Rak Attack

Looking up details on Topps Rak Paks for my previous post led me to some more images and I feel like this is about to turn into a multi-post look at Topps biggest retail packs.  I certainly bought the majority of my cards this way from 1970-74, many of them from a fabulous store called Coronet.

The modern Rak Pak, as we saw last time, debuted in 1968.  Ditching the old, three-cello overwrapped style pack, Topps lost the individual cello's and created individual pockets for three cells of cards:

The "new" label is clearly to show the pack itself has been redesigned but why do they still say 3/10 cent packs? I guess Topps wanted you to know you were saving a penny!  You got 12 cards per pak, so 36 per rak.

The football raks were similar in '68:

Believe it or not, Topps sold hockey cards in raks as well:

The ability to sell any type of product using one template was very appealing to Topps as it helped to reduce costs.  Rak paks were designed for variety and toy stores and were prevalent from what I recall of them. I have tried to identify a Non-Sports rak from 1968 but there do not seem to be any sets that would really work, except possibly Hot Rods.  A lot of Topps sets that year were odd-sized or short in length.  I would think sports had a longer shelf life generally and the raks would be a better fit for sports cards due to the length of the seasons.  I will keep looking though.