Night Owl Cards

  I resolved to do this post about a month ago when Dime Boxes listed some of what he considers the worst of the junk wax era. I ranked my least favorite from this time way back in the blog's early days, so this time I wanted to list what my favorites from 1987-93 are. You probably already know most of them -- I'm not exactly quiet on my card favorites -- but this post is also to counter all the praise for traditional favorites like 1987 Topps and 1989 Upper Deck. I can be contrarian and those two sets were never my favorites when I was buying packs during that time. (Didn't even see '89 UD).   So I'm listing seven of my faves for posterity. Why seven? Because I consider the junk wax era to have lasted seven years, 1987-93. I can't comfortably squeeze 1986 and 1994 into that span, based on my experience of that time. Here is a very quick run through. 1. 1993 Upper Deck: You should know this by now. I'm writing a blog about it and everything . I don't kn...

Sometimes I feel a little sorry for the players whose careers spanned the so-called Junk Wax Era. I don't hold any particular allegiance to that period. Unlike what seems like 75 percent of collectors writing blogs and on Twitter, I did not grow up with cards during this period. The late '80s/early '90s was actually my first return to the hobby. I had collected for 10 whole years before the JWE hit the big-time around '86, '87. But still, my heart goes out to those players whose cards are deemed a mere pittance because card companies couldn't control themselves and issued obscene quantities of cardboard. How would you like it if you put a decade of sweat and toil into a career and decades later your cards are still worth 10 cents apiece? That never happened to dudes from the '50s and '60s. Heck, not even the '70s! People still want their cards and they're willing to put down real live dollars! Simply through bad-timing, these Junk Wax Er...