General Forum

I know baseball has their era of what people call junk wax. I don't call them that because I love all eras of cards. Just wondering though do other sports (football, basketball, hockey etc.) have a era of cards related to the same description and if so what would those years be?

Doug 

For both basketball and hockey it would start with the 90-91 season (or arguably 89-90) and continue until about 95-96.

Football would be roughly 1989 when Score, Pro Set and others joined the fray until mid-90s as well. The baseball strike didn't just kill that sport, it carrid over to the others. On top of that, it was mid-90s when they really started doing the SN/SP/tiered sets, limited run sets (low PR like Leaf Limited). When all this started, collecting started becoming more "exclusive" again.

I'd say the eras all coincide. For football, you can find Topps, Fleer. Score and Pro Set 1990-91 everywhere for cheap, I picked up a box of 91 Pro Set Series 2 a month ago at a local card shop, for only $15, and it was pretty much the complete 400-card set minus maybe five cards, which I got for 18 cents each on Sportlots. There was so much of it being printed at that time.

Like baseball, I'd say that the "junk" era for football started in 1989 with Pro Set, Fleer and Score joining the fray and then dried up in 1994, after Pro Set called it quits. It's not as easy to find sets from that era on, and when you do they're not as cheap. 

With racing (NASCAR), it's probably 1991-1996 with emphasis on 1991-1993. 1991 Maxx might be the most valueless set in existence. Ridiculously overproduced.