A Lasting Legacy: The Impact of the Junk Wax Era on the Sports Card Hobby

A Lasting Legacy: The Impact of the Junk Wax Era on the S...

By Jocelyn Alano July 11, 2024 19:08

The Junk Wax Era, which lasted from 1986-1993 was a peculiar time for collecting sports cards. It was this era that would forever change the hobby from an innocent pursuit into one of investment and big business. Now, to the deep impact the Junk Wax Era has had on the sports card hobby over decades later.

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Market Saturation and Card Production

The Junk Wax Era was defined by an oversaturation of printing sports cards to keep up with the ever-expanding market for these collectibles. This overproduction resulted in a flood of cards in the market, meaning their supply went through the roof over one generation relative to 18 years prior, and when that happens value is dropped right along with it.
The oversupply of cards was a result in large part due to the growth of the sports card hobby, which led it to become somewhat institutionalized. The emphasis on sports cards as an investment rather than just a hobby led companies to overproduce new card sets in the 1980s and early '90s, targeting nontraditional markets for collectibles.

Most Notable Cards and Sets of the Era

"The Junk Wax Era" saw many card companies join the fray of a burgeoning hobby, which in turn led to loads and loads of sets. The critical ruling of Fleer's successful 1980 challenge to Topps' baseball card exclusivity paved the way for more licensing and other companies like Score, later Upper Deck arrived.

Huge Volumes of Card Printing and Distribution

The stats from this Junk Wax Era are dumbfounding and obviously resulted as a byproduct of significant card printing/distribution. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, companies made around eighty-one billion cards per year of which each person living in America got about three hundred.
What it means to the Card Collecting Hobby
This increase in new cards oversaturated the market which had a drastic impact on card collecting as a hobby. Card sales were doing fine, but a great many cards had spiked in price because of the increasing cost to build certain decks that left people who weren't investors or so far up on Magic's sub-specialty item ladder without anyone new joining their ranks. The result was a dramatic market slowdown and significantly lower sports card revenues which tumbled back to about $200 million per year, before the recent resurgence in activity seen during COVID-19.

The End of the Junk Wax Era

By 1993, the Junk Wax Era was officially over in practice as production had been perceived to be out of whack and a massive cooling off hit the hobby. External factors like the over exuberance of baseball's Steroid Era in the mid-90s and the 1994 Baseball lockout were also significant contributors to this demise.

What We Learned and the New Era in Card Collecting

Collectors and fans learned a lot of valuable lessons from the Junk Wax Era. While the company stressed that a card's value was never promised to be more than it once sold for and simply storing cards wasn't a guarantee they'd hold their reinforced value. It also brought to life the caveat (as a reminder) that one should focus on playing what they like over for an investment, and not just getting caught up in buying items as investments due to it being an "insert popular game" or player.
The latter half of the modern era has seen a resurgence in that market, most notably combating against covid-19 to keep some momentum within this hobby. Modern digital tools like eBay have digitized card conventions even further and have made them more accessible to its enthusiasts.

In the End

In conclusion, the Junk Wax Era was an industry-changing period in sports card collecting history. It shifted the hobby landscape and accentuated how important it is to always collect with a happy medium between getting value out of cards for fun versus potential investment. The hobby has changed, and now it is important to recognize that enjoying the simple fun of collecting-realizing value does not have solvency until money exchanges hands.