What Was the Junk Wax Era…and Is History Repeating Itself?

If you’re coming back into collecting, there’s a good chance you’re wondering why many of your older cards aren’t worth quite what you thought they did! This is likely because you were collecting during the junk wax era.

The junk wax era was a time between about 1987 to 1994 when sports cards were massively overproduced. This overproduction drastically reduced the cards’ values and most, even to this day, don’t carry much value.

Let’s dive in some more.

What Happened During the Junk Wax Era?

Sports cards experienced a huge boom in the mid ‘80s, so sports cards companies began seriously printing cards.

But let’s rewind a few years.

Michael Jordan came into the league in 1984, and there weren’t any mainstream basketball card companies around to send out his rookie cards!

Sure, Star was around, but many don’t even consider that to be a true rookie card of his (you can read more about MJ’s rookie cards here).

That’s why his sought after “rookie” card is the ‘86 fleer. Crazy, right?

Well, the NBA really hit its stride in the mid-80s, with the Bird-Magic duo combining for 8 championships and Michael Jordan doing, well, Michael Jordan things.

And sports cards went right along with them…yes, even baseball and football.

(There are other factors in the market leading to junk wax, but I think the rise of basketball as an uber-popular sport is a main factor. Kind of like how The Last Dance contributed tremendously to the sports cards boom this time around)

So then for about 7-10 years (there aren’t really exact dates), Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Upper Deck, and Score all contributed to producing the daylights out of their suddenly more popular product.

To the point that many of those sets no longer carry any value.

Here’s something I sold recently:

Sure, the ‘89 and ‘93 sell for a bit more (thanks to Ken Griffey Jr. and Derek Jeter)… but less than $20 per box on these? That’s insane.

My dad also recently brought me a binder chock full of football and basketball from about ‘89 to ‘91. I remember flipping through it and saying basically:

“There are some fun cards in here, but I’d be shocked if a single one was worth more than $1.”

He couldn’t believe it, but that’s how it is.

Are There Any Valuable Cards From the Junk Wax Era?

Of course, but the list is pretty limited.

In most cases, ungraded cards of almost any player are worth next to nothing.

I mean, just take a look at this from eBay:

Yes, that’s a popular player, who won championships with the most popular franchise, is STILL highly relevant and visible today….

And his rookie card from OVER 30 YEARS AGO sells for $3.25. That goes to show how much the junk wax era overproduced.

However, because it was from 30 years ago, it is still relatively rare to find cards in mint condition. 

Here’s that same Shaq as a PSA 10:

In fact, PSA’s pop report lists only 415 total PSA 10s in existence. 

It’s the same story for a ‘93 Topps Derek Jeter rookie:

And here’s the PSA 10:

Yes, it can be a bit disappointing to find out that a lot of your cards from childhood just aren’t worth a whole lot.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some ungraded cards with nice value, such as:

1. 1992-93 Stadium Club Shaquille O’Neal Beam Team – $155
2. 1992-93 Stadium Club Michael Jordan Beam Team – $260
3. 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr – $45
4. 1988-89 Fleer Michael Jordan – $70
5. 1993 Upper Deck SP Derek Jeter – $140

These are all raw values. I just picked a few examples, but there are obviously more. I wrote an article about how to quickly look up the value of sports cards.

Are We in Another Junk Wax Era?

Some collectors believe we’ve entered another junk wax era, a boom created by 3 things:

1. Kobe Bryant’s death in January of 2020, sparking a massive surge of interest in one of the most popular athletes ever.
2. The pandemic shutting most things down in March of 2020, causing bored people to find at-home hobbies.
3. The massively popular Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, rekindled a ton of interest in the most popular athlete ever as well as many of his contemporaries.

All of those things came together to see a consistent increase in card pricing (and total movement) throughout 2020. Then at the end of 2020 through early 2021, things really took off:

Of course, when card companies saw prices and interest surge, they began producing a ton as well. Since then, cards have been on a somewhat steady decline.

However, there are a few reasons why we’re not in a new junk wax era:

• There are plenty of more collectors now. Yes, companies have increased production over the past few years, but that’s because there are a ton of new collectors emerging.
• A market correction does not equal a “crashing” market. The market went waaaay too high to be sustainable. Base cards were getting graded and sold for fortunes. We saw a market correction, but that doesn’t mean we saw a crash associated with overproduction. It means we’re getting back into a healthier market. You know what’s not healthy? Pulling a base Mac Jones card, grading it, and selling the PSA 10 for over $3k:

(The latest sale is for $20.50. LOL)

• There are way more options for collecting now. Back in 1989, if you were a Griffey Jr. collector, you only really needed to get a few cards and you were done collecting. Let’s say that today you wanted to snatch a bunch of Corbin Carroll rookies. There’s almost no limit with parallels, autos, SPs, numbered cards, inserts, and even just the base across all the brands. So there are many cards printed, but collectors are snatching up many more cards for their collections.

So, yes, there are TONS being produced, but there’s much more interest and much more variety than there ever was back in 1993. 

But, are we in a junk slab era? You might be able to convince me on that one.