[jhyde77]

I was looking through an old Beckett on 80s sports cards. It mentioned how collecting was all baseball in a year like '86. With alot fewer football and basketball collectors, the production numbers would probably be lower by millions. You didn't see football and basketball in every gas station. Right? It was 86 Topps baseball. What do ya'll think?

[chevy man 22]

I don't think production was that much lower.You could find other sports pretty easy at Hobby Shops back then but yeah retail which was mostly gas stations then was mostly Baseball. You also have to remember back then there was no Retail vs. Hobby versions everything was the same product so what you bought at 7'Eleven was the same thing you got from a card shop.


That said there definitely wasn't the collector interest in Football and Basketball because your average collector was 16 yrs. old or younger. Wasn't until the late 80's and through the 90's that the grown up's got involved and ruined the hobby. 1989 Griffey UD IMO was the game changer that brought the older crowds into the hobby because other than vintage stuff it was pretty much the first $100 + Base card you could pull from a pack.

[djohn]

The production of football and basketball in the 80s was significantly lower than baseball production runs. However that is mostly because in baseball you had 3 major manufacturers (Topps, Donruss, Fleer) each one making around 10 million of each card. In football you only had Topps, though they were still making a few million of each card. In basketball there was Topps at the beginning of the 80s then Star and then Fleer coming in 1987. The production in basketball was significantly less than the other sports, but it was still on the order of a million of each card. So while 1 million vs 10 million of each card is a significant difference, it was all still overproduced.
The biggest thing to remember is in all sports there was tons of unopened product leftover each year, hence the reason you can still easily find cases of unopened 80s wax to this day. What is more interesting is that a lot of the cases cost less now than they did in the 80s.

[jhyde77]

That is kind of interesting to think that there are hundreds of thousands of 87 Topps baseball still in packs. Anyone know how those '83 Star basketball sets were distributed? I'm sure they were sold heavier in basketball towns. I would imagine they would've been sold at basketball games and mail order. Anyone know?

[chevy man 22]

Problem though with all those boxes from the 80's especially the topps ones is it's extremely easy to open them pull the top name rookies then seal them back up being the wrappers have a wax coating on them. So even though they are readily available I wouldn't touch one with a 10 ft. pole if I was looking for any top name rookies.

[jhyde77]

Problem though with all those boxes from the 80's especially the topps ones is it's extremely easy to open them pull the top name rookies then seal them back up being the wrappers have a wax coating on them. So even though they are readily available I wouldn't touch one with a 10 ft. pole if I was looking for any top name rookies.

I normally don't buy '80s wax boxes. Its hard for me to justify the price for the ones I would want to open. But I did recently have some luck with a box of '89 Fleer and some '82 Donruss packs that I picked up at a Flea Market. I pulled the Billy Ripken original error and Griffey from the box and pulled a Ripken out of about 8 Donruss packs. That was the most luck I've ever had with 80s packs.

[ifyoucanthinkofit]

I normally don't buy '80s wax boxes. Its hard for me to justify the price for the ones I would want to open. But I did recently have some luck with a box of '89 Fleer and some '82 Donruss packs that I picked up at a Flea Market. I pulled the Billy Ripken original error and Griffey from the box and pulled a Ripken out of about 8 Donruss packs. That was the most luck I've ever had with 80s packs.

I had an itch to open up some 80s wax packs. I was considering some 83 Topps and 84 Fleer for fun, but I decided to go with 89 Upper Deck. I figured there was a smaller chance of searching, etc.

I pulled 4 Griffey rookies from the 2 boxes I bought (I never had that luck back in 89!). All 4 are perfect, except that 3 are a little off center. The 4th has centering that's about perfect (60/40 or better), so I may send that one in to get graded.

Since I thought I was on a roll I tried a lotto ticket, but that didn't work out as well. Maybe I needed to buy 72 tickets!

[jhyde77]

I had an itch to open up some 80s wax packs. I was considering some 83 Topps and 84 Fleer for fun, but I decided to go with 89 Upper Deck. I figured there was a smaller chance of searching, etc.

I pulled 4 Griffey rookies from the 2 boxes I bought (I never had that luck back in 89!). All 4 are perfect, except that 3 are a little off center. The 4th has centering that's about perfect (60/40 or better), so I may send that one in to get graded.

Since I thought I was on a roll I tried a lotto ticket, but that didn't work out as well. Maybe I needed to buy 72 tickets!

I would say to go with the scratch off tickets over the lotto, but you probably need to stick with packs.

[ifyoucanthinkofit]

I would say to go with the scratch off tickets over the lotto, but you probably need to stick with packs.

Good idea!

[altz11]

I heard back in the late 80's you could buy a box of 86 fleer basketball for around $10-$15. Now an unopened box is worth like $25,000. Anyone here have some stashed away?? Lol