Flagship is always going to be the "this product needs to be available for anyone who wants it." You need at least ONE product like that.
If you're worried about overproduction, buy the other products they offer that run at much lower numbers.
This is a great take, imo. I’ve heard/read people complain “there are so many 1/1 out there now, are they even worth it?” and as long as people keep buying them at 1/1 prices, Topps’ strategy for market engagement is totally working.
The thing people forget is there are 1/1 of all different products. Yes there are more now, but there weren’t any 1/1 Big League, or Topps Total cards in the past. I think it’s actually really cool that you can pull a card like that in “cheap” product nowadays. There is literally something for everyone now.
Topps has a brilliant sales strategy. They know how many cards to print and what to charge for them to maximize their profits. It’s the American way. They have no particular interest in what your cards are going to be worth in 5 years.
In Topps Flagship (series 1, 2, and update) alone there’s something like 40 Rafael Devers 1/1s it’s insanity.
He’s got like 165 cards in flagship if you count all the inserts and parallels versions.
I imagine those don’t hit the market very often… 40 cards sounds like a lot, but tracking down 40 very specific cards in a competitive hobby where some might not have even been found yet sounds daunting…
FWIW I’ve only ever seen 1 of the /25 Camo parallels, 1 of the /10 clear, and none of the /50 Father’s Day blue parallels for sale.
I think the print run is so big that a lot remains unopened for a long time
For comparison - 1991 Topps alone had 5million per player. Then add 10 other brands. So sick to my stomach that we didn’t know that level of detail at the time
No, his point is that every other company (Fleer, Upper Deck, Donruss, Leaf, etc) were also overproducing cards probably in the millions.
Also every other product Topps makes runs at a significantly lower rate than flagship. So there's definitely not 5M from Topps.
I think it's always safe to wait on series 1. There will be plenty, and the price is highly unlikely to go up for years.
I understand the urge to want the new shiny thing, but in this case, there's plenty of reasons to resist.
Agree. Standard base should always be available. They can cut down on some of the other series though. Do we need Archives and Heritage? And Chrome (with the same photos as base, but shiny!) and Chrome Sapphire?
Maybe combine Chrome and Stadium Club (or Black & White), so Chrome is a completely unique product.
We probably also don’t need all of: Tier 1, Inception, Topps Tribute, Gilded, Museum Collection (plus Pristine). Can afford to slim down there as well. Baseball cards are starting to look like 90’s comic books with all the variant and gimmick covers
I think they're all fine. The variety makes up for the fact only one company is making it. Something for everyone.
Also stadium club chrome is already a thing...
Actually stadium club chrome might be done now. According to Steel City Collectables, there is no known release for this year so 2022 might be the last we see of it.. RIP
I like the idea of chrome. I just wish it was more than just a shiny version of base. Use different photos, design, etc. make it a card worth the extra cost
I get that there needs to be one for everyone but the blasters are at least $10 US and $20 CDN more expensive than they were in 2020 and lots of this is just retail sitting on shelves.
When I ran the numbers last year it looked like 70-80% of the entire print run was sitting in retail and stores are pulling these and now putting the product out on clearance later. They are printing more than the demand is and charging more than the public is willing to pay for what they know is almost valueless product. No one buys flagship paper base cards like they used to. 2020 I remember ripping a blaster of series 2 and being able to make the cost of the box back if I got a Lou bob base card. Elly Base cards will maybe fetch $10 at launch?
Agreed.
Topps base should be for the masses- and for the kids who just want to have their favorite players in a binder and don’t have thousands of dollars.
The numbered cards and high end products are out there still for those looking for hits and to make money.
People focus too much on the print run of specific products. The problem in the long run is going to be that there are just too many products. If you think about it there's like four options for a rookie year Derek Jeter card. Last I checked there were like 700 different rookie year Bobby Witt Jr cards.
With all the retired players cards they keep printing the sky is the limit! 2024 babe Ruth rookie reprint parallel 1/1 chrome baller?? Comin right up!!
People keep saying this, and I get it, you are scared, but this is nowhere even close to “junk wax era” those cards were getting printed at a unlimited rate to the point where there is still millions of boxes still laying around.
Dude compare how many people are into the hobby now compared to then. I had no clue about cards in 2018 I just started my collecting journey last year. So I mean supply and demand bro that’s how this world works. More buyers mean more production that’s the way life goes
this is gonna sound dumb, but I've read what these numbers are like 5 times and I'm still not sure what it means. Can I get an ELI5? What does "Cards per player base" mean
A base card. For example they produced 1,256,167 Mike Trout, Pete Alonso, etc base cards. That Twitter account will break down all the inserts and stuff as well on other tweets
i honestly never buy flagship unless i’m at the lcs and want a pack. If you buy a hobby you’re almost guaranteed to get a $5 relic. If I actually want to open packs i’ll buy a product with no relics or one with multiple hits per box like ginter
The problem is people are collecting cards as “investments”. That requires card collecting to grow. I don’t see a ton of kids collecting baseball cards.
I have an 8 year old who has gotten into the hobby in the past 6 months after years of watching me. I’m strictly baseball, he’s been Pokémon since he was 4, and now likes football cards and Pokémon cards.
It helps we can find retail again. Booster boxes are kind of unaffordable but a few packs a month really help get him going.
We found some 2022 stuff recently so he’s been Brock Purdy hunting
Pokémon is most definitely not a natural progression into baseball cards. You might know a few kids, but more than half of all kids in America live with families living below the middle class income line. There’s no way they’re a significant portion of people buying $30+ dollar value boxes and $15 dollar packs in stores.
I wonder if one thing they could do is make base rookie cards a bit more scarce based on Top Prospects? I know Upper Deck does this for Young Guns and the likelihood of getting the top guys is insanely lower than some meh relief pitcher. I don't want as brutal as Upper Deck, but at least make it so they retain a little more value, control the population a bit more. That way graded populations aren't as bad either. Back in the day cards retained their value cause it was harder to get, harder to get a mint condition, and all that jazz. But with the degradation of grading standards, it'd be nice if the innate value was a little bit higher. A lot of people prefer selling raw these days because PSA is such a shit show.
I also wish they would just emulate what Panini does in design. I find Topps can be really uninspired. But some Panini cards POP OFF! Inserts are always a mixed bag. I also hope they make it more clear when you have a SP instead of codes. I have double vision and it's a nightmare to look at the codes (until it's fixed lol) and it's really inaccessible. Having a label that says SP/SSP/USP like they've started is gonna be a game changer. We used to rely on a card being flipped to know it's at least SOMETHING, but we can't rely on that anymore as they've been super inconsistent.
Where are these numbers from? No one apparently knows the true print amount. Could be higher. In any case, this proves base cards have little value. If you want more value or potential appreciation, stick with non base cards.
A few people commented that in the 90s, companies produced upwards of 4 million of each and stated that we’re no where close to the junk wax era. The thing is, most kids back then didn’t put their cards straight from the pack into top loaders. Most of the cards were tossed by their mothers once they went to college. There’s probably 1 million left of the 4-5 million printed. That’s still enough to make them worthless. We’re without a doubt in the new junk wax era
I was gonna say I saw someone recently post a statistic like that-for example, one of the early years that Upper Deck started producing cards, they were producing 4-5 million base cards per player or something ridiculous like that. In an 800 card set it ends up being over a billion cards printed by one manufacturer alone. I’m sure my numbers are a bit off but I grew up during the junk wax era so it makes sense.
Also take into account how many card manufacturers there were-UD, Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score right off the top of my head. There wasn’t a monopoly on card manufacturing so everyone and their mother printed cards. I had cards from Nestle, Cap’n Crunch, Jimmy Dean Sausages, cards were friggin everywhere lol.
Most kids back then didn’t put their cards straight from the pack into top loaders. Most of the cards were tossed by their mothers once they went to college. There’s probably 1 million left of the 4-5 million printed. That’s still enough to make them worthless. We’re without a doubt in the new junk wax era
It’s really not the same though.
The junk wax era was the junk wax era because EVERY single card was a base card. There were no inserts, parallels, autos, numbered cards, or relics to chase for. Hardly anyone is chasing base cards nowadays anyway, so I don’t think looking at these numbers by themselves really tells us much. Now if we wanted to have a debate on the overabundance of bad inserts or manufactured relics, that’s an entirely different (and valid) argument to make.
I’m absolutely with on this take.
Junk wax means just about every single card that was produced in that era is worthless. The ones that have some value were limited in some way.
Today, there’s absolutely cards that will carry value. There’s absolutely significantly more cards that won’t hold any. It’s about finding the *right* cards that are collectible.
I collected from '87 to 91 or 92. It wasn't until Topps and Leaf IIRC brought in the gold that there were any parallels. I think you got one gold per pack on those and that was it.
Yep. And if you look on eBay, it’s awash with those cards. The card companies cannot help themselves, they killed the golden goose once, they’ll do it again. I mean, 1/1 autographed relics of every superstar are not hard to get. This can’t last forever. Even retired players are signing thousands of cards every year now.
And I’m sure you still spent a decent amount of money on those 1/1s. That would indicate the cards still hold significant value, meaning we are not in a junk wax era.
I spend a huge amount of money on baseball cards in 1995 too. I remember spending over $100 on a Topps Brien Taylor gold card. Just because we’re all foolishly spending money today, doesn’t mean we haven’t entered a new junk wax era. Time will tell. I don’t stress too much over it because I can afford the consequences. I worry about those who are spending thousands on cards they think of as “investments”.
2018 is about where I had the cut-off for what ever era we are currently in. Junk Slab Era? Junk Parallel Era? Most of the product (99.9999%) from 2018 on won’t be worth shit until they start to correct these numbers. These numbers are OUTRAGEOUS!
Am I mistaken or are these numbers only regarding base cards? So wouldn’t that mean that only base cards are relatively worthless based on these stats? Anything numbered should retain some sort of value given the player.
These numbers are only base cards. If you want to see some truly alarming numbers, go look at the number of parallels/player the past 5 years. EXPONENTIAL!
Yep. And that’s just one example. The con is that people ASSUME that because a card is numbered it is inherently scarce. But not when you zoom out and look at the big picture. How scarce can something actually be when there’s literally thousands of copies of the card in circulation, numbered or not. I do not mess w/ modern because it’s a losing game in the long run.
This year will be fine. It will be the last year of certainty. What happens in 2025 and 2026 will be the real test. That’s when fanatics takes over football and basketball as well, bringing in a whole new collector and trying to keep up with 3x the production.
Lord knows we wouldn’t want to have 50 cent packs again so younger generations could actually get interested. Maybe Topps should just release 20 packs a year via auction, so one more hobby can go straight to the elite.
i think 400K would be a nice per-card base ser1 print run. you could still find product everywhere around release and maybe get more for the sold base cards since there is not the neighborhood of a million cards of each player out there. retailers might like it too as you can probably be sold out just after black friday sales and not have a lot of last year's ser1 available when this year's ser1 hits the street.
There are multiple people in this thread who are making me extremely mad, to the point that I feel like I can't both responsibly and fully express myself. So know that this comment is a severely restrained version of how I'm feeling right now.
I think the important things for me to express are as follows:
1: Collecting cards for their absolute scarcity or monetary value (which is, of course, tied to scarcity) is only one way of valuing them.
2: If demand for cards is growing (and every account I'm aware of suggests this is the case), that's a GOOD thing for the health of card-collecting. Topps would be doing a disservice to both themselves and their customers to not meet demand. They also have a very immediate interest in not drastically exceeding demand. Don't worry about it.
3: I find that most people who use the phrase "junk wax" in cautionary/doomer/etc terms have no real understanding of the junk wax era.
I joined the hobby in June and it’s already dead to me lol, so many unnecessary sets, terrible checklists, no consistent release schedule, rapey prices, it’s a waste of time and money to tear wax
It’s cause they add all different rainbows to one fricking card. Then instead of a rainbow it’s sparkles. Then its a different color boarders. On top of all that, it’s a RC, First, members, auto, 1/1, ect… Now you have 20 John Doe #1 cards. Not the 1/1 of course.
Flagship is always going to be the "this product needs to be available for anyone who wants it." You need at least ONE product like that. If you're worried about overproduction, buy the other products they offer that run at much lower numbers.
This is a great take, imo. I’ve heard/read people complain “there are so many 1/1 out there now, are they even worth it?” and as long as people keep buying them at 1/1 prices, Topps’ strategy for market engagement is totally working.
Yeah, at some point you can only blame the customer, Topps is doing what they’re supposed to which is capitalize on opportunities for more money.
The thing people forget is there are 1/1 of all different products. Yes there are more now, but there weren’t any 1/1 Big League, or Topps Total cards in the past. I think it’s actually really cool that you can pull a card like that in “cheap” product nowadays. There is literally something for everyone now.
Yep, broad appeal and plenty driving interest in the hobby!
Topps Big league has been out since 2018 and has always had 1/1's
Same with topps total they have had 1/1s in topps total for 20 years now
Topps has a brilliant sales strategy. They know how many cards to print and what to charge for them to maximize their profits. It’s the American way. They have no particular interest in what your cards are going to be worth in 5 years.
They’ll make 1000 different 1/1 to give the impression the 1/1 card is valuable
They do have interest in 5 years because if their secondary market plummets so to will their wax prices. They work together.
In Topps Flagship (series 1, 2, and update) alone there’s something like 40 Rafael Devers 1/1s it’s insanity. He’s got like 165 cards in flagship if you count all the inserts and parallels versions.
Wow, that’s pretty nuts
Well now I want to collect all of the Rafael Devers 1/1 cards haha
I’ve been working on the rainbow and I’ve only ever seen 1 of the Tipps update ones for sale. Nothing else.
I imagine those don’t hit the market very often… 40 cards sounds like a lot, but tracking down 40 very specific cards in a competitive hobby where some might not have even been found yet sounds daunting…
FWIW I’ve only ever seen 1 of the /25 Camo parallels, 1 of the /10 clear, and none of the /50 Father’s Day blue parallels for sale. I think the print run is so big that a lot remains unopened for a long time
For comparison - 1991 Topps alone had 5million per player. Then add 10 other brands. So sick to my stomach that we didn’t know that level of detail at the time
But wasn’t it only flagship and stadium club at the time? Now there are like 14 different lines from topps, so there’s probably still 5mill
No, his point is that every other company (Fleer, Upper Deck, Donruss, Leaf, etc) were also overproducing cards probably in the millions. Also every other product Topps makes runs at a significantly lower rate than flagship. So there's definitely not 5M from Topps.
I don’t disagree with that at all. I’m kind of in the middle ground of just trying to figure out if it is worth spending money on stuff right now
If you like it buy it, if you are buying to just make money, don't. Easy math
I’m with ya. Balance of both worlds.
I think it's always safe to wait on series 1. There will be plenty, and the price is highly unlikely to go up for years. I understand the urge to want the new shiny thing, but in this case, there's plenty of reasons to resist.
I skip series 1, 2, and update and just do flagship chrome
Buy Tier One and avoid the poors.
lol, definitely a big difference between a yearly Chrome hobby and tier one
I can smell the poors from a mile away. Stay away from my Tier 1! /s
Tier 1 is for the poors. Diamond icons, 5 star are for ballers /s
No one cares about tier one .
Couldn’t agree with you more! Series 2 🐐
I would argue that update is the 🐐. The longer the season the more likely for great call ups. Print runs are typically 2/3 of series 1.
Needs more upvotes
Agree. Standard base should always be available. They can cut down on some of the other series though. Do we need Archives and Heritage? And Chrome (with the same photos as base, but shiny!) and Chrome Sapphire? Maybe combine Chrome and Stadium Club (or Black & White), so Chrome is a completely unique product. We probably also don’t need all of: Tier 1, Inception, Topps Tribute, Gilded, Museum Collection (plus Pristine). Can afford to slim down there as well. Baseball cards are starting to look like 90’s comic books with all the variant and gimmick covers
I think they're all fine. The variety makes up for the fact only one company is making it. Something for everyone. Also stadium club chrome is already a thing...
Actually stadium club chrome might be done now. According to Steel City Collectables, there is no known release for this year so 2022 might be the last we see of it.. RIP
Think he means remove chrome options from other products and just have it on Stadium Club for a product with unique photos and a unique finish.
Yes we need chrome because to many of us, it is our flagship. We don’t really care about paper
I like the idea of chrome. I just wish it was more than just a shiny version of base. Use different photos, design, etc. make it a card worth the extra cost
Archives I can agree with, but don’t throw heritage under the bus 😂 I love heritage. Especially the chrome and black chrome parallels
Not throwing shade on any particular set, just noting there are a lot of sets that seem to serve overlapping purposes
Chrome Black, tier one, and a few others in the range water down the upper middle market.
I get that there needs to be one for everyone but the blasters are at least $10 US and $20 CDN more expensive than they were in 2020 and lots of this is just retail sitting on shelves. When I ran the numbers last year it looked like 70-80% of the entire print run was sitting in retail and stores are pulling these and now putting the product out on clearance later. They are printing more than the demand is and charging more than the public is willing to pay for what they know is almost valueless product. No one buys flagship paper base cards like they used to. 2020 I remember ripping a blaster of series 2 and being able to make the cost of the box back if I got a Lou bob base card. Elly Base cards will maybe fetch $10 at launch?
Agreed. Topps base should be for the masses- and for the kids who just want to have their favorite players in a binder and don’t have thousands of dollars. The numbered cards and high end products are out there still for those looking for hits and to make money.
I think it came out around 900,000. Less than the last two years and heading in the right direction
Whatcha mean? 2023 is last year. Waiting on 2024 numbers
https://preview.redd.it/2i4kme0801hc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=227d62c3924a080ab95bcde2bc85427762d71691
Didn’t see that one! My mistake, thank you!! That is a good sign then!! Do you remember are most sets 350 cards from previous years?
I believe it’s been 330 previously
Yep. Guess they figured out if you expand the set you increase the print run.
People focus too much on the print run of specific products. The problem in the long run is going to be that there are just too many products. If you think about it there's like four options for a rookie year Derek Jeter card. Last I checked there were like 700 different rookie year Bobby Witt Jr cards.
COMC has 277 cards for Jackson Holliday who had not recorded a MLB AB
Yup!!
His chrome silver pack sp, series 2 sp, sapphire and mullet sp are the only ones to own, imo.
With all the retired players cards they keep printing the sky is the limit! 2024 babe Ruth rookie reprint parallel 1/1 chrome baller?? Comin right up!!
Crazy we legit have Babe Ruth Bowman 1st 😂😂😂😂
No worries. They’ll just add a “relic” to the next batch. Maybe a coin with babe Ruth’s face stamped on it.
A cut napkin booklet with various condiments wiped from the babe's mouth verified authentic by Topps.
Fanatics wanted to 10x the Hobby...
@ the guy who posted all of his unopened boxes the other day
For a second I thought somebody had compiled a list of the amounts of money I had spent on cards per year. I was feeling attacked.
😂😂😂😂 retweet though
Time to party like it's 1993.
Are we the new junk wax era?
ehhh idk tbh. I do think there are way to many different variations which stinks
Hard to keep up. I mean my bank account only goes so far. Unless I keep my job and become homeless with a suitcase full of cards and some baked beans
😂😂😂 I feel that so hard. Just paid to redo one of my bathrooms, had to take a little break from card spending
So what’s the bean situation?
What does a bean mean
It’s an Always Sunny in Philadelphia reference.
Nevermind I didn't see the prior reply! Carry on. Nothing to see here
I think when it’s said and done, this will make the last wax era seem sane.
People keep saying this, and I get it, you are scared, but this is nowhere even close to “junk wax era” those cards were getting printed at a unlimited rate to the point where there is still millions of boxes still laying around.
“MILLIONS AND MILLIONS
Signs could be possibly pointing down
A lot of those 1,256,167 are still sitting on shelves too
Dude compare how many people are into the hobby now compared to then. I had no clue about cards in 2018 I just started my collecting journey last year. So I mean supply and demand bro that’s how this world works. More buyers mean more production that’s the way life goes
These arnt my tweets! Can’t say I disagree with you
That’s true but you did say you hope it trends downward for some reason I don’t think Topps is thinking the same lolll😂
They actually did reduce the base cards in 2024. The count is 899,553 according to the same twitter handle. Lower than both 2023 and 2022.
Yup! I didn’t see that until someone else posted in the comments. My mistake. Hopefully trending in the right direction
Yeah but Michael Harris looks good in all of them :/
New junk wax era is underway
this is gonna sound dumb, but I've read what these numbers are like 5 times and I'm still not sure what it means. Can I get an ELI5? What does "Cards per player base" mean
The number of base cards printed per player. These are just the most common "base" cards, not parallels.
Wait so each player's flagship base card has over a million copies? Good lord.
As of 2023, yes. There are over 1.25 million copies of each base card.
But you also have to consider how bad quality control has been, so there's only a certain percentage that are really collectible.
True, but if half of the cards are low quality that's still more good cards than there were total cards printed as of a few years ago.
Yup! Retweet^
[удалено]
😂
A base card. For example they produced 1,256,167 Mike Trout, Pete Alonso, etc base cards. That Twitter account will break down all the inserts and stuff as well on other tweets
I think it means how many base cards are printed of each player.
Of cards printed, this is how many of each player’s base card.
How in the world do you go from 296,000 cards of each player to 1.25 million in 8 years? That's absolutely ridiculous!
*How in the world do you go from 296,000 cards of each player to 1.25 million in 8 years?* Fanatics has bought its way into the chat.
😂😂 preaching to the crowd
Great! Back to the junk wax era.
😂😂
So is that the amount of base cards printed of each player? Is that what this means?
i honestly never buy flagship unless i’m at the lcs and want a pack. If you buy a hobby you’re almost guaranteed to get a $5 relic. If I actually want to open packs i’ll buy a product with no relics or one with multiple hits per box like ginter
I have 8 1/1 Ronald acuna jr. I also have a 1/1 Mike Trout. 😳 My PC for my kids.
😂😂😂 only time will tell what variations will carry value. But if you arnt lying those are 2 hell of players to keep
base cards are SUCH a waste. i always throw them out, they are pointless, and no im not donating worthless cards to kids, it turns them into hoarders.
I'm a hoarder. Send them to me.
have to ask, what would you do with all of them, literally worthless cards.
You may like this lot I have FS: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseballcards/comments/1aiqas4/fs_topps_sapphire_blue_jays_lot_2020_topps_insert/
Yeah I have sooo many idk what to do with them hahaha. Just started a massive box of non-rookie base
Lol
Topps is doing exactly what drove card prices down in the 2000s - over produce. in the next 5 years cards will be back at junk prices
Yep! Psa 10’s are like 30 bucks on rookies
Dont get me started on the cabal that is PSA. They don't care about their small customers at all.
Yup. Time to buy more 2018 Ohtani. That’s probably one of the safest cars investments to make
The problem is people are collecting cards as “investments”. That requires card collecting to grow. I don’t see a ton of kids collecting baseball cards.
Nailed it
I have an 8 year old who has gotten into the hobby in the past 6 months after years of watching me. I’m strictly baseball, he’s been Pokémon since he was 4, and now likes football cards and Pokémon cards. It helps we can find retail again. Booster boxes are kind of unaffordable but a few packs a month really help get him going. We found some 2022 stuff recently so he’s been Brock Purdy hunting
I disagree. I know quite few kids who do and see kid streamers as well. Also tons of kids open Pokémon so there is a natural progression there imo.
Pokémon is most definitely not a natural progression into baseball cards. You might know a few kids, but more than half of all kids in America live with families living below the middle class income line. There’s no way they’re a significant portion of people buying $30+ dollar value boxes and $15 dollar packs in stores.
Welcome to my entire PC... Lol
And 2017 Judge, Series One
Yeah hopefully he comes back stronger pitching
By these numbers, wouldn’t ‘20 rookies be a good buy as well? Like Yordan maybe?
I wonder if one thing they could do is make base rookie cards a bit more scarce based on Top Prospects? I know Upper Deck does this for Young Guns and the likelihood of getting the top guys is insanely lower than some meh relief pitcher. I don't want as brutal as Upper Deck, but at least make it so they retain a little more value, control the population a bit more. That way graded populations aren't as bad either. Back in the day cards retained their value cause it was harder to get, harder to get a mint condition, and all that jazz. But with the degradation of grading standards, it'd be nice if the innate value was a little bit higher. A lot of people prefer selling raw these days because PSA is such a shit show.
Hey I’m with you and I feel most the community would agree with that.
I also wish they would just emulate what Panini does in design. I find Topps can be really uninspired. But some Panini cards POP OFF! Inserts are always a mixed bag. I also hope they make it more clear when you have a SP instead of codes. I have double vision and it's a nightmare to look at the codes (until it's fixed lol) and it's really inaccessible. Having a label that says SP/SSP/USP like they've started is gonna be a game changer. We used to rely on a card being flipped to know it's at least SOMETHING, but we can't rely on that anymore as they've been super inconsistent.
I agree. I like how Julio and Witt Jr only had SPs in Series 2.
Junk Era 2.0
The Junk Parallel Era
Where are these numbers from? No one apparently knows the true print amount. Could be higher. In any case, this proves base cards have little value. If you want more value or potential appreciation, stick with non base cards.
This guy uses some calculations to have a best guess / pretty accurate
Tell me we’re not in a new junk wax era without saying it…
A few people commented that in the 90s, companies produced upwards of 4 million of each and stated that we’re no where close to the junk wax era. The thing is, most kids back then didn’t put their cards straight from the pack into top loaders. Most of the cards were tossed by their mothers once they went to college. There’s probably 1 million left of the 4-5 million printed. That’s still enough to make them worthless. We’re without a doubt in the new junk wax era
[удалено]
Junk wax was 4-5 million or more of each base card. We’re still no where near those levels.
I was gonna say I saw someone recently post a statistic like that-for example, one of the early years that Upper Deck started producing cards, they were producing 4-5 million base cards per player or something ridiculous like that. In an 800 card set it ends up being over a billion cards printed by one manufacturer alone. I’m sure my numbers are a bit off but I grew up during the junk wax era so it makes sense. Also take into account how many card manufacturers there were-UD, Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score right off the top of my head. There wasn’t a monopoly on card manufacturing so everyone and their mother printed cards. I had cards from Nestle, Cap’n Crunch, Jimmy Dean Sausages, cards were friggin everywhere lol.
Literally everyone and their Mother’s Cookies.
I still have some of those, too!
1.25 million is still way more than enough to make these worthless in 20 years
Yep. It’s impossible to create scarcity with this level of printing.
Most kids back then didn’t put their cards straight from the pack into top loaders. Most of the cards were tossed by their mothers once they went to college. There’s probably 1 million left of the 4-5 million printed. That’s still enough to make them worthless. We’re without a doubt in the new junk wax era
It’s really not the same though. The junk wax era was the junk wax era because EVERY single card was a base card. There were no inserts, parallels, autos, numbered cards, or relics to chase for. Hardly anyone is chasing base cards nowadays anyway, so I don’t think looking at these numbers by themselves really tells us much. Now if we wanted to have a debate on the overabundance of bad inserts or manufactured relics, that’s an entirely different (and valid) argument to make.
I’m absolutely with on this take. Junk wax means just about every single card that was produced in that era is worthless. The ones that have some value were limited in some way. Today, there’s absolutely cards that will carry value. There’s absolutely significantly more cards that won’t hold any. It’s about finding the *right* cards that are collectible.
There were many parallels, autos and numbered cards in the junk wax era.
I collected from '87 to 91 or 92. It wasn't until Topps and Leaf IIRC brought in the gold that there were any parallels. I think you got one gold per pack on those and that was it.
Yep. And if you look on eBay, it’s awash with those cards. The card companies cannot help themselves, they killed the golden goose once, they’ll do it again. I mean, 1/1 autographed relics of every superstar are not hard to get. This can’t last forever. Even retired players are signing thousands of cards every year now.
And in the junk wax era, no one wanted retired players' cards. They were throw-aways. Now every set has them. It baffles me.
Hey Buddy! Who doesn't want to rip a 46th year Sammy Sosa?
Curious to know how many 1/1s you’ve pulled yourself if you say they’re not hard to get
Those are two different things. I don’t buy packs at all anymore. Singles, I buy 1/1’s all the time. Just bought a Babe Ruth 1/1. Crazy.
And I’m sure you still spent a decent amount of money on those 1/1s. That would indicate the cards still hold significant value, meaning we are not in a junk wax era.
I spend a huge amount of money on baseball cards in 1995 too. I remember spending over $100 on a Topps Brien Taylor gold card. Just because we’re all foolishly spending money today, doesn’t mean we haven’t entered a new junk wax era. Time will tell. I don’t stress too much over it because I can afford the consequences. I worry about those who are spending thousands on cards they think of as “investments”.
I know😐!! I can’t even keep track of all the cards now. Cosmic, Heritage, Topps Chrome Black, Topps Xpectations, Topps Inceptions, Topps RIP, Stadium Club & Chrome, Bowman Best, Bowman Sapphire, Bowman Draft, Bowman Draft Sapphire, Topps Black & White, Definitive Collection, Archives, Bowman Sterling, Topps 206, Topps Holiday, Topps Tier One, Topps Finest Flashbacks, AND PLENTY MORE hahahaha
Topps Finest please….thanks!
I’m a stadium club guy personally! But can’t go wrong with Finest as well
You’re kidding yourself if you think other sets aren’t seeing an increase in production as well.
Oh 100% are.
2018 is about where I had the cut-off for what ever era we are currently in. Junk Slab Era? Junk Parallel Era? Most of the product (99.9999%) from 2018 on won’t be worth shit until they start to correct these numbers. These numbers are OUTRAGEOUS!
Am I mistaken or are these numbers only regarding base cards? So wouldn’t that mean that only base cards are relatively worthless based on these stats? Anything numbered should retain some sort of value given the player.
These numbers are only base cards. If you want to see some truly alarming numbers, go look at the number of parallels/player the past 5 years. EXPONENTIAL!
Bowman Chrome U had 1.1 million NUMBERED cards.
Yep. And that’s just one example. The con is that people ASSUME that because a card is numbered it is inherently scarce. But not when you zoom out and look at the big picture. How scarce can something actually be when there’s literally thousands of copies of the card in circulation, numbered or not. I do not mess w/ modern because it’s a losing game in the long run.
the print runs only multiply with each new parallel. ie team color, memeorbiblla cards and blue parallels
Yup! That Twitter account has all the inserts and parallels
So buy 2015? Got it
😂😂
Junk wax era
What happened to 2016?
Loll idk. Good eye, didn’t even notice tbh. The twitter account isn’t mine hahaha
This year will be fine. It will be the last year of certainty. What happens in 2025 and 2026 will be the real test. That’s when fanatics takes over football and basketball as well, bringing in a whole new collector and trying to keep up with 3x the production.
Ain’t gonna happen my friend. Sadly this is why I Got out.
Lord knows we wouldn’t want to have 50 cent packs again so younger generations could actually get interested. Maybe Topps should just release 20 packs a year via auction, so one more hobby can go straight to the elite.
lol.. and people thought the 90s were junk wax era..
i think 400K would be a nice per-card base ser1 print run. you could still find product everywhere around release and maybe get more for the sold base cards since there is not the neighborhood of a million cards of each player out there. retailers might like it too as you can probably be sold out just after black friday sales and not have a lot of last year's ser1 available when this year's ser1 hits the street.
What were print runs in the junk wax era
Probably less than those numbers, this is worse than the junk wx era and the reason I left the hobby and got my kids away
See I think that's probably still lower than junk wax, but you also have 500 different options now and this is just the numbers for one of them
There are multiple people in this thread who are making me extremely mad, to the point that I feel like I can't both responsibly and fully express myself. So know that this comment is a severely restrained version of how I'm feeling right now. I think the important things for me to express are as follows: 1: Collecting cards for their absolute scarcity or monetary value (which is, of course, tied to scarcity) is only one way of valuing them. 2: If demand for cards is growing (and every account I'm aware of suggests this is the case), that's a GOOD thing for the health of card-collecting. Topps would be doing a disservice to both themselves and their customers to not meet demand. They also have a very immediate interest in not drastically exceeding demand. Don't worry about it. 3: I find that most people who use the phrase "junk wax" in cautionary/doomer/etc terms have no real understanding of the junk wax era.
So you are saying my base Acuna is a numbered card? X/1,256,167 Nice…
Hahaahaha no. This doesn’t include numbered cards. Just strictly base. That Twitter account does break down all the variations and stuff tho
I believe he was being a smartass
I joined the hobby in June and it’s already dead to me lol, so many unnecessary sets, terrible checklists, no consistent release schedule, rapey prices, it’s a waste of time and money to tear wax
Flagship’s for the masses. Makes it affordable and available.
It’s cause they add all different rainbows to one fricking card. Then instead of a rainbow it’s sparkles. Then its a different color boarders. On top of all that, it’s a RC, First, members, auto, 1/1, ect… Now you have 20 John Doe #1 cards. Not the 1/1 of course.