Observations from a yard sale - 80s/90s junk cards

[parkplace33]

I went to a yard sale over the weekend that advertised baseball cards. The ad said over 100000 baseball cards, nothing else. No description, no pictures.

I got there early and pulled up. About 10 others guys were there, ready to go. The yard sale was about 10 folding tables. Each table had 4 5000 count boxes.

As soon as I walked up to the first box, I knew this sale wasn’t for me. The box was full of 80s/90s baseball junk. Fleer Score Topps. All commons, all picked over. I asked the seller how much he wanted. He told me a penny a card, 100 cards for $1. My guess is that this was an old dealer or store collection.

What I couldn’t believe was that the others guys there thought this was a gold mine. I heard one guy ask if he could buy the whole collection for a discount. Seller said no. Another guy was buying these cards by the monster box, not even checking what was in there. Two guys were talking about submitting these cards, getting 10s, and then selling them for “major profit”. I am sure the seller sold out and probably did well selling the cards at 100 for $1.

As I walked away, I couldn’t help but think I was in an episode of the twilight zone.

[D. Bergin]

I wonder if these guys are aware it's going to cost them $300 (assuming it's PSA), to get each one of their penny cards graded.

[Yoda]

Those guys have the fever real bad.

[obcbobd]

Interesting. I had a similar yard sale in about 2003. Advertised BB Cards. A log of Upper Deck 89-92, Stadium Club etc. Not a single person asked about or even looked at them. Off to Goodwill they went.

This weekend I went to a Yard Sale that had just started. As always, I asked if they had any old BB cards. I always ask, and have had some success with 60/70s BB Cards. Keep in mind the sale had just started. They said no cards and I was the second person to ask. That has never happened before.

[BobbyStrawberry]

I've seen stuff like this a few times. I think it may be a combination of gambling addiction and lack of knowledge.

[Johnny630]

I think this is 100% gambling. There are dumpster divers that will go out there and spend $10 on a mega box without even looking through it hoping for a hit or a mistake so I guess that’s their way of gambling. The guy asking for a discount if he bought a bunch that’s Funny they are already a penny apiece.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

...guy asking for a discount if he bought a bunch...

That's fairly common.

Now, if he was buying one card asked for a discount, that would be funny.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

The guy asking for a discount if he bought a bunch that’s Funny they are already a penny apiece.

But they are only worth two for a Penny (or less) :-)

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

But they are only worth two for a Penny (or less) :-)

hahahah Bob Yes !! True So True lol.

[ASF123]

Some of those guys have YouTube channels where people watch them go through all the junk boxes.

[philliesfan]

Can you send those guys buying to my house please. I will give a discount.

[BCauley]

This is going back a bit, to 2004, but before I went into the military I purged a ton of my collection. Sold probably 5-6 different auctions, each containing four 5,000 count boxes, and they all sold for anywhere from $20-$25. I made it clear that most of it was junk era cards, no stars and all commons, and the shipping cost more than the cards ended at. Everything was paid for and got positive feedback on everything. What became of those cards I have no idea but I guess there's a buyer for everything.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

Can you send those guys buying to my house please. I will give a discount.

No kidding…a penny each for junk wax commons ain’t bad. I have a few monster boxes I’d gladly unload at that price.

[Econteachert205]

Two weeks ago at a flea market I saw a guy selling all sorts of fake stuff (fleer Jordans etc). Last week at the flea market I saw guys buying junk wax stuff and quoting prices that were inaccurate (100 dollars for a raw Shaq Topps rookie etc.). Bottom of the barrel has not heard about the recent drop off in prices and are buying the junkiest of junk.

[David W]

I just sold 20,000 1987-90 commons at a yard sale and got $75.

They were in used boxes I cut down. Didn’t want to waste monster boxes


All stars pulled out, even minor stars like Lance Parrish, Hernandez, etc


I told him that. He could not pay me fast enough.

Said he has a million cards in a storage locker.

I told him I’m working on 70’s sets and if he had any to trade? He said no it’s all later than that

I’ve got his number as I have another 30k in cards to sift through and he wants them

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Econteachert205

Two weeks ago at a flea market I saw a guy selling all sorts of fake stuff (fleer Jordans etc). Last week at the flea market I saw guys buying junk wax stuff and quoting prices that were inaccurate (100 dollars for a raw Shaq Topps rookie etc.). Bottom of the barrel has not heard about the recent drop off in prices and are buying the junkiest of junk.

These are the suckers at the ass-end of a bubble. No idea what they are doing they just know they want in. Reminds me of a quote from Boiler Room I've 'enhanced' a bit:

Seth Davis: [Narrating] I read this article a while back, that said that Michael Jordan rookie cards sell for over half a million bucks. Blew my mind. you see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think its possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The $87 Million lottery winner, that kid actor that just made 20 million o his last movie, that internet stock that shot through the roof, you could have made millions if you had just gotten in early, and that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: "Either you're slingin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot." Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slinging crack-rock: I became a card flipper.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

...I went the white boy way of slinging crack-rock: I became a card flipper.

So, is that where the term "crack and re-submit" came from?

[swarmee]

For those of you criticizing the junk wax buyer, they could just know more than you. There are approximately 15 cards in 1990 Topps that sell for $500-1,000 each if they have a specific rare print defect. There are four or so better known errors in 1991 Topps that regularly sell $100-200 each if you know what to look for.

If all you see is a monster box of commons from Topps junk wax era, and you're not screening them for these rare errors/variations, then maybe you're selling the boxes cheap...

Same thing for modern Topps or Heritage or Upper Deck. So many unannounced/nearly impossible to notice SPs, SSPs, errors, etc that people looking to complete Master Sets still need. Before you toss them in the trash or sell for cardboard recycling value, check your cards against junkwaxgems or baseballcardpedia.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by David W

I just sold 20,000 1987-90 commons at a yard sale and got $75.

They were in used boxes I cut down. Didn’t want to waste monster boxes


All stars pulled out, even minor stars like Lance Parrish, Hernandez, etc


I told him that. He could not pay me fast enough.

Said he has a million cards in a storage locker.

I told him I’m working on 70’s sets and if he had any to trade? He said no it’s all later than that

I’ve got his number as I have another 30k in cards to sift through and he wants them

Perhaps he is a supplier to the folks that cut up these cards to make artwork that depicts cards. I imagine these artists need a lot of cards to create just one piece.

Brian

[steve B]

I occasionally buy this sort of stuff. Mostly to maybe complete sets, which is kinda foolish because I can buy the set for way less than the work to build it.

But I also look for odd but very cheap varieties, like 91Topps different backs and 93 UD with different gloss, or most any early UD with different holograms.

But a penny a card is $50 for a monster box, and I'd want to know for sure there's something interesting in there.

I had a bunch of extra junk era stuff that I wanted to unload, sent it in plain boxes with reasonable prices to my sisters for a yard sale I'd be at but not till after the start. The "mystery" boxes were all gone, and had apparently sold in the first 10 minutes or so. What didn't sell was the OPC premier complete set I'd marked at $2....

[arcadekrazy]

I actually buy lots of the junk stuff from these sales if the price is right. I donate them to church groups, ARC homes and the like. The kids get a kick out of them, and it helps seed future baseball fans. It’s also an affordable way to brighten someone’s day.

[bdk1976]

Originally Posted by swarmee

For those of you criticizing the junk wax buyer, they could just know more than you.

No, I just think they have WAY more time than me and much, much lower standards on what makes a 'good deal' and/or 'good investment'.

[bbcard1]

I usually get to the point in a long show where I sit down at the nickle or penny boxes. I pull any former Marshall University players (you find a lot of Troy Brown and Carl Lee but may occasionally trip into a Pennington or Leftwich). If it's anything that remotely interests me like regional issues or players I like from a set that I for some reason didn't collect, I get it. There are few things you can enjoy that you can buy for a penny.

[ocjack]

Before the advent of price guides, I would always check out dealer tables for 1957 Topps commons looking for Bakep. In 10 years of searching commons, I found 2. Still satisfying when you ask for a discount from the dealer's common pricing.

So I guess, it's still sort of the same thing.

[Mark17]

Years ago I had a case of 12,000 junk commons, remnants from my days as a dealer. It was a horrible mix, with several groups of 100+ cards of a 1987 Topps common player for instance, and all cards were 1986-1991. Poor variety junk.

I described it as junk, sold it on ebay, the shipping cost at least as much as the cards, and when the buyer received it, he complained. He said he understood it was junk, but didn't realize how bad it was until he found the 900 Mike Maddux (not brother Greg) 1989 Fleer cards.....

But then, a couple days later, he wrote back and said never mind, he was quite happy with his purchase. He'd found a small stack of 20 1990 Sammy Sosa Upper Deck cards that I hadn't been aware were in there.

[todeen]

They are being cut up into slices and used for card collages of important athletes.

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[Buythatcard]

This reminds me when I first started selling on eBay and knew very little about the value of cards. I thought I saw this great deal on eBay for boxes of cards. There were 100,000 cards for about $250. I said to myself, that I would sell each card individually and get rich off of this. I bought the cards.

The day of delivery, there was a 16 wheeler parked outside of my house. They started bringing in box after box of cards. Had no room in my house, so I had them laid out in my garage. All I kept thinking, that this is my golden ticket.

I started going thru the boxes and all the cards were from the 90's and early 2000's. I started listing them on eBay and they were not selling. The few that sold, went for a penny. I then realized that this was not a good time period for cards and decided to not sell these.

I started breaking them up into smaller boxes and posted on the bulletin board at work that I was giving out free baseball cards. People started showing up that I never met before at my job. It started to move pretty quick so I posted one box per person. I discovered that some people started sending their coworkers to pick up more boxes for them. That's when I said, no more.

I was still left with about 75,000 cards when I was talking to a friend who happened to be an oncologist at a children's hospital. He said that the kids would love to have some of the cards. That's when I decided to donate the rest of the cards to the hospital. That to me was worth a million dollars.

It also opened up my eyes. I said to myself that if I want to make a little extra cash, then maybe I should try to sell vintage cards. That's what I did and am still doing it for 18 years.

[chalupacollects]

Yep, was at a garage sale a couple of weeks back that advertised 80's-90's cards so took a ride over to see if the guy had any vintage. Stumbled on a conversation with the owner and young fella negotiating price on 10 800 card boxes. As the young fella was chatting on the phone I asked how much per box and he said $50 per. I looked around to follow where this went. Young fella started to tell the owner he is starting a card business with a friend and worked owner down to $35 per box... Owner agreed and young fella was happy to peel off $350 and scoot away. I asked the owner if he new what he had in the boxes and he told me all junk from early 90's mostly and a lot of it was stuck together. Felt bad for the young fella as trying to launch a card business at this time with prices so high, it will be tough to make a dollar...

[puckpaul]

It’s not a lot of money we are talking about here. Honestly, this would be more newsworthy if no one was interested at all.

Those guys might even say it’s foolish to spend $5000 on a beater Cobb of which there are hundreds if not thousands, which you could lose $4900 on someday. What did they spend, $15?

[bobbyw8469]

Good story. I'm with you. Modern doesn't interest me.

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

This reminds me when I first started selling on eBay and knew very little about the value of cards. I thought I saw this great deal on eBay for boxes of cards. There were 100,000 cards for about $250. I said to myself, that I would sell each card individually and get rich off of this. I bought the cards.

The day of delivery, there was a 16 wheeler parked outside of my house. They started bringing in box after box of cards. Had no room in my house, so I had them laid out in my garage. All I kept thinking, that this is my golden ticket.

I started going thru the boxes and all the cards were from the 90's and early 2000's. I started listing them on eBay and they were not selling. The few that sold, went for a penny. I then realized that this was not a good time period for cards and decided to not sell these.

I started breaking them up into smaller boxes and posted on the bulletin board at work that I was giving out free baseball cards. People started showing up that I never met before at my job. It started to move pretty quick so I posted one box per person. I discovered that some people started sending their coworkers to pick up more boxes for them. That's when I said, no more.

I was still left with about 75,000 cards when I was talking to a friend who happened to be an oncologist at a children's hospital. He said that the kids would love to have some of the cards. That's when I decided to donate the rest of the cards to the hospital. That to me was worth a million dollars.

It also opened up my eyes. I said to myself that if I want to make a little extra cash, then maybe I should try to sell vintage cards. That's what I did and am still doing it for 18 years.

[Frankish]

If you enjoy sorting through the cards, I imagine it would possible to make a little profit from lots like that. Of course, it depends how thoroughly picked over the cards were. My very limited experience (buying a couple of boxes to go through with my five year old son) is that they weren't THAT picked over. The obvious big money (admittedly, a relative term here) cards were pulled, but there were plenty of errors or print defects present.

It seems unlikely there would be "major profit" in boxes like these...but, again, that's a relative term. If sorting through cards is something you enjoy in and of itself, then your cost of time is essentially zero, and if you make $50/hour all told that might be great for you. On the other hadn't, if you are a hedge fund manager doing it solely for profit, scouring garage sales each weekend would never really be worth your time (financially) even if you found a $0.05 52T Mantle each month.

Happened to read this thread because a friend of mine is leaving the country and dumping boxes of 88-92 cards. It would never be worth my time from a financial perspective, but I'll probably sort through these with my son to see what we find. Admittedly, these haven't been picked over, so I know there are at least a few desirable cards. We'll just donate the commons to a local kids' organization.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by todeen

They are being cut up into slices and used for card collages of important athletes.

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Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Perhaps he is a supplier to the folks that cut up these cards to make artwork that depicts cards. I imagine these artists need a lot of cards to create just one piece.

Brian

Great minds not only think alike, but we are both probably thinking how we can get into this lucrative hobby supply business.

Brian

[TedWill1939]

Dumb question: Is it possible that junk wax could have some value in the future? After years of being trashed, cut up, ect, the circulation could be limited due to decades of attrition?

[insidethewrapper]

What is considered the #1 junk wax box ? 1988 Donruss ? I see the 1988 Topps Wax Boxes are now selling in the $25-30 range on ebay. I thought these were junk when I was buying at $ 5-10 a box per case.

[oldeboo]

I get the appeal of buying unopened junk wax boxes. For some, it's hard to beat the nostalgia factor and the ability to rip a bunch of packs for $20 or whatever. It's not for me, but I get it. It's much like those buying monster boxes of junk. There is a chance the box wasn't completely picked over and still has a few decent cards. There is also a chance that a few good cards are in there from outside of the junk wax era. There are even some hoarding junk wax while they watch others throw the cards in landfills and burn pits. It's going to take a lot of burning until there is significant value, but "one day" is the hope I suppose. Junk wax isn't for everyone.

[Yoda]

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[tiger8mush]

Originally Posted by insidethewrapper

What is considered the #1 junk wax box ? 1988 Donruss ?

I think 88 and 89 Score are battling for #1

[Exhibitman]

They may not have value but I think 88 Score were great looking cards

[insidethewrapper]

Over time many junk boxes turn into gold . I bought 1981 Topps Football Wax Boxes when they were closing them out by the case with the "black marks" across the front of them for $ 1-2/box back in the day and now they are selling at over $ 4,000 a box on ebay. Wish I still had them.

[maniac_73]

Originally Posted by TedWill1939

Dumb question: Is it possible that junk wax could have some value in the future? After years of being trashed, cut up, ect, the circulation could be limited due to decades of attrition?

Junk wax actually has a bit of a lift in the last year with the rookies getting a bump but over time it will go back down there is just way too much out there. Even in a hundred years the product wont dry up

[Pjere]

Originally Posted by Eric72

So, is that where the term "crack and re-submit" came from?

Hahahahaha. Now that’s funny


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[Pjere]

Originally Posted by arcadekrazy

I actually buy lots of the junk stuff from these sales if the price is right. I donate them to church groups, ARC homes and the like. The kids get a kick out of them, and it helps seed future baseball fans. It’s also an affordable way to brighten someone’s day.

Love it


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[G1911]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

They may not have value but I think 88 Score were great looking cards

This, 88 Score was a pretty big step up from Topps/Fleer/Donruss in quality, even if 89 Upper Deck gets all the press. I pick up cheap boxes of Score now and then to rip just because they are fun cards.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by G1911

This, 88 Score was a pretty big step up from Topps/Fleer/Donruss in quality, even if 89 Upper Deck gets all the press. I pick up cheap boxes of Score now and then to rip just because they are fun cards.

I like '88 Score; however, don't think it was "a pretty big step up" from the mid-80s Donruss releases.

At the time, though, it made a huge splash.

[Johnny630]

1987 Sportsflics and 1988 Donruss to me are the worst cards ever!! lol

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Eric72

I like '88 Score; however, don't think it was "a pretty big step up" from the mid-80s Donruss releases.

At the time, though, it made a huge splash.

I like 88 Donruss, it’s my favorite junk wax set. I’ve cracked at least 60 boxes of it. 88 Donruss is on an inferior stock, the backs are poor quality with no image, etc. while Score was bringing quality color photos to the back, and better quality stock on both sides. I don’t see how 88 Donruss can be rated above the Score issue on a technical quality level.

[swarmee]

I would still vote 1988 Topps as the worst, most boring design ever. Hated them when I was a 9 year old, still hate them today. It does have a couple of error/variation cards, but I wouldn't consider any of them especially valuable.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by G1911

I like 88 Donruss, it’s my favorite junk wax set. I’ve cracked at least 60 boxes of it. 88 Donruss is on an inferior stock, the backs are poor quality with no image, etc. while Score was bringing quality color photos to the back, and better quality stock on both sides. I don’t see how 88 Donruss can be rated above the Score issue on a technical quality level.

I was referring to mid-80s Donruss, most notably 1984.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

I was still left with about 75,000 cards when I was talking to a friend who happened to be an oncologist at a children's hospital. He said that the kids would love to have some of the cards. That's when I decided to donate the rest of the cards to the hospital. That to me was worth a million dollars.

It also opened up my eyes. I said to myself that if I want to make a little extra cash, then maybe I should try to sell vintage cards. That's what I did and am still doing it for 18 years.

I donated 40,000 cards to the YMCA about 2005; told the director to give them away or auction them, I could care less. I left in some big name stars so the kids would be excited to get a card of someone they knew. I was young, a bachelor, and knew I could never unload those cards any other way. I walked away stress free. Now I look back, and I think, "Maybe I'd have liked to have maybe 100 of the cards I gave away." But it's somebody else's problem.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Great minds not only think alike, but we are both probably thinking how we can get into this lucrative hobby supply business.

Brian

Actually, I want to buy some 1987 Fleer so that I can try to create my own pinterest fail! Wanna try to make the T206 Speaker. Anyone want to unload some 1987 Fleer? I need to cut them up for the blue background.