General Forum

Hello everyone,

This is my first ever forum post here in my second month on The Trading Card Database.   I want to thank everyone who has traded with me or even talked with me privately about baseball cards and life in general.  About two months ago I took my cards out of their boxes for the first time in 10 years and started counting and tabulating... then I found this wonderful site!

I was confronted again with something I knew for a long time but never really hurt me, and probably never will, at least in a physical sense:  A great fraction of my collection is 1988-1992 Donruss, Fleer, Score, and Upper Deck "junk" that must exist out there in the world in the tens of millions per card.  It seems everyone who wants or ever wanted one or two or 20 could have them, and they do.  I use the "junk" term liberally and with all due respect that the word "junk" imparts to the subject product.  I have plenty of it, so no judgment against anyone else who has these cards, and likes them for that matter.  Where are the consumers of these things?  Did that ship sail 20 years ago?  I want to move a lot of mine out.  Don't really care where it goes, but some 10k duplicates, triplicates and a few dectuplicates need a new home.  So what do you guys do?

I have read a few forums on here addressing the subject of destruction.  I gotta say I felt disgusted at the thought at first... 'give 'em to a kid' I might say to the guy who throws them in the trash or bonfire.  But the question I cannot answer is "what kid, where?".  I have a few friends on my list who show wants in 1990 Donruss, but there are 10 sellers for every buyer.  Most of the wants that do exist are the stars I have the fewest of.  Nobody wants the mass of commons out there.  I just went through a 5,000 box of 92 Score I bought from a baseball card shop 15 years ago when I was a bit dimmer.

Are there prospective homes for my orange 1990 Donruss cards... the year they couldn't even get their checklists straight, nor player birthdates, nor in a few instances the right face on the right card?  They even bothered to issue fixes for little black lines extending through white script text for Pete's sake!  Needless to say I have a pretty low regard for that set in particular.  I have 4,000 extra 1992 Score baseball cards.  They are a better product and I'm on the fence about keeping even one set for myself, but what do you guys do with the rest?  I would rather give them away than destroy them.  Who wants them?  Can I get 5 bucks for a box full?  Is the box worth exactly the same empty?  What do you guys do with your extra cards?  How long would you hold them before leaving them on the side of the road for the squirrels?

jpjanes

A friend of mine from another site used the term 'flood zone' instead of junk era, I kind of like the sound of that better. 

In my area,  which is not a mlb town,  I see this era in boxes or binders at thrift stores. When I look curiously the following week, they are gone....so there is some demand at the thrift store level, but not much else (in my area at least)

I won't give my answer on this public forum. If you've read old threads on the topic, you've probably noticed that the debates can get a little heated, between the "they aren't worth the paper they're printed on" and the "all cards are precious and need a home" sides.  Because some members get really, really upset at the idea of cards getting thrown away, and I've even been known to come to their defense at times (though I don't agree with them), I will only say that if you do throw them away, don't brag about it in the forums!

If you want to sort out any ERR/VARs, I'll take them for the cost of s/h. And there are quite a few. ~BOB~

If you can fill medium or flat rate boxes of them for a given set or two, throw them on eBay for enough to cover shipping and fees for yourself as auction starting bid.  You won't make much, but they'll find a new home.  EV collectors of a given set are probably the target market.

I've got a buddy on another forum who's the king of 90 Donruss.  I'll reach out and see if he's interested though he did mention recently he could probably brick them up and build a house with what he's got.

I've seen a lot of guys on Twitter buying this stuff. Maybe that's an opportunity you should look at.

I did see some ebay auctions for med flat rate boxes of misc baseball like this recently when I was shoipping for med flat rate of newer stuff...

they were not selling for much, but that is one idea

mark

Thank you, everyone for your replies. I appreciate the "flood zone" thing as I try to be sensitive generally.  I will recycle that one next time I want to say 'j--- era'.

I was aware of the cross-fire that is the topic of destruction or disposal and it was never my intent to light that flame again.  The warning against bragging over such destruction is received with much regard.

I got another thought as I read through... it would not take too much time and effort to sort the multiples into teams. Anyone had success moving cards that way?  

I didn't expect to find any takers on this forum, but I would gladly discuss an inquiry in a private message. For that matter, I am looking to make some friends and trading partners on here anyway. That's as close to a shameless mass invitation I can muster on the forum.

Fun stuff. Thanks guys!

~'jpjanes'

jpjanes - I too have thousands upon thousands of cards from this era. In fact, I "thinned" out my commons boxes (my extras available for sale or trade) to having no more than 5 cards of each card (this was for 1987 Topps, all of 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991).

The cards that I call 6+ (the ones pulled) fill a triple shoe, 3 double shoes, and 4 800-count boxes (the leftovers of the boxes). So, even there, I have thousands. I did try team lots, and I think I moved 2 or 3 of them (I was selling them as 200-card lots all different). I think I made a grand total of 23 cents (after shipping) on the 3 lots I sold. You can TRY it, but if you sort them all that way, don't be surprised that you may be wanting to re-sort them.

If you're really worried about tossing them when they could have a better home (than a lowly recycle bin or such), check the want lists here. Ask people for their address, send them. Keep your want list up-to-date, and you might even get something you want in return - but don't expect it. Do it because yo want to send them to the good people here.

Oh, and I also have 5 extra 1987 Topps sets (that I put together from packs I opened that year). Plus all the extras. And I think BOB has more than me!

In the last few months I've sold 2 big lots of these junk era cards (some were complete sets, etc.) locally..I consider myself lucky for sellig what I had..Option B was to donate them to Goodwill, etc. 

It has become very apparent to me lately that it is very hard to sell cards on a site like eBay and for me, was not worth the effort to do so..

Trading seems the way to go but you'll likely die of old age before your trade off thousands of these cards..