General Forum

 Hey everyone. I'm going to a small card show in Jackson, MI on Saturday, and I'm bringing my girlfriend. She wants to go, mostly because she hasn't been exposed to my card collecting long enough to not find it "cute" anymore.  So it will be nice to have another pair of eyes to find the 92-93 Gordie Howe Hockey Heroes cards, 97-98 UD CC Hometown Heroes Back to Back Champs cards, and other Red Wings.

BUT, I want to give her a crash-course on card collecting. I want to tell her about the "junk wax era" of the early 90s, but what exactly was it? What sets? What years? I know junk wax when I see it, but I really want to try to quantify it. Also, if you have any other things that would be nice for her to know, let me know! I have my own opinions on what she should know, but you guys have way more expertise.

So, what would you teach a non-collector that is going to a card show?

 For my money, 1988-1993 pretty well covers it. There are exceptions like 1989 Upper Deck and 1990 Leaf baseball, and the first Hoops basketball set. I felt 1988 Donruss was the first truly garbage set of the overproduced era. It was the era where people who weren't collectors started buying cards, hoping they would be valuable. They heard about the Donruss Mattingly and other big cards from the mid 80s, and suddenly cards were investments. The Billy Ripken error didn't help. I remember a guy here who was going to put his grand kids through college with those. The leagues saw dollar signs and started granting licenses to anyone with a printing press, and suddenly the market was flooded. Or at least this is how I remember it, being a teenager at the time.

"Junk" wax is the term given by people who invested in the cards of that era and lost their money.  Sure most of the cards from that era don't have much value as an investment because there are SO many of them, but for those of us who collect solely for the enjoyment of the cards it was a great era. 

 I'd even go a little earlier and say it started flooding around 85. Like others have said, it all depends on what you're looking to do. If you are collecting for the fun of collecting, then the over flooded market will save you some money. If you're in it as an investment, then the flood hurts. It hurt a lot of people in the 80's who thought they'd buy low and sell high.

 Honestly I love the cards of the early 90s. The 91-92 NHL Pro Set is my favorite set of cards ever. I just want to let her know that if she finds a '91 base set Yzerman card for $3 or something, that it is definitely overpriced. But if she finds 30 90s era Red Wings from the early 90s for $3, then she should swipe that up right away! I'm mostly trying to teach her about being a smart card shopper, along with the difference between insert cards and subsets, base cards, the various card brands, parallels, etc.

 Interesting.  I've been collecting 90's sets this last bit and I've been getting them for 10 bucks a set.... 500-700 cards.... 3 bucks for a 30 pack of a team sounds like a rip to me.  Can you haggle with these guys???

I tend to agree with Lungman that it actually started around 85 the mid 80s and pretty much lasts until around the late 90s 97 or 98.

The two basic reasons:

There were at least a dozen different card companies each cranking out tens of thousands of each individual card, and about 20 different sets each year all year round. Constantly testing out new "innovative" ideas and gimmicks to try to increase this tidal wave of cardboard. (Hmm sound familiar?) As opposed to the earlier days of only a handful of companies (Topps and one or two other guys) when they only produced one maybe two sets of each sport DURING the SEASON of that sport and only a few thousand copies of each card not tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Now days we are back to only a few companies, but they are still making tons of different sets, but are short printing and super shortprinting individaul cards. They are making a ton of inserts and parallels now. In the old days and during the "Junk" days they weren't making as many parallels the thing was Shiney glossy gold and silver plating limited "Chase" cards.

Second instead of all the buyers being "Collectors" (i.e. "Kids" for the longest time), most buyers were investors and now adults not just kids. The idea was "Hey the cards from the 1950s and 60s are worth Money in some cases worth thousands and thousands, So If I buy 5 of these Topps sets at $20 and Oooh these Rookies of this Guy Jordan (he'll never make it I better not risk it on him), and Jones, and Beeblebrox I'll buy as many of those guys as I can. Hey I like Beeblebrox I'll get 20" Soooo you have a ton of product being made, and everybody and his brother is snatching them up with the hopes of making it rich. So now many people are using those cards as wallpaper.