The Junk Wax Era- when did it start?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by 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

All true.

There also was a buildup of a few other things. Before about 1980-1 there wasn't much for card sales through large retailers. It was almost entirely through distributors to local convenience stores. K-mart carried packs and albums in 74 and newer, but not in huge quantity compared to what came later. Large toy chains like KB toy and hobby and Toys R Us, child world etc generally carried nothing or nearly nothing. Maybe a box at the register, but that was about the limit. Even non-sports could be a challenge, out of probably 10-15 corner stores in my town only 3-4 carried the 4th series of star wars, and only one carried the last series.

When things went to three companies in 81 that started to change. Large retail started carrying more, usually all three sets which meant moving it off the counter and onto its own shelf. Small stores didn't always carry all three, but did usually carry more than just one. A friend of mine worked in his family 5+10 and convinced his father to carry whatever cards he could get. Everything sold well, and he gave me a couple boxes at a really cheap price for suggesting they carry more cards.

By 83 big retail carried everything and had fairly large stocks. Child world carried the 83s as uncut sheets as well as wax, cello and rack packs.

Between 77 and 83 another thing that happened was a big increase in the number of card shops. when I moved near Boston in 77 there was one card shop in town, a really unusual thing. By 81 there was another card shop, two antique shops selling cards, and a couple people selling out of their homes. And there were at least 6-7 full time dealers in the Boston area.

That only increased by 4-86 and beyond. Ordering directly from any of the companies in 77 was hard. It required a full shop, as the required pics of the storefront and interior. By the early 90's all they required sometimes was a business license and enough money to make the minimum order. So some flea market guys could buy direct.

And of course, they sold/printed at least as much as people ordered. Good for Topps Fleer and Donruss short term, not so good in the long term. But I imagine it would have been hard for an exec at any company to pass up short term profits the size of what they were while the competition was making that money.

Steve B