1987 Donruss Baseball Cards Unopened: A Nostalgic Investment Opportunity
The 1987 Donruss baseball card set holds a special place in the hearts of many collectors and fans who came of age in the late 1980s. Featuring iconic players like Wade Boggs, Rickey Henderson, and Roger Clemens on the tail end of the junk wax era, 1987 Donruss cards evoke memories of summers at the ballpark and carefree days collecting in your neighborhood. While the glut of mass-produced cards from that time period severely depressed values for years, certain 1987 Donruss cards have seen renewed interest in recent years from nostalgic collectors. Perhaps more importantly, sealed unopened 1987 Donruss wax packs and boxes have emerged as a burgeoning investment opportunity for savvy collectors.
Released in 1987 alongside the flagship Topps set, Donruss opted for a simpler design compared to Topps’ photographed fronts that year. The cards featured basic team logo artwork along with player name and stats on a white or yellow background. Rookies and stars received parallel “foil” versions with hologram-like silver treatment. Overall print runs were immense by today’s standards, with some estimates putting the 1987 Donruss set print run near 1 billion cards. This ultimately damaged the long term graded value of individual common cards. It’s also part of what gives unopened 1987 Donruss product its allure – finding a sealed pack or factory set from that massive production run over 30 years later has become a real challenge.
While you can still occasionally find loose 1987 Donruss wax packs selling for around $5-10 online, locating sealed unopened boxes and factory sets has become increasingly difficult. Recent eBay sales of sealed 12-pack boxes have ranged between $150-500 depending on the specific player featured on the box front. Factory sealed wax box sets containing a complete 660-card rainbow set have topped $1,000. For the ultra-rare factory sealed factory team sets containing an entire team’s rookie cards and stars, prices over $5,000 are not unheard of. With each passing year, as more and more of these sealed products find their way into collections instead of being recklessly ripped open in the 1980s, the collective scarcity continues to rise along with prices.
Much of what is fueling renewed collector demand for pristine 1987 Donruss wax packs and boxes are nostalgia and the growing popularity of sealed unopened vintage product as blue-chip investments. More collectors these days desire to preserve sealed wax rather than just open it all for a few common cards with no resale value. They appreciate the time capsule aspect of holding a perfectly sealed nostalgic product they can revisit anytime. From an investment standpoint, sealed wax offers several advantages as a potentially sound long term holding:
Quantifiable Scarcity – Large factory sealed products have finite production numbers that can be reasonably estimated vs impossible to accurately gauge for loose common cards. This scarcity is compounded over decades.
Appreciation Potential – As more vintage sealed product finds its way into long term holds vs being cracked open, overall scarcity rises and prices escalate over years/decades for truly great sealed condition vintage boxes.
Stability – Strong sealed vintage investments tend not to be as volatile as individual graded card values which can spike and crash sharply based on latest hype.
Authenticity – No possibility of resealed/restamped counterfeits that plague loose vintage singles. Sealed products are easy to truly verify untouched time capsules.
Perhaps most importantly, pristine sealed 1987 Donruss product holds real nostalgic value and charm for collectors who can’t help but grin seeing packs and boxes they dreamed of as kids still factory perfect after 30+ years. The joy of nostalgia plus tangible scarcity makes them an appealing vintage sports investment primed to retain and potentially increase value far beyond what you could get selling off stacks of 1987 Donruss commons in nickel boxes today. With each passing year, more 1980s collectors reach peak nostalgic ages and disposable incomes, fueling demand. For those willing to hold factory sealed 1987 Donruss packs and boxes long term, it has potential to deliver profits as well as fond memories.
While 1987 Donruss base card values remain depressed, pristinely preserved sealed wax from that iconic set has emerged as a burgeoning vintage baseball card investment opportunity. Fueled by growing nostalgia, appreciation of sealed product scarcity, and collectible time capsule attributes, prices for premium sealed 1987 Donruss pieces like full factory sets appear poised to rise considerably over the long run as availability continues dwindling. For patient collectors, adding pristine sealed 1987 Donruss to a vintage investment portfolio could pay memorable dividends.
