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

Has the Junk card era ended? If so, when? And what makes you believe that it has ended?

:confused:

I would say no. The supply of modern cards, adding up all the issues, is huge. Just to take one random example, an ebay search for 2018 Juan Soto (his rookie year) returns 26,000 plus hits.

It's the junk slab era now

Not by a long shot. Unless today's card is a 'hit', then it is immediately relegated to the junk pile. And even if it's a 'hit' when the pack is opened, many of those will be junk in a short time.

Never heard of the junk card era. There was a junk wax era. There appears to be a junk slab era, and probably a junk parallel era. But there have always been good cards in all eras.

If you are referring to the junk wax era, yes, it ended long ago. That era was defined by wax where the most expensive card you could pull was a base card with 3 million copies. While there is still a lot of junk in boxes, the inclusion of rare, desirable cards in products, at least leaves open the possibility for something nice in the wax.

These box breaks don't even SHIP cards unless they are hits. I don't think any collector could have imagined that in 1990. Vast wasteland of modern cards

My favorites are the 1/1s that sell for 4 and 5 figures of players that have no MLB experience. Then sell for $5 or less a couple years later.:D

I think of it as a transition, from pure junk wax of the late 80's to the early 90's and a bit beyond where there were some pretty nice cards with much more limited production, but a very few great inserts. That eventually led to now, what I sometimes call the lottery era, with overly elaborate base cards that even with lower production aren't really worth much even years later, and a very few very low production inserts that may be worth a lot but only if it's the "right" player.
I'm not sure what's next.

I chose my words carefully. Yes, the term "junk wax" is the one most commonly heard. But!!! The last year any cards could be found in traditional wax packs was 1991. And the junk era for cards extended for many more years. Whether five, ten or until the present is the only question.

;)

I love those stories of speculators getting badly burned! The lesson of course is to not buy any new issues until they're at least two years old.

:cool:

For baseball, since Fanatics took over (so since 2024) we are in the junk era yet again.

I like this definition...the junk parallel era. True.

In that case, my answer is there has never been a junk card era. There have always been great cards to collect in all eras.

Additionally, it is pedantic to refuse to call unopened cards "wax" just because the original source of the name came from a method of sealing the product that is now obsolete. From the first foil wrapper, the hobby has consistently continued to colloquially refer to unopened product as wax. But you do you.

;)

Keep in mind that I wasn't the one who invented the term "junk" to refer to these cards. Some fabulous looking cards were released during this era whatever the boundaries. I have over a dozen binders of post-1990 cards myself.

I have no problem pleading guilty to being pedantic. I've been that way since high school. But when it comes to pedantry, most participants on this forum would agree that your skills are second to none. ;)

So when, if ever, do you think the junk/junk wax era ended?

:confused:

Let me also be pedantic. :p

The term "junk" never refered to the cards. It refered to the wax. The cards were always great. It was the cost of a box compared to the value of what could possibly come out of it that made the wax junk.

And while we are defnitely in an era of overpriced wax, where people (gamblers) pay big bucks for a tiny chance at an extremely valuable card and usually end up with a fraction of the cost of the box, it is this remote possibility that distinguishes this era from the junk wax era.

To a vintage collector……..its still all junk :)

Junk = Trash

That's where they end up in the end

If so, that was just as true in 1948, 1952, 1960, 1970 and 1980 as it was in 1990. Therefore the junk wax era would have started way back when Baseball cards first started being packaged with bubble gum. While that could well be the case, that's not typically the way the "junk wax" term is used.

;)

I thought the term junk wax referred to the boxes being produced in such mass quantities that they weren't worth much.

I would say more like 8 years, to be safe, going from the date of the first prospects issues.

Not really. There were "only" about 250,000 of each card produced back then. During the junk wax era, there were several million. That's significant. Remember, the term junk wax wasn't used during the era. Everyone thought the cards would pay for their kid's college. The difference between the eras is that quantities of 50s cards went down as people's collections disappeared, while everyone kept their 80s cards, and so much was made that more keeps getting opened to this very day.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that the term junk wax isn't used to refer to the wax, but it always has. It's literally in the name.

That, coupled with the pre-rare insert era, is the reason for the term. But it never would have been called junk wax, even printed in those quantities, if there was a shot to pull something rare and valuable out of it.

And to make it worse, so many of the 80s RCs are in the traded/update sets.

Right,
To me personally Junk wax started in about 1972 and continues to this day. It's just how I see it, I have no desire to own 99.9% of any cards post 1971.

So on that question, inserts/chase cards first appeared in packs over thirty years ago now. Have the earliest releases started to recover from their lows? if so, how long has it taken for them to start recovering in price? Or looking at the question in another way, what's the sweet spot for a buyer - two to eight years after issue perhaps?

:confused:

Meh, I love baseball cards and I love baseball. People who scoff at certain eras aren't really baseball card collectors to me. They are era collectors. There are great cards of great players across all eras of baseball.

That's probably a safe spot. I might even extend it out to about 15 years or so. Usually there is a pretty lengthy period between first release hype, and when nostalgic collectors go back to the cards they loved when they were younger. For instance, it sounds like you are asking about some of the earliest rare inserts (presumably mid-late 90s) recovering from their lows. As a 90s insert collector, I can tell you that rare inserts of the 90s are by far (lightyears) the hottest era of sports cards right now. They also command extremely high prices. And I just collect Barry Larkin. His best cards are usually only 4 figures. Guys like Griffey and Jeter's best cards from the 90s can cost several hundred thousand dollars.

I collect because of second hand nostalgia. And I just don't have nostalgia for anything really past the 50s/60s. Even though that was far before my time. If I collected because of my love of baseball and just because players were great In the 80s I'd have a collection that is meaningless to me.

I'd wager to say half the forum is the same way but for pre war cards, who don't touch anything past the 40s. Some maybe not even collect out of the 1800s.

I'm glad you have found something you enjoy to collect.

For me, I collect baseball cards because I love baseball and baseball cards. So the sentence I quoted just doesn't compute for me. I can't comprehend how collecting cards of a sport and players you love to watch can be a meaningless collection. It doesn't connect in my brain.

But that's the beauty of collecting. We all enjoy and collect different things. I collect baseball cards. You collect nostalgia for a certain era. And that's great.

Because it's not really in the name. The term is used for cards that came out long after card companies stopped using wax wrappers. The derivation of the term is therefore far from clear.

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.

:(

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?

:confused:

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.

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.

I find it fun to track the history of baseball and baseball cards through the lens of my favorite team (and the oldest professional team), the Cincinnati Reds.

Back in 2022 I put together this image using some of my favorite Reds players. It chronicles the history of Topps flagship brand from 1951 through 2022 using base cards of one Reds player (in a Reds uniform) for each year.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...14353d6ac1.jpg

Wow, that image really highlights how similar Topps cards have become in the past 12 years or so.

seems to me this era is "junkier" than ever?

I agree. Demand is basically non-existent on Products once they hit the 5-8 week mark, unless its one of a small handful of players. If we didn't have "Buy It Now" and had just auctions on eBay overall comps would be no where near where they are for Modern Cards. Modern cards are just like a game of Hot Potato with more steps.

I didn't get any bad info since I didn't get any hard info at all prior to starting this thread.That's why I started this thread. Whether I'm getting any good info now remains to be seen.

I didn't take your post out of context. I thought you were saying exactly that Barry Larkin's are the only chase cards you collect from the 1990's. But I can't understand why you as a baseball fan and baseball card enthusiast would be collecting only the Larkin card from insert sets. Sure, I understand that you might not be able to either afford or stomach paying the truly inflated prices the Derek Jeter and Ken Griffey Jr. cards command, but why do you not go after the other players in subsets you find really attractive? And are there any master sets or even base sets at all from the 1990's that you're trying to complete?

:confused:

You seriously can't understand why I would choose only one player from a set to collect? I'm a baseball fan who loves the Reds. I'm a Reds fan who loves baseball cards. Collecting Reds players from all eras makes perfect sense for my collection. I truly have no idea why you can't comprehend that. I'm pretty sure you are just being intentionally obtuse just to mess with me at this point.

I'm the same, except add Eric Davis and Chris Sabo to Larkin

That's something any set builder such as myself finds difficult to understand. Just one player from all those cards? Oh come on!

Admittedly the plethora of parallel sets, subsets, insert sets, unique Jersey cards, manufactured scarcities e.g. xx/12, etc. (junk?) that has cropped up since the early 1990's has made it difficult for us set builders to decide precisely how to define any set we embark upon collecting. I struggle with it myself. But this plethora has also made the decision absolutely necessary.

:(

Yep. That's why as a team collector, I have to make decisions. Since Larkin is a hall of famer, he is in nearly every set. So having an example from every set, even the extremely rare ones, is preferable to trying to complete just a few sets (as completing all sets is impossible). As a baseball card fan, doing it the way I do means I get to have cool cards from more sets, and enjoy nearly everything the era has to offer.

But there is a set collector mentality in me somewhere. I am obsessed with completing the "rainbows" of all the parallel sets of Larkin in the 90s. Some of which are so rare they take a lifetime to complete. If you don't collect 90s, it is hard to comprehend just how scarce this stuff is. Some Larkin cards have literally never had a public sale. So completing the rainbow is often much bigger a task than nearly all set building.

Okay. I understand. A few of the insert sets I've collected over the years are indeed super tough. For example I liked the 1996-97 Skybox Metal Universe Hockey cards so much that I decided to collect all the insert sets as well in the Super Powers(refractor) variant. Well when it came to the Armor Plate (goalies) Super Power cards, there was only one inserted in every 720 packs. But I got those done some ten years ago!

I also keep an open mind when it comes to collecting cool cards particularly if they're not expensive. For example, just this morning I received a 1963 CFL coin I'd bought on Ebay from a dealer in Sherbrooke, Québec. He included eight of these 2021-22 Upper Deck Credentials cards as padding in the envelope:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/m9kAA...x/s-l1600.webp (Not mine.)

But I really like them! The player really pops against the simple white background. They're keepers. So I guess I'm collecting them as well now.

;)

Very much so. None of the designs since 2008 stand out and even that year doesn’t jump out as special.

I'm a big fan of 2024, even though it came after that picture.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...b3f05b76c6.jpg

And it looks good in a parallel, too.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...fbd618c887.jpg

An excellent point.

2024 is decent. Last design that looks good to me is 2006. I respect 07 but don’t love it

That card looks sensational! How many are there in that series?

:confused:

That particular card is the gold logofractor numbered to 50. There are other colors with different serial numbers, though.

The whole rainbow is:

Purple /250
Aqua /199
Blue /150
Green /99
Gold /50
Orange /25
Black /10
Red /5
Rose Gold 1/1

Which is actually a tiny rainbow in today's world.

It’s not that they’re bad designs…it’s that they’re so nondescript. None of them can really be bad or good, because there’s just nothing distinctive that would stand out one way or the other. Plus it seems like they all use the same background-blurring effect.

So then I take it that Elly de la Cruz is available in that pose in that rainbow of effects. But is there a whole set, or a certain subset, of other players available that way? And do you have any Cruz cards in those other rainbow colours?

And is this the Aqua Cruz or is it part of a different RayWave Refractor parallel series of effects?

https://images.production.sportscard...4103_6121_44-L (Not mine.)

:confused:

It's complicated. The card you posted is from the regular Topps Chrome set. It is the Aqua Raywave parallel. There are a TON of parallels in that set with lots of colors and patterns. The one I posted is technically from a different product called Topps Chrome Logofractor Edition. All the parallels in Logofractor Edition have that same pattern with the MLB logo.

https://www.baseballcardpedia.com/in...me_Logofractor

https://baseballcardpedia.com/index....4_Topps_Chrome

Here are all the parallels in the regular Topps Chrome release:

Refractors – (1:3 hobby, 1:1 jumbo, 1:1 breaker, 1:4 value, 1:3 monster)
Pink Refractors – (1:4 value)
Prism Refractors – (1:6 hobby, 1:2 jumbo, 1:7 value, 1:7 monster)
RayWave Refractors – (1:9 value, 1:4 monster)
Sepia Refractors – (1:4 value)
X-Fractors – (1:1 monster)
Negative Refractors – (1:89 hobby, 1:27 jumbo, 1:3 breaker, 1:249 value, 1:101 monster)
Magenta Speckle Refractors – /350 (1:102 hobby, 1:31 jumbo, 1:3 breaker, 1:285 value, 1:116 monster)
Purple Speckle Refractors – /299 (1:119 hobby, 1:36 jumbo, 1:3 breaker, 1:334 value, 1:136 monster)
Sonar Purple Refractors – /275 (1:109 value, 1:73 monster)
Purple Refractors – /250 (1:143 hobby, 1:44 jumbo, 1:4 breaker, 1:403 value, 1:164 monster)
Aqua Refractors – /199 (1:179 hobby, 1:55 jumbo, 1:5 breaker, 1:503 value, 1:205 monster)
Aqua Lava Refractors – /199 (1:179 hobby, 1:55 jumbo, 1:5 breaker, 1:503 value, 1:205 monster)
RayWave Aqua Refractors – /199 (1:151 value, 1:101 monster)
Blue Refractors – /150 (1:238 hobby, 1:73 jumbo, 1:6 breaker, 1:669 value, 1:271 monster)
RayWave Blue Refractors – /150 (1:200 value, 1:134 monster)
Sonar Blue Refractors – /125 (1:285 hobby, 1:87 jumbo, 1:7 breaker, 1:804 value, 1:326 monster)
Lightboard Logo – (1:280 value, 1:140 monster)
Green Refractors – /99 (1:361 hobby, 1:110 jumbo, 1:9 breaker, 1:1,016 value, 1:413 monster)
Green Wave Refractors – /99 (1:185 hobby, 1:57 jumbo, 1:62 breaker)
RayWave Green Refractors – /99 (1:304 value, 1:203 monster)
Sonar Green Refractors – /99 (1:361 hobby, 1:110 jumbo, 1:9 breaker, 1:1,016 value, 1:413 monster)
Blue Wave Refractors – /75 (1:245 hobby, 1:76 jumbo, 1:82 breaker)
Gold Refractors – /50 (1:714 hobby, 1:218 jumbo, 1:18 breaker, 1:2,014 value, 1:817 monster)
Gold Wave Refractors – /50 (1:367 hobby, 1:113 jumbo, 1:122 breaker)
RayWave Gold Refractors – /50 (1:601 value, 1:402 monster)
Big Apple Refractors – less than 50 copies each (Fanatics Fest NYC boxes only)
Orange Refractors – /25 (1:388 hobby)
Orange Wave Refractors – /25 (1:733 hobby, 1:226 jumbo, 1:244 breaker)
RayWave Orange Refractors – /25 (1:1,201 value, 1:800 monster)
Black Refractors – /10 (1:1,833 hobby, 1:564 jumbo, 1:626 breaker)
RayWave Black Refractors – /10 (1:3,012 value, 1:2,013 monster)
Frozenfractors – /-5 (1:506 jumbo)
Red Refractors – /5 (1:7,117 hobby, 1:2,163 jumbo, 1:173 breaker, 1:20,184 value, 1:8,336 monster)
Red Wave Refractors – /5 (1:3,657 hobby, 1:1,127 jumbo, 1:1,251 breaker)
RayWave Red Refractors – /5 (1:6,024 value, 1:4,025 monster)
Printing Plates – 1/1 (1:8,896 hobby, 1:2,722 jumbo, 1:218 breaker, 1:25,281 value, 1:10,610 monster; each has Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow versions)
Superfractors – 1/1 (1:35,584 hobby, 1:11,011 jumbo, 1:834 breaker, 1:104,587 value, 1:40,062 monster)

As you can see, it gets insane. It's why I said we may be in a junk parallel era. It's why I pick one or two that I like of each player I collect, and that's it.

:eek:

I agree! Even the most determined set/subset collector would need to take a very focused rifle shot approach.

:(