card that sat atop it. (I guess that makes the dark spotting on the backs fog? I'll stick with snow as the metaphor.)

Mike Piazza, the 1993 National League Rookie of the Year, also got snowed in. Same thing for ESPN's Eduardo Perez and my two foils, Jason Bere and Marty Cordova. They were joined by a few more of these snowstorm "parallels" before the rest of the pack -- see it all below -- yielded a few cleaner notables, Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez, and then others who some might remember more than others. All in all, this was a pretty solid pack for one not including Jeter and considering the size of the set. (You get about three percent of the set in one of these packs and I'll let you do the math for landing any one specific card.)

Then, a different kind of cautionary tale presented itself here -- the seal on the back of the pack and the pressure that the box/packs faced over the years stacked in a box or case also won a fight vs. the cardboard along the way. (Just like with some likely heat that perhaps caused the snow.) Some of the cards -- actually a lot of them -- in this pack have a pronounced line/surface denting from the packaging atop of the glossed skinny stock and funky surfaces that all combine to make these a riskier rip than one might think.

So ... why is this here? Well, you never know how any card will age over time, especially when different materials beyond basic cardboard and basic ink are used -- and if card companies do say they know they are lying. And it's not just gloss and ink -- the acids in the paper could break down over time and create problems.

Also, with so many unopened box collectors out there these days, it's also an issue to consider if you have any potential interest in opening your older boxes -- or ripping your new boxes 20 years from now. For example, your 2001 Topps packs or factory sets with Ichiro Suzuki's Rookie Card resting inside? Those cards are perfect ... as long as you don't open them. Forget Schrödinger's cat ... that one is Schrödinger's cardboard now. If you don't understand it, go watch The Big Bang Theory or something.

My thought on almost any boxes at this point? If you open them now, at least you know they won't be stuck together to the point of no return. I say rip away unless you know there's zero chance of snowstorms -- July or not.

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