A Different Kind of Junk Wax Era?

My first baseball cards I collected as a kid were 1987 Topps.

Cutch's rookie season was 2009. He made his debut early June of that year and according to the Trading Card Database he had 123 cards produced that year by Topps, Bowman, Tristar, Upper Deck, and Choice (minor league team sets).  I have 64 cards from that debut season and am missing only cards /50 or less.  At the time of Cutch's call up he was a top 15 prospect in baseball.

The consensus top prospect in baseball heading into this season is Vladamir Guerrero Jr.  He has had 579 cards produced PRIOR to the year of his debut according to TCDB.  So far in 2019, his rookie year MLB debut, he has had 1,495 cards produced.  With a month left in the year, it is very possible to see that number grow more as it has tripled since June thanks to the release of more Topps Now, Heritage High Number, Topps Update, Bowman Draft and Prospects, and many more high end sets produced.  With the hype surrounding Vlad Jr prior to the season, it is no surprise to see card numbers like that produced.  Is anyone else alarmed by this?

Let's look at another rookie who has made their MLB debut this year.  Since Cutch wasn't a top 10 prospect and didn't win Rookie of Year in his debut season, let's look at a similar resume player.  Pete Alonso is the NL Rookie of Year winner so I am going to look at Austin Riley, outfielder/3rd baseman for the Atlanta Braves.  Similar to Vlad Jr he will have another few cards released since appearing in Update, Heritage, BDP, and Now cards prior to year's end.  He currently already has 483 cards produced for this year.

The most popular shortstop of 1987 when I began collecting was Cal Ripken Jr.  He had 60 cards produced that year with brands Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Classic, Sportflics, and many local/food releases providing those quantities.

A rookie shortstop who would go on to have a Hall of Fame career, Barry Larkin, had only 16 cards produced that year.

Kevin Newman, a Pirates rookie shortstop, was having a great year at the plate but would hardly be considered the best at his position in the game despite finishing in the top 10 for the NL batting title.  He already has had 492 cards produced this year.  That doesn't even include the buyback autos for this year's Archives Signature Series Active Player collection.

With all of the parallels being produced in each new release, it feels like we are entering a new Junk Wax Era.  The presses aren't working overtime like they were in the 80s and 90s just pumping out more and more base cards, but for our small niche hobby we collect there are more cards to collect of a player than ever before.

Here are some of my favorite late 80s and early 90s junk wax era themed cards.

 1/1 Superfractors are awesome. Getting one with the 1989 design is doubly awesome.

1989 is a favorite design of mine. I love the simplicity of the set. This Patch card is extremely tough to find.

1993 Topps Finest Refractors changed the game.  A few years ago Topps made a metal version available.

1991 Topps Desert Shield was featured as a parallel in 2016 Topps Archives.  The originals of these cards actually still hold value to this day.

This set started it all for me and this mini perfectly captures the thrill of baseball card collecting.  "Oooooh you almost had it. Keep going"

What are some of your favorite designs from the junk wax era?

80s Week! Some 1/1s revealed also

As a child of the 80s I grew up in an era with big hair, great cartoons, great toys, and collector's craze of sports cards.

I have seen others post their decade favorites and wanted to join in.  After I am done breaking down all my favorites I will show off my Andrew McCutchen retro designed baseball cards.

It should be obvious that he is my favorite player born in the 80s. Don't forget to enter my contest of favorite player born in the 80s here.

So let's get started...

Here are 5 categories
At the end are the 80s inspired cards to show off

Favorite cartoon:
Thundercats

I absolutely loved the animation of the original Thundercats opening.  As a kid I only had 2 Thundercats action figures (Slythe and Tygra with a tiny Wilykat PVC figure that came with Tygra).  I had hundreds of G.I. Joes, Transformers, Masters of the Universe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles though.  Still, I was glued to the TV each day for the adventures of Lion-O and his Thunderian friends as he battled the forces of the Evil Mutants and Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living.

Later In life as an early twentysomething I bought all those Thundercats toys I wanted as a kid and had a complete set of every figure made except the ultra rare European exclusive Stinger and The Mad Bubbler.  I had a few Thundertanks, Cats Lair, and about a dozen sealed figures.  Unfortunately I sold them all prior to the AFA grading system (similar to PSA or BGS for baseball cards) took off and made my loose complete mint figures worth thousands.

Oh well...

Favorite TV Show (not animated)
Knight Rider

I am still amazed that my parents let me watch Knight Rider at such a young age considering some of the underlying themes of the show.  However all I cared about was that cool car known as K.I.T.T. and wanting to be Michael Knight.

My dad being the awesome person he is took me to the Philadelphia car show when I was just 4 years old to meet David Hasselhoff.

There's the proof.

Favorite Song:
Survivor- Eye of the Tiger

To this day, this is my go to song to get pumped up. 'Nuff Said

As an adult there are lots of songs I like from the 80s and they revolve around the Beastie Boys, Motley Crue, and AC/DC.
This list gets very complicated in the 90s.

Favorite Comic Book:
I didn't read many comics until the 90s, but I definitely remembering having comic books of the Inhumanoids.

When I do the 90s favorites, this list is going to be very extensive.


Favorite Baseball Card Set:
1987 Topps

I collected the entire set of 1987 Topps with my dad. I was 6 years old and had a lot of fun putting it together.  The wood grain borders, the all capital letters for players names, the circular team logo.  This set was absolutely beautiful.  I chose to show the Will Clark card because I remember having a large stack of these in toploaders.


Now to show off some of my Cutch cards using designs from the 80s.

A few years ago I showed off a bunch of these, but my collection has grown quite a bit since then and Topps/Panini has introduced even more retro designed parallels to chase.

A few years ago I had ZERO Chrome Superfractors with a design from the 80s.
Now I have 3.

A few years ago I had ZERO relic cards based on a design from the 1980s.  Now I have TWO.

This 2014 Topps 89 Relic is one of my favorite patch cards.

Cutch didn't have a base card in the 2019 Donruss set, but he did have a relic in the 1985 inspired retro set.

 There is also a bat relic numbered to 10 copies, but the design is identical.

Throughout the rest of this week I will show more 80s inspired cards and reveal more of my favorite things from the 80s. Please don't forget about my contest and share who some of your favorite players born in the 80s are.

Ruby + Rose = Shark Week Cameo

Last night on Shark Week actress Ruby Rose appeared.  She is starring in the new shark movie, The Meg that releases August 10th.

As silly as the concept may be for a dinosaur sized shark attacking the oceans I can't deny my joy and excitement I have for this movie.  Then again I just love shark movies.

I also have a weird love for hot girls with tattoos.

So what kind of cards do I have that can tie together my love of Andrew McCutchen baseball cards with an upcoming shark movie starring Jason Statham and Ruby Rose?

How about two baseball cards produced by Topps?

First up the Ruby parallel numbered to 1/1 from 2016 Triple Threads.

Then a 2017 Topps 1987 Rose parallel numbered to 25 copies. (This card will make another appearance in October as part of the SaveTheBoobies pink Breast Cancer Awareness feature I do.)

It's the 30th anniversary of Shark Week this year and last year was the 30th anniversary of 1987 Topps.  Fitting segue, right?

I hope for those Finatics out there you are all enjoying Shark Week. I know I am.

The Year was 1984

Cutch has appeared in many older set designs thanks to Archives and Heritage.

Over the summer he got the 1984 treatment thanks to Throwback Thursday.

Celebrating the first ever MLB Players Weekend, is a series of cards with the best nicknames from the inaugural weekend.

If you want to see some of Cutch's other cards from the 80s designs revisit my old post here.

Since the holidays are approaching I thought it would be fun to look back to 1984 and what all the holiday shopping trends were like.

Here's a link to the website I took the images from along with a write-up of each toy.  Some we carried over from 1983 and some became more popular in 1985.