General Forum

Thank you. It just irks me to no end. Somebody who truly loves something is not going to insult it every time they talk about it. Who cares what they sell for? I'm a collector, I don't care what they sell for because I have no intention of selling them, and in theory it's s good thing because you'd be able to get the cards you want for less money. In actuality it doesn't work like that, there are still thousands of cards from that era that I'm chasing, and that's not even counting hockey which I just began collecting. 

Perhaps I'm too high strung. 

Billy, don't get me wrong.  I don't look them as "junk".  I have trouble even throwingout a badly creased card from those years even though I have 20 or more others of the same card. But it is a very common term when referring to the years of over-production. I don't look at it as offensive but just a terrm to describe the hobby's state during those years. 

I have never thrown any card away, ever. And I never will. Even the ones that were badly, badly damaged in a flood, are still in my posession.

Trust me Billy.  It is a hard thing forme todo.  And I definitely don't throw anything out that is from1986 and before. I often cringed when some would talk about burning boxes and boxes of the cards from the late 80s and early 90s, thinking that it might make those they kept "rare". I even have one from1965 that has a round chunk eaten out of it from a mouse. I got that one from someone who demolishes homes and had found about 50 cards in plastic sheets in a house.  It kind of has its own character and really puts the hobby where it was back then. Fortunately, the others were not damaged and look like any other card from that vintage.

Bru, the gist of your question has gotten lost in the tirades (mine included) against the use of the term. 

What's the consensus, and further why do you need to know? Just curious. 

Mice (or rats) got into my storage unit and literally ate the box from 2006 Press Pass VIP. (they left the lid, or most of it, anyway) I'm a pacifist...I won't even kill bugs that come in through my air conditioner...but apparently I CAN feel bloodlust. If you've seen Attack of the Clones I kind of felr like Anakin Skywalker vs. the Tusken Raiders. We moved to a new, better storage unit now, that is rat-free. That's one box I won't be able to scan and post here eventually. I lost a couple other to the leaks in the unit but most seem to have survived...somehow.

I think the consensus is 1987 to 1993 with the years just before and after seeing the buildup and the years after seeing the decline and shift to inserts and more SP cards.  This is baseball for sure. Hockey seems to have happened in 1990-91 when other companies got licenses to print cards. I suspect the same for basketball and football.

Curiosity as I see the term come up once ina while and wanted to see if there was a consensus or if using the term meant different things to collectors.  It is interesting that some don't like the term due to the negative suggestion of the use "junk".  I don't like the term "boom" because to me, the era discussed here was a low in the hobby.  People literally thought they could get rich by buying boxes and boxes of cards. I witnessed one guy buying boxes of cards in the local card shop and him saying, "These will pay for my kid's university one day." In a store in Hawaii, I also witnessed kids opening packages of cards they had just bought in a shop and, not finding a Griffey Jr or Frank Thomas, they dropped the cards on the counter and left. The only people that got rich are the card company owners. To me, this was a dark time in the hobby.

Billy, sorry about the damaged cards in your collection.  I had seen you talk about the water damage before but not about the rats. I have cats on patrol in and out of the house so not much chance of that happening to mine but I fear the day anything like a flood or fire in the house would destroy my collection.  I don't know if I would take it up again.

Basketball started in 1989-90 and continues until today with everything Panini produces looking like a label that fell off a pimp cup.