Junk Wax taking up too much space…
 

I signed up on net54 in early fall 2020. One of my first threads was: what do I do with all these complete sets of junk wax from 1980-early90s. There are tons of these cards in a closet at my parents house.

Somebody wittily replied something along the lines of: “you live on Long Island? Drive down to Jones Beach and toss them in the ocean…”

Do I wait 7 years until I retire where I sit down and go through them Card by card? It looks like there are some random bidding contests on eBay for some Fleer sets.

Personally, I think you missed the boat on the best opportunity to move these during the first 2 years of the pandemic. That said 80 to 86 sets still have a good following and it might be best to try now. I would say that unless it is a special set, 87 through the 90's can be a difficult sell as shipping costs can scare people off with the sale price.

Try the BST.

If you post a list here on N54 in the 80's B/S/T I think you might get some interest.
Any chance you've got any OPC I'd be interested.
RayB

Flea Market

I will buy 1990 Topps.

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Flea market
 

Second that. I pull the stars, break them into team sets and commons (10/$1 or similar) and use the proceeds to get something I want. Coveted my costs and then some.

I have 4 sets of every set from 1980 through, at least, 1990. Probably have 1991. I have a million Strawberry and Mattingly Donruss rookies too lol. So, you’d pull the rookie cards? Are they even worth anything? I could sell 4 Rickey’s and make $400?

Yes, early 80s cards are kind of like how 70s cards were 10-15 years ago. There's demand for the stars and actually some set builders putting them together (centering or printing quirks are pretty key for these guys). I do not think the same will happen with the late 80s cards due to over production, but could see their demand increasing over the years ("Junk Wax" is more like 1994-1999 now)

Here's what I would do if I were you - Sell the 1980-85 Sets individually; figure out a flat rate box where you would be comfortable with and charge that for shipping (should be able to fit 2-5 sets in some, depending on size/how you pack it). You'd definitely get bites on a post here and I'm sure they would move on eBay. I would then pick the rookies and stars from the later sets; sell those in lots, low-end has heavy demand right now, so you should have no trouble getting rid of them. Then just stuff the rest in a flat rate and auction it - you'd be surprised at what you get for a picked through box stuffed of late 80s/early 90s commons

I personally would screen all the key rookies and if they are "gradeable", send them in yourself to be graded. 10s might be hard to come by, but see what 8's and 9's sell for. Ripken, Boggs, Gwynn, Sandberg, Mattingly, Strawberry, Clemens, Puckett, McGwire, Canseco, Bonds, Bo Jackson and obviously Griffey Jr. I have been pulling stars, HoFers and key rookies from my collecting hey day, which is the "junk era" and I am sure this is frowned upon on this forum, but I am tossing 100s and 1000s of common that nobody wants. Sorry, not sorry.

I will share this example that I did with 1990 Score baseball hand collated sets: I had 10 sets and sent in 9 or 10 of the B & W Bo Jackson cards and 6 came back as a 10. Easy $200+ card. I would have lost lots of money if i would have sold at $10 a set or whatever they go for. Obviously some risk, but also a chance for a nice reward.

I'm thinking about doing this exact same thing right now with a large collection I'm sorting through (2+ skids full of junk wax era). I have boxes upon boxes of 'commons' left over after pulling the HOF'ers and key stars from baseball, football, and basketball. There are lots of hand collated sets, too. I can dump all these commons at our local recycling center's customer drop-off bin....I plan on saving some of the boxes, though. I don't have the extra storage space in my garage for all these commons, nor do I want them. I guess I could rent a table a show and offer them 10 for $1, but that seems like a waste of time for minimal return. Not sure yet if I'll 'pick' the sets and dump them, as well.

Sometimes pulling the stars works and sometimes it is a HUGE waste of time. I posted about one of my cleanups a few years ago. At first I tried selling a large flat rate box of HOF rookies with star/HOFer player collections in sheets. After selling the first USPS large flat rate box full of HOFers for less than a dollar in the auction section. I said F it and burned 2 55 gallon barrels of cards including the HOFers and insert cards.

They are extremely fun to look through before you throw them away.:D

Found an old pic to add of my process.

I'd pull all the stars and RCs from the junk wax sets and just scrap the rest. It is all but worthless, not worth the time it takes to collate and market. It is also all about the shipping, which will just kill any deal for the bulk. The stars can sell. I fill $0.50 and $1 boxes for shows, move them in quantity, and sell the more expensive cards below market so they move, too.

1970-1980 is a different story. You can move those cards in bulk, but at low prices, so your buy prices have to be very low. What I do when I get a collection in of those is pull the high-grade common cards to sell singly to set builders and make cheap partial sets or lots of the rest and blow them out through eBay.

I used to be where I didn’t toss a single card but junk wax and the space it takes kinda makes me rethink. I had a possum get in my garage and throw around a bunch of 89 Bowman boxes. This particular year has always been a pain to store because of the size. I just didn’t have it in me to pick up the salvageable cards no matter the player. That is the first time I trashed cards. I cleared some space too. I’m getting over it, 88 Donruss commons shouldn’t be taking up space. I get sentimental though sometimes. We are collectors of stuff sometimes regardless of value.


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Years ago, I donated a monster box of junk wax commons and stars to the children's section of a local hospital - they were very much appreciated, regardless of whether the kids knew exactly who Bob McClure or Nelson Santovenia were...

I just sold 40,000 early 80s to present commons for 40 bucks.

The guy that bought them is a big autograph collector who sends off two or three requests every day through the mail.

He also likes the sort them into teams and sell one or two or 300 at a time

So you can sell them, you’re just not gonna make much.

Another friend of mine sold 5000 Hall of Famer’s from that time. He got about $.08
apiece for them.

I found myself in that same spot last year as we begun a move to another state. I had probably 10-14 5k boxes all from 89-95. I went through them all, culled the stars and rookies and threw out the rest. Not one regret.

I am now culling remaining sets and doing the same thing. I have probably 40-50 factory sets left and will probably do the same with them. No one has any interest in the sets and even the stars and rookies are worth next to nothing as well. Best thing to do with them is take what you want and dump the rest.

I found an opened but undisturbed 89 UD set at a flea market. Pulled the stars, tossed the rest, kept the tube of stickers to give to kids at the next card show I set up at, just to annoy their parents.

I've always been a collector, so even though I know I have tons of junk wax boxes and singles, it's hard to simply throw them into the recycle bin. I contacted the local children's hospital years ago and again just recently. They appreciated the offer, but continue to decline because of covid, etc. I no longer set up at shows (as if there were any here in SoCal anyway), and even doing so to sell junk wax and probably not recoup table cost, isn't an option. And going through them to pull stars, etc seems like a overall waste of time........wait a minute, I think I just convinced myself to "recycle" them.

Quick! I'll take any other suggestions I haven't thought of to avoid doing this.

Slightly dampen a stack of them and then squeeze the stack with a pipe clamp and let dry. The cards will stick together and can be used as firewood to heat your house or as building material by the local Habitat for Humanity.

I put my unwanted cards in a local antique/collectibles auction. I don't get much money for them but it saves them from the trash, at least temporarily. I will never purposefully throw away a potential collectible item. If the auction ever refused them I would try to donate them to a school, PTA, or Cub Scout pack.

Alan

Honestly, people will buy this stuff if you price it very low. Or, simply give it away to someone else if you're considering taking a match to the stuff. Someone will find joy and purpose for your junk wax, and that has to mean a lot to any fellow collector.

If anybody reading this is in SW Ontario (Canada) and is considering trashing their baseball and hockey junk wax, give it to me! If there's enough to merit a drive, I'll take it off your hands as opposed to your throwing it away or burning it.

I’d throw them up on Facebook marketplace. Then you wouldn’t have to pay for shipping. My brother but me roughly 40,000 cards off of Facebook marketplace a few years back. I had a great time sorting out the HOfers, ended up with roughly 2-3 of those smaller boxes when I was done, and had my parents take the commons to a thrift store and donate them.

My mom is painting the room tomorrow. The junk wax sets are in a closet. She sent me 3 pics. How do I post those pics here?

Let’s see if this works…
 

Laughing out loud…
 

That is an awesome listing. Made my day.

A few of those look pretty good

You have decent stuff. Looks like you have the Mattingly lot listed as a single card sale. It shows the authenticity guarantee check mark. Multiple cards don’t go. Its just going to be a hassle and extra step you don’t need to do. I’d list them as a lot. Just a suggestion.


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I’ve been posting batches of 200-300 cards as I go through them on our local ‘buy nothing/free cycle’ pages and every time, someone says ‘I’ll take them’ within moments. So good for them. 1988 Kal Daniels’ and 1991 Mike LaCoss’ for everyone!

I see a wax box of Fleer, is there any 80-85 unopened in there?

You can get some money for that T206 reprint set.

I have that set. I didn't realize it was worth anything. how much do they bring?

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$40-$50 on eBay.

OK, great. I gave it to my son. I was sweating it would be much more than that. It's worth more to see him flip through it and put that vintage bug in him.

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