Does anyone buy Topps cards from these years anymore?

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Hawaiian BamBam

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Hey guys,
does anyone buy topps cards for their sets from years 1980-2000's anymore? for example do people still go to ebay and or/comc and buy a 1982 topps steve carlton or a 1985 topps george hendrick, or a 1987 topps tony pena or a 1989 topps dave stewart or a 1995 topps cal ripken, you get the point! are there still set builders for these years? i use to do that in the 1980's and 1990's but dont do it anymore, not sure if people still build sets from those years
 
Good question HBB!
Like you, back in the day I worked on those sets, but now am only looking for insets I need from those years.
Given the proliferation of stuff, I would not be surprised to find that many collectors don't build sets, but rather collect a certain player, team or some other specific interest.
Looking forward to other responses.
Boots
 
I would be willing to bet that, except on the extreme rare occasion, most people already have that stuff that actually want it. On the extreme chance that someone posts a want list for anything from 1987-1994 there will be 20 people who say they can help them out. I sold cards at a flea market last year with a bunch of that type of stuff. I sold 600 and 800 count boxes of it for 1.00 a box. Got rid of a bunch but still have a bunch left.
 
I never buy anything on EBAY but I would think that postage would make buying set cards for that era to be cost prohibitive unless it was one of the big RCs.

I will say that I believe that the cards from 1981-1986 being viewed as mass produced junk is wrong. People did not care for their cards like they do now so many of them are damaged which cuts the stockpile of them down quite a bit. The thing that makes them more common is that there were so few products made back then so anyone who bought cards was buying the 3 or 4 products available. . I still think the cards from 1981-1986 are undervalued to some extent. I'm not saying they are big in value but I think they are a little more scarce then is commonly believed. I'll bet that less than half of the members own all the base sets (Tops, Fleer, Donruss regular issues) in baseball from 1981-1986.

Because of the low value, the best way to complete those sets is to trade for them or buy them very cheaply from a local card store, dealer or fellow collector.
 
And I should add that I am what I would call "an opportunistic set builder" where I build any sets that I have a lot of cards for. So yes, I do build sets from that era even if I already have them.
 
thanks guys for your responses, i appreciate it. very interesting post about cards from 1981-1986 being more scarce than most of us believe they are because i was thinking not too long ago, that since 1981-1986 being widely considered as "wax junk" (i actually thought it was years 1990-2000) and so many of us just throwing the cards away (or donating them) because they are "wax junk", i wonder since many people dont really own complete sets like that anymore, if maybe 30-40 years from now those years would be so scare then due to everyone dumping their wax junk now, that they will actually be worth a ton in the future? thanks
 
I doubt there will ever be anything to save the day for the mass produced cards in terms of value or demand. The card companies just made too much of the product that there will always be too much supply and not enough demand for it.

One thing that hurts the demand is that there very, very few younger people that collect cards. Without a large new demographic entering the hobby there is very little chance of anything rising in value, particularly for the mass produced stuff.

I may not have worded my first post correctly. I personally view the junk wax era being from 1987 to 1992 or 1993. My point was so many collectors who view the 1981-1986 main issue cards as "junk" which I think is incorrect. There was certainly a lot of those cards made but a significant percentage of them were thrown away (cards had little value or interest with the masses until about 1987) and a lot of those cards were either thrown out or poorly handled. My view on those cards is that they are not scarce but they are also not over produced wspecially when factoring in condition. I think cards in that era may slowly rise in value due to their age.
 
some things to think about:

1) I myself love the 1980-1987 sets. love the wood grain border on the 1987, the styles of players hair in the early 80's and simplicity of the 86. thinking about starting to work some 70's sets to see what lots of those players styles were.

2) check you tube. lots of people buying stuff from said 80-90 due to "the search for the big card" to grade them. some even just "ripping wax" for the fun of "what am I gonna get?".

3) I also am one to build a set if I have bundles of extra cards and can pick up the last small pile to complete them. am currently working on completing about 12 sets from 84-91.

4) the point of "people not taking care of their cards as well as they do now", has collectors replacing their current items with better ones.
 
I can't imagine there are too many people left who value every card from a larger set, like older Topps (700+). Set collecting seems to be something that grew from collecting piece by piece (kids buying a few packs at a time), rather than buying the entire set all at once. Of course, dealers started to build and sell sets for those folks that neither had the patience or desire to build their own, and it was popular for a while to buy the big 3 sets each year through the mail. It took the thrill out of building your own set, but also dropped your cost and time spent ripping packs to do it.

Sets are bulky though and unless you really enjoy owning a common scrub from a team you care nothing about, it just makes more sense that the majority of people would collect single items more to their interest. That is not to say there are not set lovers out there still, but I personally no longer see the draw. Team collecting is as far as I go to obtain commons of anyone anymore. You can't even find a surprise rookie card anymore in a set after the fact, because players have 100s of cards before they even play at the MLB level now days.

As for the mid 80s stuff being more scarce than we think, not likely. Although it may be drying up quicker than before, there are still unopened boxes and cases of this stuff floating around. The unopened collectors may slowly drive up the price or those looking to bust it trying for the gem cards to grade, but there is plenty of it in top shape and available for relatively cheap.
 
I purchase them on COMC and Sportlots for my team sets - being able to use a flat shipping rate has it's advantages there. I had to start over on a lot of 80s-2000s sets last year. I've had to buy a lot of these cards as trading for my needs hasn't really worked out. Which is weird, as I have posted trade threads offering autos/relics/numbered/etc. in exchange for cards from those eras.

One area where I have the most needs are the traded sets, those seem to be less available in general than the base set runs.
 
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as for me,I buy all cards from that era that are alum of Va Tech...and there is the problem.There are a bazillion cards out there and it's not worth anybody's time to search for obscure and semi star players.There are still many out there I still need,but I can't expect anyone to list every card they have from that era in a trade page...and unless you collected in that era,you've never heard of Vaughn Hebron,Robert Brown of the Packers,Bryan Still,Eugene Chung,Ray Crittenden...well,you get the picture...
 
Being a product of this generation of collecting (born in 1972 collected as a kid from 1980 through 1987), I agree that the cards from the early 80s are underappreciated today. Where I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, every kid collected. We'd meet once every week or two and trade. Some, like me were set builders. Others chased established stars like Mike Schmidt and George Brett. Still others chased local stars such as Jim Rice and Yaz and especially Wade Boggs. My town at this time had two card stores as well as several convenience store which sold packs. I recalled saving my paper route money and buying at least a box a week of wax for $8.00 a piece and spending the rest the LCS for cards from previous years.

Whenever the mood strikes me, I check out what sets from this era go for on ebay. However, it's not the prices that these sets fetch that I'm concerned with. It's just that looking at these cards brings me back to this time in my life when things were simpler. My worries then were getting my homework done, collecting money every week for the papers I delivered, devising trades that the Red Sox should make if only Lou Gorman (Red Sox GM) would just listen to the rants and ravings of a kid. Compare that with work responsibilities, paying bills, yard work, managing investments and saving up enough money so my daughter can go to college in a few years and you can see why these sets have a value that exceeds any monetary value they may have.

However, as mentioned before, I would believe that most people who would be inclined to build these sets have already built them. Unless more people enter the hobby in droves in the near future and gain an interest and appreciation in learning more about the game back during this time, I see them losing value as older collectors will essentially give them away just to get rid of them.

Just my two cents.
 
However, as mentioned before, I would believe that most people who would be inclined to build these sets have already built them. Unless more people enter the hobby in droves in the near future and gain an interest and appreciation in learning more about the game back during this time, I see them losing value as older collectors will essentially give them away just to get rid of them.

Just my two cents.

I have run into so many collectors in their 40s, 50s and 60s who literally dump their cards because their kids or grandkids are not interested in them at all. That makes it great for buying cards but terrible for the long term health of the hobby. Being born in 1972 you may be one of the younger collectors these days which was unthinkable not that long ago.

I always thought that there would be new arrivals into the hobby that would buy or build sets that were before their time but that is not going to happen. Technology has killed that from ever happening.
 
I have run into so many collectors in their 40s, 50s and 60s who literally dump their cards because their kids or grandkids are not interested in them at all. That makes it great for buying cards but terrible for the long term health of the hobby. Being born in 1972 you may be one of the younger collectors these days which was unthinkable not that long ago.

I always thought that there would be new arrivals into the hobby that would buy or build sets that were before their time but that is not going to happen. Technology has killed that from ever happening.

Technology is big part of the reason why kids do not collect today but price may be a bigger reason. Like Jay was saying, you used to see cards for sale everywhere. Not it is really only shops and the big retail stores. A box of Topps base cards will run you 50.00 to 60.00 dollars. This is an adult hobby now and it will never go back to the way it was when we were growing up.
 
Technology is big part of the reason why kids do not collect today but price may be a bigger reason. Like Jay was saying, you used to see cards for sale everywhere. Not it is really only shops and the big retail stores. A box of Topps base cards will run you 50.00 to 60.00 dollars. This is an adult hobby now and it will never go back to the way it was when we were growing up.

Prices of new packs and boxes is one of the things that really mystifies me.. While there are many less collectors than in years past (lower demand) the prices of new cards have skyrocketed. Yes, I know card companies produce less of them and have perfected the art of manufacturing scarcity but I still do not get it.

What is the way it was back when we were kids is being able to buy cards on the secondary market for low amounts not seen since the late 70s-early 80s. Everyone is selling and very few are buying so it is an absolute buyer's market for those still in the hobby as collectors.
 
Prices of new packs and boxes is one of the things that really mystifies me.. While there are many less collectors than in years past (lower demand) the prices of new cards have skyrocketed. Yes, I know card companies produce less of them and have perfected the art of manufacturing scarcity but I still do not get it.

What is the way it was back when we were kids is being able to buy cards on the secondary market for low amounts not seen since the late 70s-early 80s. Everyone is selling and very few are buying so it is an absolute buyer's market for those still in the hobby as collectors.

My sentiment exactly. When I was growing up this was, for the most part, a kids hobby. Now no matter what anyone tells you this is a hobby for adults. I will never stop collecting but my children have absolutely no interest whatsoever in cards. When I am at a store like Wal Mart or Target I never see kids looking at sports cards. They are much more interested in Magic or Pokémon cards. I just wonder if we will reach a point where Topps finally goes out of business and we are left with nothing.
 
It is interesting and fun reading everyone's thoughts. I have enjoyed collecting cards since the mid '70's. I got out of it around 1991, when the market went from three brands to about 50 brands. There was just no way I was going to be able to buy or collect every single card of every single set. I didn't collect anything from 1992 up until about 2007, when my son got into baseball cards. And, that reset the fire in me.

My brothers and I probably had 15-20,000 doubles from the '60's-'70s, and I was able trade a majority of them to now have a complete, or near complete set, from 1992 up til now. I need fifteen cards of the base sets, not including 2016. It was always fun for me, and I was hoping my son would enjoy it too. He collected for about 4-5 years before he lost interest. But, as most of said, I've come to realize it is a rich man's hobby and that's sad. Personally, I don't know how people have so many parallel's, medallions, so on and so forth. It has to be expensive to have all of them. And, as other's have said, you don't see kids buying baseball cards. They can't afford it. I wish stores would drop the prices and make it more affordable for kids. It was fun buying them as a kid, and trading with your friends.

I have been amazed to come across several people still looking for cards from the '80's and I am more than happy to help them. I am still looking for Traded and a few parallel's from the '80's, but I don't need much. I am hoping that people will join the hobby, because it is fun. I'd hate to see the hobby end.
 
Part of the allure of cards back in the day(at least for me) was that they were one of a handful of sources someone could use to connect to players in terms of a compilation of statistics as well as putting a face to the names in the morning box scores.

Compare this with today.

With modern communiction systems, one could see any game at any time. For $100 per year you can subscribe to any one of several tv/device packages and watch every game you wish (well, except when any team plays the Yankees here in upstate New York).

Statistics? You can google them in an instant. No longer does one have to hold a card and look on the back to see how many home runs Jim Rice had in 1978.

This reality needs to be considered when discussing the decline of our hobby.
 
Jay touched on some things that I was thinking about earlier in the day as to how accessible big time sports is today vs 30-40 years ago. Back then, the players seemed larger than life. Much of this perception was the fact that information was much harder to come by. How many of us would race to the daily paper to read the box scores or get the top 5 league leaders? And on Sunday the big thing was the comprehensive baseball stats that we would spend hours going over. And to see an out of town team you would tune into the Game of the Week. And getting The Sporting News weekly in the mail meant you were really on top of things. Throw in the fact that the world was a much bigger place and we as kids were awe struck by our teams and our favorite players.

But even with the great exposure of and accessibility to today's pro sports, I think the percentage of kids who really follow sports is much lower than kids of previous generations. And for those that are interested in pro sports, cards would be a rather ancient way of keeping up with them. Only if a kid has a nostalgic streak in them (which I did as a kid) would they even bother with cards.

Two ways of telling if a guy is old is if they collect cards and like Hard Rock and/or metal music. Well since I collect cards and my username gives away my music genre of choice............ I guess that means....................I'M OLD!
 
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