Considering pitching my junk wax...
 

In my bedroom closet, I have about 2 or 3 1000-count or whatever boxes, that contain the bulk of the cards from my childhood collection that came out of wax and cello from roughtly 1986 to 1994. I'm considering going through these one last time, removing any remaining stars or rookies, and then just pitching them. Thoughts? I know the deal, I have no delusions of grandeur that they are worth any kind of money - today I have hung onto a select few 1980's sets for sentimental reasons, but other than that I'm mostly hard into vintage.

Would you pitch them if you were me? I haven't looked in the boxes hardly at all for the most part in the last 15 years. At this point it seems like they are just wasting space.

Thanks...

Yes pitch them after going through them for one last time. I have burned easily 100K junk era cards in the last 2 years I was tired of storing.

What will you do with the gained space? Just fill it up with more junk? I find I throw out stuff all the time and that space isn't used for anything better.

Since they are cards from your childhood, and if you can find space for them (garage maybe?). Keep them.

That said, I've heard many card shop owners tell me junk cards go right to the recycle bin.

I am in the same boat as you and have been trying to decide what to do with 20,000 1982-86 junk.

I will watch this thread with interest in the opinions.

Good luck!

Guess it depends on what you're looking to get out of the hobby. If this is strictly a fun thing for you to do, yeah, definitely keep them. I've gone through two rounds of "throwing everything out" and I regret each one; it'll never happen again.

If you're looking more to turn a buck, the odds of finding a hidden gem from the era are decreasing exponentially.

I think a lot of people throw junk wax era stuff out as a form of catharsis or out of spite. Junk wax era broke a lot of hearts back in the day.

Arthur

junk wax
 

I would suggest either donating them to the Goodwill or Salvation army and let some kid hit the jackpot cheap! I gave away over 100,000 cards to the Ronald McDonald House also and they were glad to get them.......

I remember a post a while back from a teacher who did something with junk era cards as rewards for students. Seemed like a cool idea. I'd call a local school and see if they want them before I would toss them away.

I'm still in the process of doing this. I'm keeping cards that really stood out from my childhood (the 1987 Topps set really roped me in), but donating most everything else. I found a nonprofit in my city that was interested in them a couple years ago, so I gave one 5k box to them (that was tax deductible).
Another option is http://commons4kids.org. I sent a large flat-rate box full of cards to them last month (including a Griffey Jr. 89 UD that Net54 member maximus35 sent to me for no compensation - thanks again!). They donate the cards to a variety of organizations (donations to commons4kids are not tax-deductible though).
I've found that finding a local nonprofit can take a little time. I'm going to put together another 5k box soon to donate, and reached out to a local group last night. The email I got in response noted that they wouldn't be able to use them and suggested I do an online search to find an organization that could (gee - where did they think I found their information to send them an email?).
As for the space it creates, I'm someone who prefers empty space to clutter, so even if I'm not planning on using it for anything else, donating and de-cluttering is the way to go.

Only 2-3 regular boxes?

That's not taking up much space, especially if its the little ones. Even 2-3 5000 count boxes isn't bad.

If you don't want to spend the time to donate them, post on Craigs list. I tossed some REAL junk (early late 80s/early 90s basic sets like Score, Fleer, Donruss, Tops with no stars or semistars even) into a box (maybe 3-5K worth) and it wasn't even a card box but an old brown shipping box, posted the ad with a FREE - first come first served disclaimer, put it on the curb and they were gone within the hour of posting them. Now maybe the person who claimed them ended up disappointed with what they got, but no longer my problem and I didn't trash or burn them.

Someone will want them for some reason. Art project (look no further than Tim Carroll for example), school, even resale in some cases. No need to destroy them.

I think some business buys at about 1/5 a cent per card and then repackages and sells in discount dollar stores across the country. I can't remember the Company at this time. I did sell 1 Million commons several years ago for $ 2k ( .002/card). Better than recyling. Not sure of the current buying price. If someone knows a company that buys in commons bulk please list.

If everyone continues to recycle these , maybe some day they will be worth .01/card.

Thanks all for the replies. I did consolodate yesterday, but in the end I couldn't do it. '89 Donruss and '91 Fleer will live to see another day! LOL. In going through the boxes, I didn't find anything of tremendous value (I knew I wouldn't...) but I did find a few things of sentimental value - like a price sticker from a long gone favorite card shop in Charlotte, NC - that brought back a lot of memories. I'm sure it's worthless to about anyone else, but to me now this is a collection piece.

The rest of you are right, this really isn't taking up a lot of space - and in the end depending on how long I make it, I'm sure 1990's cards will be fun to look at as a senior citizen...

Atta boy! That's the spirit! Three cheers!

Arthur

I bought a collection recently that was about 80% junk wax era materials. I tried to sell them to my LCS, but they didn't even want them for free. They said they just chuck them at this point. I went through and pulled whatever cards interested me (primarily the superstars) and then put the rest into recycling.

Anytime you all get cards you wish to "recycle" and is you wish to get a write-off (and postage can also be included in the write-off), I can provide a tax sheet and am in permanent need of cards.

Thanks to Texas State law, we give everyone who walks into our Adat show and pays the suggested donation a bag of cards and a prize slip. We always need more of those.

Please keep us in mind in these cases

Rich

cheap cards
 

What is the donation value for a box of 3000 1990's commons? I sell them at shows for $5 to $8, depending on what is in the box. So, if you are writing off more than $8 or so for a charitable contribution, you are greatly exaggerating the contribution value.

The cost of the boxes is normally more than the value of the cards that are in the boxes, so, depending on the cards, I sometimes keep the boxes and recycle the cards.

Rick

Rick:

Legally, you can claim full book price (assuming the cards are in typical condition for 1990 cards) for a donation. Now I prefer not to give only those out but bulk such as that does bulk up our giveaway bags.

I know there is a max amount of money you can claim. There were many threads on the CU Boards back in the day on this subject. And the new tax laws do change some of this.

You can use whatever number for donationsl you want but that's one reason donations do work for junk wax cards and all those numbers are between you, your accountant, the IRS and your God (if you do believe)

Rich

I keep my early purchases of then current '89-early '90's cards as reminders of what not to buy. Books published at that time often touted buying 100 card lots of hot rookies. Only a few years later did I learn to study the history of other collecting fields to see what had done well and what had not done well over decades. The collecting mind really doesn't vary much regardless of what objects become its' targets!

Best to all,

Larry

Give them out as trick or treat next halloween

I check the stores every year hoping Topps brings back the fun packs... Totally futile.

Dump 'em on the floor and swim in 'em... :D

(2:15 at the link)

give them to a young "generation alpha" getting into the hobby

by the way that video in the link is hilarious

People have mentioned burning and recycling, but I've been toying with an even "greener" approach...composting.

Junk wax era cards, as opposed to some super glossy later cards, are actual cardboard. If they were shredded, they'd work well as the "brown" in a well-mixed cardboard.

Wax boxes would also compost fine. I imagine the wax used in wax packs is petroleum based, as opposed to vegetable based, so they'd be out. I guess those would burn well if someone wanted to have that bonfire still.

I imagine most plastic wax wrappers would be recyclable in places that have plastic bag recycling programs.

In theory, if we could compost junk era cards en masse, we could solve a few problems:

It takes 20,000 pounds of compost to raise the organic matter in 1 acre of land 1%. To get 20,000 pounds of compost, you need about 200,000 lbs of raw organic material to decompose. Increasing soil organic matter makes it better at growing things, hold more water, and sequester carbon so that it's not released into the atmosphere.

Junk wax is near worthless because cards were produced by the millions. To see any substantial increase in value, a good portion of these cards would need to be removed from circulation.

5,000 cards weighs about 25 lbs. So, about 40 million cards per acre should do it. :)

I think when I build my larger composter this spring, I'll give it a try at a small scale and see how it goes.

I have some boxes from childhood I have picked through through the years, but I find every time I do, I find something new that puts a smile on my face. I agree, unless that space is to be used for something you love more, keep them.