The Junk Wax Era- when did it start?

[tulsaboy]

Looking for opinions... We all regularly refer to the "Junk Wax Era." When do you think that began? I feel like, at least as Topps goes, there is still a relatively brisk market for unopened product through 1985, and maybe 1986. Anything after that, especially 1988, is almost worthless. So when do you think this era began?

[PM770]

In my opinion, 1987 was the beginning over the massive overproduction. I know it started to ramp up all throughout the 80s, bu I believe 1987 was the year.

I remember as a teenager watching a story on 20/20 during the summer of 1986 when they talked about how the value of baseball cards had skyrocketed. They talked about rookies and how the big 2 rookies that summer (Joyner and Canseco) did not have cards in Topps and only Canseco had cards at all.

I remember they showed a guy with a specially built vault in his house that contained his T-206 Wagner.

So my best un-professional guess is 1987. Thats when the presses REALLY went crazy.

[brewing]

I would guess 1987 too. What a year for rookies, too.
Larkin, Greenwell, maddux, Sierra, bonds, palmerio, Matt Williams, bo jackson.

No wonder they kept printing, the demand was unreal. I have tossed 3 3200 count boxes of topps commons. Still have a dozen sets and several unopened boxes.


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[gregr2]

Was the junk wax era perpetuated by Topps and the other card manufacturers as a way to increase profits?

[Rich Klein]

Still exists 81-86, I use 1987-94 AKA the peak years of the hobby boom to be the overproduced era. That ended with a crash in August, 1994 when the Baseball Strike began

[D. Bergin]

It seems like Topps really increased production in 1987. The other companies upped their production to, but really spiked the numbers in 1988 I think.

I lost track of how many monster boxes of '88 Donruss I've tossed in the trash each time I moved or tried to make space in the house.

Junk wax for football, hockey, basketball, probably begins in 1989.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by gregr2

Was the junk wax era perpetuated by Topps and the other card manufacturers as a way to increase profits?

There was a huge demand at the time, so yes.

As soon as every Tom, Dick and Harry started putting away full cases of new cards to pay for their future retirement or kids education, the junk era started in full swing.

[tulsaboy]

Rich-can you explain your comment about 1981-1986? I'm not challenging, just curious. I wonder if production of those years was significantly higher than it was during, say, 1975-1980, or if more people were becoming aware during that era of the importance of keeping unopened product (and keeping their cards in good shape). The second explanation would inform the reality that a box of 1982 is easier and much cheaper to source than one of 1978. If all other things are equal, it is hard to say that a span of 4 years totally explains the 500% or so disparity in the price of unopened product.

[gregr2]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

There was a huge demand at the time, so yes.

As soon as every Tom, Dick and Harry started putting away full cases of new cards to pay for their future retirement or kids education, the junk era started in full swing.

Thanks for the information!

[Rich Klein]

That there were certain times of "wax" explosion

There is definately more wax and cards issued in 1978 then in the pre-78 era and then in 1981, especially with the three companies there was a major uptick in card production. That is why you see a ton more

78 sets then 77 and 1981 sets then 1980, etc.

81 to 86 was definately a time with big production but the real explosion began in 1987.

Hard to explain but 87 became "the year" for the over production and more unopened was saved that year in part because of the then immense Topps (and Donruss and Fleer) RC crew.

Then 88-91 at the very least were printed till te cows came home and even 92-94 was very heavily produced. Remember by 1993 at Beckett we were shipping over 1 Million Baseball magazines a month and selling a good proportion of those magazines. And one of the primary reasons was the interest in new products. The reason there is slightly less 92-94 product out there then the 87-91 era is there were more products in those years and thus a diffusion of those products make for seemingly less out there.

But there are still a ton of singles until about 94 so I'm OK with 87-94 as the overproduction era

Rich

[brewing]

I heard the old man on pawn stars say something along the lines of, if it's made as a collectible or collectors item, then it has no long term value. Because it encourages people to keep it, thus insuring the supply will be high in the future.

I wish someone would have schooled me on that principle 30 years ago when went all in on new product.


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