The cereal box’s innately disposable nature seems to be one of the things that attracts collectors —€” unlike, say, baseball cards, they were never intended to be saved.

This year, cards come in bubble-gum packs, in candy packs, in cereal boxes, in popcorn, even in macaroni packages. Cards are considered a great investment. Cardboard gold is the term heard frequently.

In a garage roughly 3,000 miles from where I’m writing this, there’s a long, white cardboard container filled with hundreds of cardboard rectangles—all the baseball cards I amassed as a child.

Baseball great Lou Gehrig was the first living person General Mills chose to honor on their cereal box. He made the cut three times in 1934, 1992 and 1999. Athletes were depicted on the sides or ...