1986 Topps Football Wax Box (Sam's Club) (BBCE) (FASC) (Reed Buy)

1986 Topps Football Wax Box (Sam's Club) (BBCE) (FASC) (Reed Buy)

1986 Topps Football Wax Box (Sam's Club) (BBCE) (FASC) (Reed Buy)

Key Rookies: Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Reggie White, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, William "The Refrigerator" Perry, Bernie Kosar, Boomer Esaison

When the boom in trading cards really started to hit in 1986, retailers didn't want to get left out of the opportunity to make sales, but places like Sam's Club - known for selling in bulk - weren't interested in selling by the pack, which historically is how trading cards were consumed by collectors.
However, as anyone has picked up a box of 1980s wax will tell you, the boxes aren't exactly the most sturdy or stackable.
One can assume when the buyers for Sam's Club met with Topps, executives at the trading card manufacturer were ecstatic for the opportunity to sell more product.
What likely resulted from this is the paper sticker you see over the side of the box to "seal" it, ensuring only box sales rather than pack sales.
This seal is unique to only Sam's Club distributed boxes, and created an entirely different SKU for Topps, as the shipper case for Sam's Club sealed boxes say "#359-86J" rather than "#359-86" for hobby-distributed cases.
This is how you can identify a case with Sam's Club factory sealed boxes.
This practice extended to other Topps products, most notably 1986 and 1987 Topps Baseball.
There are also versions from 1986-88 where the boxes are factory wrapped in plastic (not shrinkwrapped, as the wrap was done with folded corners press sealed, sort of like wrapping a present.)

These boxes came straight from a factory sealed case and authenticated by BBCE!

BBCE - Box/Cards is wrapped by baseball card exchange
FASC - Box was pulled from a sealed case