What do you consider to be the junkiest year of the junk wax era?

[zyceoa]

You can pick a year solely for baseball and another for all the major sports combined if you wish since the junk wax era for baseball is longer. For instance, I don't think anyone considers 80s Fleer basketball to be junk wax.

 

[Tibor]

1988 followed closely by 1989.

 

[finestkind]

86 and 87 Topps baseball

 

[Bhk5150]

88 Topps, 91 Donruss

 

[dawgpack]

1991 Fleer


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[swish54_99]

1988 Baseball. I hate the look of both 1988 Topps and Donruss. A close second is 1991 baseball. I absolutely despise the 1991 Donruss look, but I like the 1991 Topps design.

 

[WizardofOz1982]

1991. Highest print run year.

 

[nosterbor]

1988 Donruss.

 

[Dodgerfan74]

1988 followed closely by 1989.

1989 Upper Deck the exception

 

[Philip J. Fry]

1988 Baseball. I hate the look of both 1988 Topps and Donruss. A close second is 1991 baseball. I absolutely despise the 1991 Donruss look, but I like the 1991 Topps design.

I’d rather stare at a binder full of blue over yellow (Fleer) any day though. I do agree with you on Topps though.

 

[bstanwood]

1988 was the first year that popped into my head. I don't enjoy the designs and there were definitely tons of 88s in my room as a kid that got destroyed with pinholes, and pen marks. On a related note it was difficult finding guys to draw mustaches on in the 80s, most of them beat me to the punch

 

[banjar]

This is a tough question.

My initial reaction was 1991. Those Donruss and Fleer designs were just total garbage. Although I confess, I have a secret fetish for the 1991 fleer yellow. Don't tell anyone OK?

Topps did have the Desert Shield cards, but otherwise just an average design, and the print run was well into the millions. And Score? It was OK, just OK. And, again, millions. Upper Deck was still leading the pack by a wide margin, which is hard to believe since it was 2 years after their debut...and the other brands still refused to catch up.

With the overall quality of the card designs, and the astronomical print runs, 1991 has to be it, right?

 

[mrmopar]

1991 is my vote. Just crappy stuff all around. I am a fan of the 91 Fleer set though, but Donruss, Score and even Topps was pretty meh. 90 UD was crap too.

However, we did see Stadium Club and the debut of the Donruss Elites, so maybe 1990 has to be the winner by default.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

We also had the premier of Ultra that year, as well as a very subpar Leaf set.

 

[mrmopar]

We also had the premier of Ultra that year, as well as a very subpar Leaf set.

Yes, both pretty ugly sets. That does remind me one the one saving grace of 1990, the premier Leaf set.

I guess 88 is probably the truly crappiest junk wax year. Poor rookie crop, ugly cards all around, no special cards or inserts yet, no premium sets yet...just plain old overproduced garbage (but we ate it up in 1988, those of us collecting at the time).

 

[Shaggy]

1990 to 1992.

The set I dislike the most is the 1990 Donruss baseball. Worst set ever made! Only card I like in that set is the Gonzalez error.

 

[brian26]

I was going to say 1991. I did, however, like Fleer Ultra even though it was overprinted. That was the first hobby box I ever opened.

 

[smapdi]

1988. Uninspired designs from all companies. Score's debut was lackluster. There were no rookies who held up except Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine and Robert Alomar, perception of whom has soured for various reasons over the years despite HOF election. But it was merely the calm before the storm.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

1988. Uninspired designs from all companies. Score's debut was lackluster. There were no rookies who held up except Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine and Robert Alomar, perception of whom has soured for various reasons over the years despite HOF election. But it was merely the calm before the storm.

Oddly enough, I actually like the design of 1988 Score.

 

[mrmopar]

Oddly enough, I actually like the design of 1988 Score.

I didn't mind them at the time, especially the multicolored border options, but in the big picture of card designs, they don't hold up well in my eyes. It's funny what people like and what they don't. I still maintain the idea that the more scarce something is, the more people will like it regardless of it's look. The scarce stuff always seems "new" because you just don't see it all the time, unlike like say 1988 Donruss, perhaps one of the worst designs ever (until 1995 Fleer came along and reset the bar to an amazing level of low!)?