Category: Thoughts

For those of us who have been in and around the hobby for many years, it isn’t news to us that sports cards have seen a resurgence. There are a lot of people who are starting to figure this out though; thanks to some high profile publicity over the last several months. This is not where I am going to offer a drawn out opinion on what is going on with Gary Vee promoting the hobby, because I think the situation is fluid and there is no clear cut take that I am comfortable with. I think that ultimately, exposure is good but the right kind of exposure is the key. Exposure will make the people come to the hobby; providing the right kind of exposure once they get here is up to us, the long-time collectors.

There are definitely some sports cards on the market today that are super valuable and could potentially change your life if you are lucky enough to find them. But you have to understand that if you are in the hobby for that reason, it is a big gamble and you are almost guaranteed to burn out quickly. I have been collecting all my life, and if I didn’t love it and it hadn’t been so meaningful to my life, I would’ve left a long time ago. I’m not here to get rich, but if I pull something valuable along the way, I’m not going to be upset about it. This is the way I view this hobby; I’m here to enjoy the cards and collect my favorite players and sets. Whatever else happens can be considered “having my cake and eating it too”.

We can talk more about modern cards of value at some point but for those returning to the hobby after a hiatus; I think the subject of “Junk Wax” is where we need to start. If you ever check the responses or mentions when Gary Vee posts about sports cards, many of them are along the lines of, “Are the cards from when I was a kid worth anything?” As collectors, we get this question quite regularly in our day to day lives. I am pretty sure that the entire world collected sports cards in the 80’s and 90’s, so when people find out that some of us still do it in 2019, the question presents itself in some form or fashion. A lot of people still have a box of cards from when they were a kid or a binder that has been sitting in a closet at their parents for 30 years. And trust me, most of us LOVE looking through those cards with you to see if you have something cool. So with the pumping up of the industry happening all around us, these questions deserve some examination.

First, let me offer an explanation of one of the terms that will be used here regularly. Most collectors know this already but as this might reach somebody new, the term “Junk Wax” refers to the cards we collected during the big boom of the industry from around 1986-1995. The time frame varies from collector to collector but it is referred to as “Junk” because it was so massively overproduced. There are still cases and cases of 1987 Topps sitting in a warehouse somewhere. I prefer to view “Junk Wax” as more of an endearing term that represents cards from my youth. It is sort of like “Dad Bod” being somewhat derogatory but also embraced by society, both men and women alike, as a positive or cool thing.

Also, as it pertains to “value”; we all know that is a designation of relativity. A $5 bill is not the same to someone else as it may be to me. And a $100 bill is not the same for many of us either. So value, in the context of my collecting habits can be broken down as monetary value, social value, and nostalgic value.

• Monetary Value – This is the value attached to cards from a cash standpoint that may be identified as buy and sell items.
• Social Value – This is value that provides a way for collectors to connect, trade, and build their PC needs.
• Nostalgic Value – This is value that is tied to the meaning behind the cards. Perhaps the card meant something to you as a kid or ties a memory to a moment in time. This is the type of value you will find most commonly associated with the “Junk Wax Era”.

With this in mind, when someone asks me if their cards from when they were a kid are worth anything, the answer is generally, “not likely”, but we now know that it is a little more complex than that. The ‘90 Donruss, ’88 Topps, ’91 Fleer, and ’92 Leaf sets of the world really have no tangible monetary value. But long time collectors aren’t just throwing those cards in the garbage either. That 1989 Gregg Jefferies Future Star was once a retirement piece that was set aside by the masses. It is now a .50 cent card that provides more nostalgic value than 90% of the cards on the market. When someone in the hobby mentions Gregg Jefferies, it is synonymous with “cards I collected as a kid.” If I pull one, it still goes in a toploader.

The truth, as it relates to monetary value, is that there are very few cards from that era that carry anything more than a $5 price tag. There are certainly exceptions but the advent of social media, eBay, and other selling sites, combined with what we know now about production numbers from that era, has transformed the 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco, 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, 1990 Pro Set Emmitt Smith, and 1989 Hoops David Robinson cards into collection pieces that can be bought all day long for a few bucks. I won’t even get into an explanation of grading because the odds are; if you are finding the box in your childhood closet, those cards aren’t graded. We’ll save that discussion for another day.

We will touch on condition, however. What makes the vintage cards from the 50’s and 60’s so valuable is tied to scarcity and condition. So many of those cards were tossed away or used as play toys, the basic number of cards still in reasonable condition make those somewhat rare. In any collection, rare is good. By the late ‘80’s, we had learned to keep our cards in better condition because they could be worth something in the future. We used toploaders, binders, and screw-down holders to keep the highly sought after cards in “pretty good” condition. But “pretty good” condition isn’t good enough anymore. And 90% of our collections went into big cardboard boxes for posterity so “pretty good” might be generous.

That fact, combined with the printing errors (miscuts, off-center photos and borders) that are rather commonplace in sets from those days, there is still somewhat of a premium for cards that are in mint or pristine condition. For example, the Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie from 1989 sells on eBay for about $30 if you still have it in a toploader or binder. If it is graded by one of the major companies, and certified as mint condition, it sells for about $450. Whatever your understanding of value is, that is a pretty self-explanatory comparison without having to go into the ins and outs of grading.

The average “big box of cards” sitting around the house collecting dust from your childhood likely won’t have the ’89 Upper Deck Griffey or ’86 Donruss Canseco in there. These were the cards we put aside for safekeeping and either sold when we were getting out of the hobby or traded them for other cards we thought were going to be valuable and ultimately wound up in the big box when the players didn’t pan out. I am envisioning those trades that involved the likes of Todd Van Poppel, Kevin Maas, and Phil Plantier. But who knows, you might get lucky and stumble on something you forgot was there.

Let’s make this clear. I love Junk Wax. I love the nostalgia, the players, and most of the sets. There are some real beauties hanging out in that era. You just have to know what you like and know what to look for. With that in mind, here is a handy guide of what I look for when I get the call to look through somebody’s old cards. Spoiler alert; Monetary value is very minimal, Social Value is pretty solid, and Nostalgic Value is through the roof!

Draft Pick Cards
This particular Steve Avery has more sentimental value than most. But I also loved the Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas, and Ty Griffin cards. There was something cool about seeing players in high school and college uniforms.

1989 Upper Deck
The Griffey is the obvious prize but ’89 Upper Deck features a lot of fun cards in a design that is as iconic as you’ll find from the 80’s. Even without the Griffey, you’ll be happy to stumble on something from this set.

Oddballs
I love Kmart, Rite Aid, Purina, and whatever other odd retail cards you can find. They almost always have a checklist of superstars and they are unique designs that you may not remember.

Unique Photos
Upper Deck had a lot of these but you could find plenty in the other sets as well. The triple exposures were a lot of fun!

Pro Vision
One of my all time favorite subset cards. I’ve never met a Pro Vision I didn’t like.

Leaf Gold
These were on a completely different level when they were released. These cards just oozed elegance. I still enjoy finding these in random box searches.

Topps Gold
If you are REALLY lucky, you might find a “Gold Winner” like the Molitor above. But just finding base gold is enough to sit and stare for a while.

Gallery of Stars
Diamond Kings also fit in this category but the early 90’s Gallery of Stars were awesome! They had gold foil and felt like high end inserts. The checklist was solid as well.

All-Star Rookies
Topps has had its share of misses among the Future Stars but “most” of the time; the All-Star Rookies are players that performed well when they first hit the field.

Errors
Some are more obvious than others but during the Junk Wax Era, error cards were mostly unintentional and were always fun to chase. How do you like the condition of this gem? This is what many cards in the big box wind up looking like over time.

Mid-Late 80’s Fleer
Fleer did not make a bad set from 1984 through 1989. We’ll forget that 1991 ever happened for this section. I love all superstar cards from this era of Fleer!

1992 Bowman
This set has some of the biggest rookie cards from the early 90’s, along with some of the greatest photos in the history of sports cards. If you find a rookie from 1992 Bowman, odds are that it will either be a good player or a super cheesy photo.

1987 Topps
Is there really anything to say here other than; 1987 Topps?

1989 Fleer Billy Ripken
This is quite possibly the most infamous card from the 80’s. If you don’t know the story of the ’89 Ripken, you need to read it HERE!

Ken Griffey Jr.
All day, every day! There is no such thing as a bad Ken Griffey Jr. card.

Frank Thomas
Like Griffey, every card that Thomas appears on is a keeper. Some are better than others, like this sweet ’92 Topps.

When you ask the question, “Are my cards from my childhood worth anything”, the short answer is “no”, so long as you were a kid from 1980 to 2000. The longer and more accurate answer will take some sorting, research, and time. And what that really means is that there might be a few specific cards in a box of 5,000 that may be worth a few bucks. But that is only taking monetary value into consideration. When considering social and nostalgic value, you really can’t put a price on “Junk Wax”. There is still a great feeling that comes with finding a Gary Sheffield RC or a Juan Gonzalez Reverse Negative or a Nolan Ryan Triple Exposure card. This is where the value lies for cards in that era. When someone tells you they would take the cards but won’t pay a whole lot for them, they likely aren’t lying. The cards have value; they just aren’t worth a lot of money, if that makes sense.

If you find yourself in a situation where you want to know what your “Junk Wax Era” cards are worth, my recommendation is to go to someone you trust. Ask someone who has nothing to gain, other than assisting you in browsing the collection. But also, expect the discoveries to be more fun than lucrative. There are some gems to be found in the “Junk Wax Era” but we learned a long time ago that we aren’t retiring on sports cards we collected in 1988.

J-Dub

When I was in my collecting infancy in 1989, I had two real options to buy cards. I could go to the store or I could try to get to a card show and that was it. While I did have multiple store options back then, from Wal-Mart to grocery stores to convenience stores, the card shop was about 30 minutes away from my sleepy little town. I remember two brothers having a makeshift shop in their father’s insurance business, but that was it. Shows weren’t big in my city either, though they were booming in various parts of the state like Macon, Valdosta, and Atlanta. Those were the good ole days when there was no difference in “Hobby” and “Retail” and no one was buying all the Hoops from Wal-Mart to run back to their neighborhood and sell them for 3x the original cost.

Life was pretty simple then; you bought cards at the local retail outlet, you looked for inserts and rookies, you scanned the Beckett for the value, and you traded with your friends. The internet was nowhere near being discovered for me and the thought of buying something through the mail was a little scary. Times are completely different now. You can buy packs, boxes, singles, and supplies from a number of online retailers; you can break boxes with groups of friends through video; and you can post your hits on social media to try to find buyers. But the biggest online shop still seems to be eBay for a large group of collectors.

There are great online stops like Blowout, Beckett Marketplace, COMC, Bags Unlimited, Dave & Adam, and Steel City Collectibles, just to name a few, but so many collectors fall back on eBay for comps, pricing, listing, and even occasionally for previewing before they buy a product. If you list a card too high on Twitter, somebody will rush in with an eBay screen shot in their negotiations. I use eBay quite a bit because I have established myself there as a reputable seller and I have connected with a group of sellers that I trust and go back to when I need something. It’s also just fun to browse sometimes.

This is not an endorsement post for eBay so don’t misread my intentions here. I am about to get to the point in all of this. As I mentioned, it is fun to browse eBay sometimes and certain filters add to the enjoyment. I like to type in random years and set names, and then sort them by highest priced listings to see what is out there that I may have missed over the years that might be sitting in an old box somewhere. I read blogs, keep a close eye on Twitter, and talk to a lot of people in the industry but sometimes eBay will still turn up a gem that I didn’t realize was valuable.

Of course, this method also turns up some real head scratchers. Most of you who are reading this post are probably already aware of the 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe craze that is out there but if you don’t, you should check out this post before you list yours and expect big bucks. There have been rumors of the card being used in money laundering schemes and most of the listings all say “RARE” or “VERY SHORT PRINT”. I don’t know about the illegal rumors but I can confirm that the card is not rare and there are no credible sources claiming that anything in 1990 Fleer was a short print. But hey, I did find where one allegedly SOLD for $600 just a couple days ago. Who knows if the sale is arms-length, but there it is. Some wise-acre even listed the factory sealed set for $354,295!

The common thought on this Uribe phenomenon is that somebody has gone and created all of this fake buzz about the card and are profiting by selling their cards for $2-$3, which is still an amazing 5000% markup on the .05 it is likely worth. There are a bunch of them selling for a couple dollars and even several that have sold for $20-$50, which is just absolutely insane. So if that is the scheme, it seems to be working. Whatever the reason is, it isn’t the only wild listing you will find in your browsing. Here are some others I found in my travels.

1989 Donruss Alex Madrid

This is the closest thing to the Jose Uribe card out there right now as there are multiple listings for $15,000+. Alex Madrid was a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies who wrapped up his 3 year career in the majors with a 2-3 record, a 5.63 ERA, and 1 Complete Game over 46.1 innings pitched. But here is his 3rd year Donruss card, listed for as much as $25,000 on eBay. Some claim that it is an error because it has Leaf 1988 on the back, even though Leaf owned Donruss. Others claim to have one with a period behind Leaf. The fact of the matter is that this is not a rare or valuable card and appears to be another Jose Uribe scam. However, there was $110 sale out there, so somebody took the bait at least a little.

1992 Fleer Steve Sax

Here, someone thinks they have a rare Steve Sax card because it has a yellow circle on the card. You can have this rarity for just under $10,000 if you are a big Sax fan. If you have ever opened a pack of anything from the 80’s and 90’s, you know that printing errors are not rare. Fortunately, there is only one of these listed and there are zero sales on eBay of a 1992 Fleer Steve Sax. The fishing expedition may have just begun on this one.

1989 Topps Dave Smith “Miscut”

The only thing that may appear in packs from the Junk Wax Era more than a printing error is a cutting error. But this astute seller is making us believe that this Dave Smith that is horribly cut is somehow rare and valuable. I honestly can’t tell whether some of these are just jokes or whether these may be a seller just outright taking advantage of people who think their old cards from when they were kids are really valuable. But there are several listed for $5, which is criminally overpriced so there may be a big scheme behind it all. Fortunately, no sales on this one.

1986 Steve Young Topps Rookie

Then there are cards that are actually collectible and hold some value that are listed at astronomical prices like this Steve Young. This is a really cool card and one to have in your collection if you are an old school collector like myself. But you can find these in mint graded condition for less than $1,000 and you can certainly buy one ungraded, like the one listed, for less than $20.

1988 Donruss Tom Glavine

Who wouldn’t spend $500 on a 1988 rookie card of a Hall of Fame Pitcher? I love Tom Glavine and am a huge Braves fan but this is literally a $1.00 card every day of the week. It might be $25 if it is a Grade 10 from one of the big grading companies.

1989 Score Traded Ken Griffey Jr.

By Junk Wax standards, this might actually be considered slightly rarer than some other cards. The fact that it is from a Traded Set lends itself to possibly being in less of a print run than the base set was. But there are still millions of these out there. This is a very nice card that sells for about $35 if it is a Grade 10, which is something that can’t be said for any other card in the entire 1989 Score Catalog. But in no alternate universe would this ungraded version net more than $10.

1990 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr. Diamond King

Speaking of Ken Jr., if you had the bones to pick up his Score Traded Rookie for $970, you could save a tad more and pick up this sweet 1990 Donruss Diamond King! I wrote about this card one time because a classmate of mine was mad at me and took it from my book bag to rip it in half. I found it later in the day and was fuming. I would have been REALLY MAD if I had known it would be worth a grand one day!

VINTAGE 1988-1990’s Topps Score Baseball Cards Lot No Junk All High Value Cards

That is quite a description. And it is quite misleading when you look at the photo. I skimmed through all 10 photos and the cards you are looking at in this one photo are all of the cards in the lot. That’s right; 14 star cards for $450! There are even 4 Edgar Martinez cards thrown in here so it can’t be labeled a Hall of Fame Lot. This is the very reason people who got out of the hobby 20 years ago think their collections are so valuable today. I’ve said it before, value is relative. I love every one of these cards and love having them in my collection. But they are not worth $450 US Dollars!

1990’s Giants and A’s Complete Team Sets Donruss, Fleer, Tops

The first red flag is that the seller spelled Topps, “Tops”. But for a mere $18,000, you can have something that any fan of the Bay Area would love. In this lot, you get the A’s Team Set from 1989 Donruss, Fleer and Topps, along with the Giants Team Set from 1990 Fleer, and 1989 Donruss and Topps. This is a rather unique listing that might get some action in a reasonable price range but the seller REALLY loses me when he says, “never touched by human hands.” That’s just unnecessary and patently false.

Like I mentioned before, I don’t know if some of these are jokes or if these are some part of a more elaborate scheme to bring value back to the Junk Wax Era that is failing miserably. But in either case, these are actual, live listings on the auction site. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Unfortunately, there appear to be occasional buyers that fall for these deals. They buy them at a much lower price than the listing but way higher than they should have ever shelled out. What are some of the weirdest eBay listings you’ve ever seen?

J-Dub

Time certainly does fly by. We can call that a cliché or whatever, but the older I get, the more I realize it to be the absolute truth. I still can’t believe it when I realize I am only 2 months away from being 42 years old. It isn’t because I think that I am somehow supposed to defy time and stay the same age forever. It is just hard to wrap my head around being on this earth for 15,330 days. I’ve reached the age where instead of wondering what I will be when I grow up, the question becomes whether I will live another “X” number of years to match those that I have already lived. If I were to double my life from today, I would be almost 84 years old!

That doesn’t mean I have actually figured out what I want to be when I grow up, because I don’t know that I will ever either figure that out or actually grow up. Growing up and growing old are two different things I want to do those exclusive of each other, if at all possible. That is why this blog is so important to me at this stage of my life. It forces me to stay in touch with a younger version of myself. It forces me to remember why I am where I am today and some of the ways I’ve gotten here. It also forces me to take stock in where I am going and whether or not I want to keep going in that direction.

Is it surprising to you that these seemingly random sports card reviews actually help me take a mental inventory of who I am, where I have been, and where I am going? I say with 100% confidence that I would be writing these whether you were reading them right now or not. I am super thankful that you are; but some of my most important pieces were read by 10 people while some of the most random were read by 1,000. Writing is as much to me about self-motivation, nostalgia, and future growth as it is about what I actually think about 1989 Donruss and Nolan Ryan. I learn from myself when I write; it’s just not learning about cards for me as much as it is learning about how my brain works.

When I sit down to write, it is sort of like turning on the TV in my brain and watching old home movies from growing up. I visualize what I was doing when I focus on the subject I’m writing about. I try to recreate the full experience, even though my mind has slowly started to blur what may have actually happened. I still have the strong concrete pillars and foundation of my childhood; but the paint on the shutters are peeling and the carpet is starting to fray in the high traffic areas. And this blog is the only way I can occasionally spruce things up a bit. The blog is the toolbox that I have laying around the house that I have to pull out when screws need to be tightened and pictures need to be re-hung.

So really, that is why I write these sometimes pointless pieces. It is therapeutic, invigorating, and often just the right cure for what’s ailing me. And the older I get, the more ailments I have. You may sometimes think that my giveaways and constant sharing is all about traffic counts or exposure; and sometimes that is part of it. But the traffic and exposure part is what has put me in touch with likeminded people who share the same stories and many of the same memories along our walk through life. And while there are moments in my life that I will never actually get back, I am not eager to let go of the memories either. I need those memories; regardless of how important or trivial they can sometimes be. So it is important to write about them in an effort to create a dialog with a stranger that may have experienced the same moment as me 25 years ago, some 500 miles away.

I have to try and treat these moments all with the same amount of respect. A memory I have from high school graduation might just have the same amount of importance as a toy that I got from a cereal box when I was 10. Just this past Halloween, I found a box of Boo Berry at the grocery store and right there in the store aisle, I pictured myself sitting on the old shag carpet in front of our console TV, watching Saturday morning cartoons. It was one tiny memory that, for one fleeting second, made me forget about the bills I had to pay or the cholesterol pill I had to take or the calls from work I had to return. And that is what life has become at the age of 42; balancing a day to day life of responsibilities with occasional fleeting seconds of happy-go-lucky nonchalance. Well, it’s obviously more than that, but that is life to me at its most basic; living in the now but never forgetting my past.

That is also what cards do for me at this age. They help me remember when my biggest worry was whether or not I was going to get my neighbor to trade me one of those 1990 Kevin Maas Upper Deck Rookies, and how much it was going to cost me. Sports Cards are an immediate window into the past for me; whether a junk wax set or something newly released. And for the latter, no set has done that for me in baseball this year, quite like 2018 Topps Gallery. I do love Archives and Heritage but Gallery really made an impression on me, pun possibly intended. I picked up some last weekend when I went down to visit my parents and I didn’t realize how much of an impact the set was going to have on me.

First, I have always enjoyed Topps Gallery, but I guess the mood I was in was perfect for the rip this time around. The set itself is a beautiful, artist rendered collection of cards that has a checklist infused with current and former players. Just like 2017, its first year back on the market in a decade, it is a Wal-Mart Exclusive, which carries its own set of pro’s and con’s that I’ll save for a deeper dive into the industry as a whole one day. The border design is mostly a whitish-gray with printed brush strokes around the edges. All of the images are painted by various artists and have a super professional look to them. These are really like classy miniature works of art.

Hobby boxes have 5 cards per pack and 20 packs per box. Blasters have 4 cards per pack, 7 packs per box, plus 1 additional pack with 4 Artist Proof Parallels. Finally, Fat Packs have 12 cards per pack. 

Cards 1-150 are considered the base set with the usual influx of variations to be found. They include:

Short prints are found in the checklist from 151-200 and they include a mix of current and legendary players. There are also autographs and inserts to cover, which we will later.

There aren’t many “horizontal” cards but this Mattingly makes me wish there were more!

This Victor Robles is a cool photo with the glasses on the hat to give it a blue tint.

This Big Mac is an Artist Proof. I know I’ve seen this picture before!

The other half of the Bash Brothers is here as well. My Uncle Speedy pulled an autographed version of this card last week!

There are current players in the set, trust me. But I can easily get lost in these veteran player cards! Such a great image here!

There was no chance I would leave Bo out! If he gets pulled, he gets featured on this blog!

I’m not sure why some of the cards feature a colorful background other than artist choice I suppose. But this Ortiz is pretty sweet!

It’s always nice to add a new Chipper to the collection as well. I’d love to have the autographed version of this one!

Here is the first of your MLB Rookies of the Year. Ohtani was the American League representative.

And here is the National League ROY, Ronald Acuña. What a season this guy had!

This Hammerin’ Hank is one of the SP’s in the set. Classic photo!

Another SP is Jackie Robinson. One day, I’ll add some originals of Jackie but for now, this will have to do.

These are the Fat Pack Exclusives.

I’m not completely sold on the Heritage Inserts but I do love this Albies.

Another insert is the Hall of Fame cards. Nice to have a Jackson in the Halos uniform.

Masterpiece is an insert set that includes Black and White Images. These are ok but not my favorite cards.

Here is a Green Parallel numbered to 99. These are nice with a little added color.

The Blue Parallels are also numbered to 99. Eddie Murray is such an underrated player by today’s collectors.

Orange is the lowest numbered parallel I pulled. This Correa is numbered to 25.

Gallery includes box toppers, which can be found in the form of “Original” pieces. No such luck with this one but still a cool piece.

This is the base autograph. It looks just like the base card but with the added autograph sticker, and is not numbered.

This Green Parallel is numbered to 99!

And finally, The Big Hit! I mean, The Big Hurt! This bad boy is numbered 4/5 and is one of the sweetest baseball pulls of the year for me. This is an unbelievable addition to my collection!

So there you have 2018 Topps Gallery. I love the set but I’m afraid future boxes are going to be hard to find. My local Wal-Marts are already out and they don’t usually restock exclusives. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and certainly keep an eye out at other Wal-Marts. These can be found online but they are marked up on the secondary market, as usual. I like the various options you have and the exclusives that are found in each offering. The designs are the best of any set for me in 2018, excluding designs they have recycled from previous years. I found good value in the boxes I opened and this is certainly a base set I can get behind. I give it a “5” on the Dub-O-Meter and will definitely be on the lookout for more!

J-Dub

Scoring Scale

1.Let me be the sacrificial lamb so you don’t have to buy these cards.  Just read the post and thank me later.

2.There is worse but there is much better – not worth the effort though.

3.Middle of the road – I wouldn’t talk you into buying these but I certainly wouldn’t talk you out of them.

4.You should probably go out and buy a box and enjoy the rip – I did!  It has some downside but worth the ride.

5.Stop reading and find a box to buy and get to Breaking!  What are you waiting on?