Has the Junk card era ended? If so, when?

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by Balticfox

Precisely! And I've always thought that all the 1990's gimmicks - e.g. chase cards, parallel sets, autographed cards, jersey cards, manufactured scarcities - were what ended up spawning the term "junk". Gimmicky=junky.

Yeah, term junk wax definitely does not refer to the scarce inserts and parallels of the 90s. I have never heard it used that way. It refers to a period in the mid 80s through early 90s, just prior to the era of inserts and parallels. Sets like 1993 Finest and others began the destruction of the junk wax era. I think you have gotten some bad info about the term, as it's used in the hobby.

Now that I find really tough to understand. If you love both baseball and baseball cards, how can you limit yourself to just a single player? Surely you must like some sets/subsets a lot more than others so how can you not be tempted to get all those cards anyway?

You clearly misunderstood what I was saying. The quote you cited was a statement I made concerning rare 90s inserts. OF THOSE, I only collect Larkin. I used the term "only" to compare to the likes of Griffey and Jeter, referring to his prices "only" being thousands rather than hundreds of thousands.

But I collect cards of all eras. From 19th century and other pre-war cards, through the golden era of the 50s and 60s, to rare 90s cards, up through modern rookies and stars of my team.

I definitely don't only colllect Larkin, and wasn't implying such. But in the rare and expensive 90s cards, I only buy Larkins. For an admitted pedant, it's odd how you would remove a sentence entirely from its context to make it mean something entirely different from what was said.