Depends on what you're looking at.

In sports cards, it's been a fair while since I opened boxes with 70+% off center rates, miscuts so bad you can see two distinct cards, 90% or so rates of print spots/dots, cards stained with wax, gum eating through the cards like I saw regularly in the 80's. I get less wrong/blank backs or fronts, the card stock is better, print quality is better, less rough cut edges...

Actually, wrong backs, miscuts (where you see two cards), variations, bleed through errors, overprints, and many others are rather collectable today. They add to the spontinatiety and personality of the older cards. The new cards are to pristine, glossy, always right, who needs that? I don't.

But that's just making my point. Who knows how people will feel 20-30-50 years from now about the cards of TODAY. You have nostalgia for the cards you grew up with. You rationalize and excuse the flaws that if they happened today would be chalked up as 'nobody at Topps cares, quality control sucks'. Because they happened when you collected and the eras before, they are unique, add personality, etc. Take cards being issued in 4-7 series over the summer. That wouldn't work as well today because everyone would order each series and save them, unless Topps released markedly less product as the season progressed, there wouldn't be scarce series. When Topps makes SP's as something to chase so it's more challenging than just 'buy a box of series 1 and series 2 and be done', they get lambasted, but when you are chasing cards that didn't get released in your town 50 years ago, it's perfectly fine to spend years chasing those last 25 SP's and brag about the finish. Maybe those Super SP's from 2013 Topps will be looked on fondly and adults coming back in the hobby in 20 years will be telling stories about bugging their mom at the checkout line at Target and they pulled that Bryce Harper Sunglasses variation from the one pack their mom bought them back in the day, complaining about how new cards are junk.

In the future, doesn't matter how far along, a 1954 Topps set will always be in far more demand then the 2014 Topps set. As I stated in a previous post, I can go to my local supermarket and get unopened packs from the late 1980s / early 1990s (These are already over 20 - 25 years old!) but there are no unopened packs from the late 1960s / early 1970s. Junk will always be junk no matter how old it is.

could argue that the 1954 topps isn't big in demand either..

You mean you would rather have a 2014 set then a 1954 set? As far as 1954 Topps not being in demand, then give me an Aaron rookie for the same price as the most expensive card in the 2014 set.

I am not comparing.....

and yeah you take the very best card from a set that has value..that doesn't mean the whole set is great...actually the commons are usually what make you lose money on the sets...heck the PSA 10s 1974 topps can be worth 500-1000 dollars but the PSA 8s are a few bucks....so just because the PSA 10s are worth so much that doesn't speak for the normal set......so super conditioned or HOF or special player cards are just great cards..not great sets...

take away the 5 best cards in the 1954 set..what percentage of value are they taking of all the cards are in same condition? 50%?

if it isn't worth sending in the commons in Average condition to get graded than that speaks for itself

if 1954s are so great...would you send in a psa 3 common to get graded? I would send in a T206 common..but not a 1954...

by the way I really like the 1954s..

go and buy on ebay 1954 commons on ebay and try to sell them for profit..now buy a 1954 Aaron...I got a feeling the Aaron has better chance in going up in value than the commons......so your example means nothing...

t

I was comparing the highest value card of the 1954 Topps set to the highest value card of the 2014 set. I am willing to bet you 60 years down the road the highest value card from the 2014 set will not be worth anywhere near what the highest value 54 is worth now. I don't collect PSA graded cards, that is a racket I don't buy I into. I don't need a company, whose main concern is to make money to give me their opinion on a grade that I can clearly see for myself based on my 40 plus years as a collector. Also what you said can be said about any vintage set. Just a few of the high end cards and many commons and that is your set.

As aside note, I would rather have 100 commons from the 1954 Topps set, then 1000 commons from the 2014 Topps set.

I agree id rather have 1954 commons than whatever they are making now..

I haven't seen any cards that were made in the last 10 years....but I thougth there are autograph limited edition cards that are like inserts or something that will all be worth more than commons in 1954......like the regular cards of 2014 are what the chewing gum was in 1950s...

All I am saying is that baseball cards pre 1975 will never be considered "junk". The same can not be said for cards after the 1970s.

Well 15 years from now, the 45 year old buyers may want to buy 1980s cards in psa 10 condition versus any 1970s card in psa 10 condition...

the third party grading really is a game changer in terms of collectability of cards that otherwise would not of been collectible

1980s cards in high grade will be very easy to come by as values skyrocketed and everyone went directly to saving their cards. No playground flipping, no bike spokes, no throwing out, right into top loaders or plastic sheets and binders.

As for PSA, they changed the game all right. Now you can spend thousands on a 10 which would otherwise be a 2 dollar low number common.

right high grade a new definition for 1980s...psa 10 is the only high grade...and it not easy to come by....plastic sheets destroyed chances for psa 10s for the most part....the fact you can spend thousands on getting 10s proves my point......

I never stored my cards in plastic sheets, I was always afraid that a sheet would fold and crease at least three cards!

I was referring to the vintage cards for the thousands collectors are paying for 10s which would be otherwise be a few dollars at the most. I am not aware of anyone paying thousands for junk cards.

I wanted to comment on the above. I started collecting as an 8 year old in 1971. I got my love of the cards from the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s retroactively. So I didn't quite "grow up with them", I just fell in love with their incredible beauty and simplicity. It is part of an era that is lost forever. Thankfully, we have the surviving collectables to enjoy from that time.

In the same condition
 

I will take Any 1954 Topps card over any BASe 2014 card. Especially in another 20 years.

+1 on this.

Collectors (and non-collectors) became very much aware of baseball cards and their values in the late 1970s-early 1980s and people began to horde cards; i.e. the "rookie card craze" (early issues of Baseball Card magazine from 1982 on had articles dedicated to "best rookie picks" for later sets), and by the time the "junk wax era" began, millions and millions of baseball cards were being produced by Topps, Fleer, and Donruss, and later Upper Deck, Score, etc. When I was collecting new product as a kid in the mid-1970s, I could only find wax packs at the neighborhood 7-11, and by the early 1980s, when Donruss and Fleer entered the market, this expanded to the neighborhood drug stores as well. By the late 1980s, I saw wax packs almost everywhere; 7-11s, convenience stores, gas stations, drug stores, local big "box" stores such as Walmart and Target, etc...

So, back to the OP query, I think the junk wax era began in the late 1980s, possibly 1987 or thereabouts. One can still get unopened wax boxes from the 1987, 1988 and up period for relatively cheap prices today, compared to late 1970s-early 1980s wax box prices.

Many collectors do like the third party grading, and I guess for some, that would make collecting late 1980s cards in top graded condition a collectible challenge (whereas otherwise not for raw cards of that era). I have never used TPG; guess I'm old school and prefer to put my cards in plastic sheets and look through them from time-to-time.

Many collectors do like the third party grading, and I guess for some, that would make collecting late 1980s cards in top graded condition a collectible challenge (whereas otherwise not for raw cards of that era). I have never used TPG; guess I'm old school and prefer to put my cards in plastic sheets and look through them from time-to-time.[/QUOTE]


raw cards are fine for the 1980s ....its just if you plan on selling them expect to be frustrated as more and more buyers that spend the bigger money expect to buy graded cards...its just a fact...the plus side of buying raw cards is that they are very cheap..the negative is they sell for cheap.

raw cards are fine for the 1980s ....its just if you plan on selling them expect to be frustrated as more and more buyers that spend the bigger money expect to buy graded cards...its just a fact...the plus side of buying raw cards is that they are very cheap..the negative is they sell for cheap.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I quit collecting "modern" cards about 1984, started back in 1990, and currently have nothing in my collection past 1982 Donuss set. If I get anything more modern, it would be the 1983 Fleer set (which would be the stopping point for my collection), as I thought it a good looking set back in the day. I sold my 1985-1990 sets back in the early 1990s before the "bubble" burst. Happy collecting!

Ok bump from the past but maybe a nice read for some.

Cards were overproduced as early as 1975
 

I purchased a baseball book back in 1978, written in 1976. In the book Cy Berger mentioned that Topps sold 500 Million baseball cards in 1975. With a 660 card set you can do the math.

To me the wax era officially began with the introduction of Pro Set in 1988 (football) then score etc.


I remember in 1991 buying a pack of Upper Deck baseball cards at my local Vix drug store. When I opened a pack, right in the middle was a pro set card. Packs were pretty much tamper proof. Were they using the same print facilities? If I remember the President of Pro Set was a shady character.

Sorry Junk era
 

I should have typed Junk Era

I found it a nice read and lots of info. I recently purchased a few lots of cards, so had to justify my spending lol

2400....82 donruss
2400....86 donruss
2400....87 donruss
2400....87 fleer glossy
2400....88 fleer glossy

My collecting started in 1987 when my grandmother gave me the green Christmas boxed set for Christmas that year. We sat there and looked at the fronts and backs of every card. She didn't follow baseball and didn't care anything about it nor cards, but she sat there to spend time with me. I still have that set and box today.


That said, 1987 through about 1991 was my heyday for collecting. After school on Fridays, we'd go get ice cream. It was next door to a Piggly Wiggly, and my parents would let me walk over there to buy packs of cards. I really picked up football in 1990 and 1991 when I started playing in school.

But to answer the original OP, I think 1987 started the overproduction era. But I still do buy packs of that stuff when I see them. I bought 3 1989 Donruss packs last weekend at the flea market for $1.

There was a company that advertised in the Thomas Register* that they offered secure random packing for trading cards.



*At the time an enormous yellow pages of sorts mostly for manufacturing. Like bigger than an encyclopedia.

I too would be interested in hearing of any production numbers that people have found. Specifically for Topps in the junk era '87-'94. Someone mentioned the population figure of a billion cards for Topps in the mid-80's. Would love to see a source for this.

According to the novel "Card Sharks" UD made 125,000 cases, which is approx. 1.4 billion cards, in the inaugural 1989 set. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but it was referenced in the book. As some may remember, there were rumors of extra press runs of star players and Griffey going straight to the dealers.

But let's say Topps made a billion cards of say, '90 topps. After you divide by 792, that makes 1.25 million of each card in the set. My guess is that the actual population was closer to 5-10 million of each card. That would make the total print run somewhere between 4-8 billion cards. That seems like an absurd number, yet just from what I see for unopened availability I feel like the production continued to grow each year from 1987-1992. I know the production figures were quite heavily guarded but does anyone have any info we could use to sort of indirectly piece this together?

Great thread. Need some updated thoughts! Early 80's to mid 80's cases are vanishing. Sure there are many hording it but it's getting tougher to find and very expensive 1985 on down. 1986 Topps wax cases, with virtually no anchor rookie card, command a grand now. Sorry Cecil Fielder lol

I agree with this. I've started looking for boxes, rack packs, unopened sets, cases (of Traded/The Rookies sets), Glossy/Tiffany sets, etc. from the 1980s-1990s, and they're expensive. The asking prices are expensive at least. But I'm going to try and start picking a few of those things up.

The other issues that are starting to rise are the mid-nineties premium issues with either insert cards or serial #d cards. That $200K Select Jeter is the biggest one but high end limited edition cards of the era have a loyal following and are getting pricey. I used to pull them regularly from the cheapo bins and junk wax tables at the National but found relatively few available this past year at the show. The unopened has gone up. If there are decent inserts or parallels in the issue, it isn't a $20 box anymore.

On a tangential but somewhat related note, last year I purchased an unopened box of 2013 Panini Golden Age. It was really cheap (I think about $15) and I was hoping for a signed Bad News Bears card. I got one

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...0Stambaugh.jpg

but I also pulled a redemption card for a signed Stan Lee card. It was long expired but many states make it illegal to terminate redemptions or require valuables to go through the escheat process. I went to the Panini site and plugged in the code and it showed as active. Four months later my card arrived. So those old redemption cards may still be honored.

That's really cool.

I had the opposite experience with redemptions. I had a few sort of nice ones, and sent them in before the expiration. They never came. And the companies are now long out of business.

1986 - Junk started
1987 - It really started ramping up
1988 - Junk wax overdrive

I think it's hard to pinpoint a particular year as the "year" that started the junk era. I believe that each year from the mid-70's through some point in the mid-90's saw a pretty steady increase in production totals. I agree that there was an explosion in 1988, topped by Donruss' outstanding efforts. I think any casual glance at the availability of unopened product starting in 1981through 1990, for example, even just on ebay, makes it clear that there is a whale of a lot available for most of the 80's, even if it's not $20 a box. Consider this: next year, in 2020, a box of 1986 Topps will be 34 years old. In 1986, a 34 year old wax box would be 1952. The fact that you can still buy a box of 1986 Topps for $30-40, 34 years later, should make clear how much of that product is still widely available. I love me some 1986 Topps, but it is astonishing that you can still get 30+year old wax for relatively dirt cheap. I for one love the fact that I can relive my childhood for less than the price of a tank of gas. For my dad to relive his childhood in the same fashion would require his house and his 401k.
kevin

I totally agree about pricing of the 1980s-90s stuff, haha. I'm talking unopened, not highly graded or super rare inserts For example, I was looking to buy a 1987 Topps box because that's the year that got me started. I just wanted something fun to open for cheap. I can buy a cello box for $25 dlvd. That's a sealed, never opened cello box for less than it costs for my wife and I to go eat.

As much as I love opening 1980s wax, I realize it will NEVER be worth anything. It's all about the nostalgia and fun of opening it moreso than the making money aspect of it.

This, for sure.