[esquiresports]

It's been a lot of fun reading this because I lived through it. 1986 or 1987 is when the "junk wax" era began in my opinion. I would guess that Topps' production roughly doubled every year from 1977 to 1985 and then accelerated even more quickly to the peak in what I believe is around 1991/1992.

I recall seeing a ton of 1986 Topps wax and racks well into 1987, but that may have been driven, in part, but a weak rookie class.

1987 was the first year that Topps sold factory sets on a truly national level. They did produce some factory sets in 1974 and 1984-1986, but 1987 was a huge factory set production year. From 1987-1993, factory set production was huge. I still have mine.

I believe 1988 Donruss holds, by a good margin, the record for highest production. I mean it was everywhere you looked. 1989 Donruss was saved in part by a strong rookie class. 1990 Donruss production remained in the stratosphere.

1989 Upper Deck started out as the "scarce" product, but I wonder how long they printed 1989 Upper Deck product. Its production appears to be up there with just about any other product than 1988 Donruss. 1990-1992 production was extremely high.

Card companies really began to bank on the card craze in the late 1980s. You had new entrants like Sportflics, Wild Card, Star Pics and others who cashed in with less than stellar product.

The big companies battled back by releasing new sets. You saw special sets - opening day, baseball's best, etc. Then Topps reintroduced Bowman in 1989. Donruss came out with an upper end Leaf product in 1990. Topps added OPC Premiere, which was THE set to have along with Leaf. Then Studio Club, Gallery, and on and on. It was pretty horrible.