As a serial over-analyzer of Topps odds, one of the most common comments I hear is that we are in “Junk Wax Era 2.0.”
That assertion contains multiple layers, not the least of which is “What exactly is your definition of ‘Junk Wax Era’?”
Though technically there is no hard and fast definition, the guidelines for describing the Junk Wax Era require some nuance. It’s a term that is thrown around often. You’ve probably heard comments like “Flagship is printed to the moon, so we’re definitely in Junk Wax 2.0,” or “Ace Hardware sells cards now, so clearly we’re in another junk wax era.” But these opinions usually miss a critical aspect… the dynamics of the products themselves.
Yes, you can buy sports cards at Ace Hardware. It’s also possible (improbable, yes, but technically possible) to pull extremely rare hits, some even worth a life-changing amount of money from said boxes at Ace Hardware, or any retailer of sports cards for that matter.
In the late 1980s cards were sold at almost every convenience store, grocery store, and book store under the sun in packs made from wax paper. But those packs held nothing in the way of “chase cards” like we see today in every single product on the market. Even the cheapest of products today generally have some potential to pull rare 1-of-1s or autographs worth considerably more than the purchase price. Back then, we were simply chasing our favorite player’s base card or rookie card (crazy concept, I know). Boxes contained so many cards that you were bound to get at least one copy, if not multiples, of the card you wanted in every box. There were a handful of insert sets, but the singles certainly were not scarce, and they carried little value.
Pack-pulled autographs were not introduced until 1990 Upper Deck. The first parallels in a major product were introduced in 1992 Topps with Topps Gold (Topps Tiffany and Fleer Glossy existed during the ‘80s, but were sold in standalone set form and not pulled from traditional packs). And card grading, which formalized a hierarchy of scarcity among even the most heavily produced cards, didn’t become popular until the 2000s. Some junk wax era cards have since become quite valuable in desirable grades.
While not everyone will agree, my working definition of the “Junk Wax Era” spans the years 1986-1993 and hinges on two core characteristics:
1) Massive production across nearly all sets, leading to universal availability and long-term oversupply.
2) A near-total absence of chase cards, including autographs, rare inserts, and parallels. Cards certainly weren’t “valueless” at the time, but there was nothing you could pull from a then-current pack that could be worth hundreds of dollars or more, which is commonplace in today’s collecting landscape.
There was some overlap during the transition years of 1990-1993, but the introduction of true chase elements during periods of high production is the single most important factor that ultimately pulled the hobby out of the Junk Wax Era.
Now back to the present day. Topps recently made its return to licensed NBA cards with 2025-26 Topps NBA Flagship. I did some analysis regarding its large production numbers, and it ended up just below Topps Series 1 Baseball as the highest-produced product of 2025.
I was asked how the printing numbers of 2025-26 Topps Basketball compare to printing during the Junk Wax Era. Here is my best attempt at a somewhat educated guess:
Total production of 2025-26 Topps NBA Flagship: 429,697,744
Base print run: 1,263,210 copies each card
(Series 1 Baseball had total production of 438 million, which does not include cards sold in the complete set format since odds info typically aren’t shared for those.)
Credible data regarding production runs in the Junk Wax Era is pretty much impossible to find, much less verify. There are a lot of estimates with wide ranges. Fortunately, the first serial numbered cards in a major release came right in the middle of one the most overproduced years, the Elite inserts in 1991 Donruss.
There are no legitimate pack odds on these. But they were incredibly tough to hit, even though they were numbered between 5,000-10,000 copies. I think we have enough data to at least form a credible range.
There are eight cards in the checklist (Barry Bonds, George Brett, Jose Canseco, Andre Dawson, Doug Drabek, Cecil Fielder, Rickey Henderson, Matt Williams) with 10,000 copies each. There’s also a Nolan Ryan /7,500 and a Ryne Sandberg auto /5,000. That’s 92,500 total cards.
Pack odds on Elites are hearsay and can vary wildly. I’ve seen estimates as little as 1:75 boxes, but most estimates I’ve heard from dealers at the time are about 1:5-10 cases. In 1991, a case of Donruss consisted of 20 wax boxes.
So, let’s take the conservative end of this and see where that takes us.
92,500 cards × 75 boxes × 36 pks/box × 15 cards/pk = 3,746,250,000 cards ÷ 770 card checklist = 4.865 million of each card (770 total).
This is only about four times the base print run per card of the recent Flagship NBA set, but the overall production is almost nine times as much. And this is the most conservative estimate that I’ve encountered, so I believe it should be at the low end of the range.
I personally survived through the junk wax era. I was 15 in 1991, so I couldn’t afford to rip cases upon cases of Donruss. But I’ve seen plenty, and I believe the figure of about one Elite per 10 cases. This should at least give us an upper end to the range:
92,500 × 200 boxes × 36 pks × 15 cards = 9.99 billion total cards ÷ 770 = 12.974 million copies of each base card.
So, for 1991 Donruss, the thick of the junk wax era, I believe the production lies somewhere between 4.865m-12.974m copies of each base card, with total production of 3.746-9.99 billion. I understand this is a massive range. But it also gives us enough context to see that even one of our highest-produced modern sets represents, at most, about 11 percent of the production of one of the most overprinted sets of all time.
Though I strongly believe production numbers of 1987-1991 Topps could easily dwarf that of 1991 Donruss, there is simply not enough credible data available to form an accurate range of production numbers for those years.
With Junk Wax Era estimations in mind, there are a couple additional points worth noting.
- Production numbers like we see in 2025 are substantially more than what we’ve seen in the past 20 years. While we may be a long way off from production of the late ‘80s to early ‘90s, the numbers are definitely rising with no end in sight.
- Peak production numbers lie somewhere in the 1987-1991 period, then tailed off through the early 2000s, and have been on the rise again since about 2015. The leanest production year was somewhere around 2009. For context, total production of 2009 Topps Series 1 stands at ~55 million total cards produced, or about an eighth of the production of 2025-26 Topps NBA Flagship.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that this perceived over-abundance of supply is just half the equation. As long as market demand keeps pace with production, today’s print runs are unlikely to pose an immediate problem. Right now, demand for new products remains strong, driven by constant innovation, aggressive chase elements, and a collector base that is still highly engaged with what’s new and shiny. There’s also an argument that print runs on low-end sets like Series 1 Baseball and NBA Flagship should rise to meet demand in order to serve as a readily available entry point for kids and new or casual collectors, while scarcity should only be a consideration for more expensive high-end sets.
My concern isn’t about the present, though. It’s about what happens later, when these massively produced products age, attention shifts to the next wave of releases, and demand inevitably thins out. History suggests that supply has a long memory, and while today’s production levels may be digestible in real time, they don’t truly reveal their consequences until years down the road.
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