As a Johnny come lately to the modern card scene, I have a question – What is junk wax? Can anyone put a date range on it? When did the junk wax era start and end? Does it only apply to certain sets?
I have looked for definitions on the web to no avail. So, I bring it to you – the small (i.e., exclusive) audience of this blog. How do you define junk wax?
cheap wax fix 
Anything other than the Topps sets and UD’s 1989 set ranging from 1988-1992.
I don’t mind receiving Topps from this year because I’m still collecting the sets from those years and UD’s 1989 set is still monumental and I enjoy receiving those cards. Other than that, anything Fleer, Ultra, Score, Donruss from those years… pure junk.
I’d maybe even add a year or two on to both ends of Nick’s dates. ’87 – ’93 was almost exclusively JUNK. Even Topps. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s garbage and NOBODY likes it or collects it, just that it was produce in such mass quantities that to this day it’s still readily valuable, thus destroying any hope of it someday ever becoming valuable.
The industry was booming then, so manufacturer’s did everything possible to keep up with demand instead of keeping things hard to find. I’d say 89 (everything but UD) through 91 were the ‘peak’ junk years though.
That’s not to say that there wasn’t junk put out before and after that date range. You’ll be hard pressed to find much of value from the mid ’90s, too.
Anything, and I mean ANYTHING between and including 1987-1992. There was a ton of junk wax in 1993, too, but I’d leave out a couple sets from that year.
Yeah, may as well toss ’89 UD in that pile. It’s worthless other than the Griffey, which isn’t all that valuable any more, either.
Just know that junk wax doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value AT ALL, just that the inventory from those years is so abundant that almost any card/set/box is easy to be had from multiple sources.