The era of late 1980s and early 1990s baseball card collecting brought a deluge of mass-produced cards into the marketplace that became known as “junk wax.” Between 1987-1994, there was an unprecedented boom in the production and sales of baseball cards. Although these burgeoning card sets brought the hobby to new heights in popularity, they also devalued the scarce commodities of the past by flooding the market.
The 1980s set the stage for a perfect storm that would result in junk wax. Increased discretionary income and a booming American economy meant more families had extra money to spend. Meanwhile, technological advances made color printing cheaper and mass production easier than ever before. Upper Deck debuted in 1988 and proved there was big money to be made in the baseball card industry. Major manufacturers like Fleer and Topps dramatically increased print runs to compete.
In 1989, Fleer produced a stunning 415 million cards across all its sets. Topps sales tripled between 1987-1992. Bowman, Donruss, and Score entered the fray as well. More companies translated to even higher overall production numbers and a seemingly endless supply of cards on the shelves of drug stores, grocery stores, and big box retailers everywhere. The overproduction served to diminish a baseball card’s status as a collectible. No card felt particularly rare or special anymore given how common they were.
Ken Griffey Jr. rookies from 1989 Fleer and Upper Deck were printed into the millions each. A Denny’s restaurant promotion gave away 12 million Randy Johnson rookie cards in 1992. Even star players seemed abundant. The reduced scarcity destroyed any chance of meaningful appreciation in value for these newly printed cards. While the boom brought in millions of new collectors, many of whom are still collectors today, it marked an unfortunate turning point. Prices for pre-1987 vintage cards held or grew, but junk wax era cards were destined for the dime boxes.
Two other forces fed further into the bubble. The first was speculation. Sellers started buying unopened boxes and sets with hopes of “flipping” them later for profit once they appreciated in value. Of course, with such massive print runs, that appreciation never truly materialized in any meaningful way. The second factor was the influence of unscrupulous buyers using misleading grading tactics to over inflate grades. A PSA 10 Mike Piazza rookie that truly deserved a 7 or 8 would sell for far more thanks to generous grading from complicit parties looking to profit. The cycle helped pump short-term speculative demand but proved unsustainable.
By 1994, the bottom started to fall out of the bubble. Oversaturation coupled with unrealized speculation profit expectations caused demand to wane. Boxes and sets from the early ’90s sat on shelves, increasingly marked down, moving toward the infamous dime boxes of cardboard commons. There was an overbuilding of supply and lack of true scarcity that killed both short and long-term demand potential for these “junk wax” cards. In the years since, values have remained distinctly low on the secondary market for these products. A unopened ’91 Upper Deck box that once sold for $1000 might fetch $200 today, while stars carry penny prices.
The junk wax era undoubtedly succeeded in bringing legions of new collectors into the hobby during baseball’s resurgence in popularity through the 1980s and early ’90s. But by pumping out gargantuan print runs, it devalued the collectability of cards themselves and popped an economic bubble that has made these particular cardboard issues decidedly less desirable long-term investments compared to their pre-1987 forebears. The boom time brought baseball cards mainstream – for better or worse – but also stuck many in the industry with a glut of “junk” that persists to this day in collections and bargain bins everywhere. Whether a valuable lesson in scarcity economics or simply an unfortunate overcorrection, the junk wax era left an indelible mark on the baseball card collecting world.
For collectors and investors interested in building baseball card collections or portfolios today, there are a few key takeaways from the junk wax phenomenon worth keeping in mind. First, extremely high print run modern issues are rarely good long-term holds unless something changes drastically to drive renewed demand. Second, focus on scarcer vintage cards from the pre-1987 Golden Era if pursuing cards as an alternative investment class. Speculation based on flimsy factors like hoping grading will compensate for a card’s true condition is usually a recipe for unrealized expectations. With a lesson from the junk wax bubble in hand, informed collectors can make savvier purchases and builds that stand the test of time.
While fueling enthusiasm for baseball cards in the late 80s and early 90s, the era of junk wax left an unprecedented glut of mass-produced cardboard that has depressed values for those particular issues to this day. Through a perfect storm of industry forces and economic bubbles, it taught a hard lesson about scarcity and demonstrated that not all cardboard gold retains its shine long-term. The overproduction may have brought new fans to collecting, but it also devalued the long-held status of baseball cards as a truly collectible commodity.
