Embracing the Best and Worst of the Junk Wax Era: Hockey Card Edition

A couple of months ago, I was inspired by Nick (of the Dime Boxes) and Night Owl to post a list of what I considered the best and worst sets of the junk wax era for baseball. I was a young collector back in the junk wax days, and certainly opened my share of baseball packs during that time. But there was also another sport I collected: 

 

Hockey. 

 

So I thought I'd create a similar best and worst list for the coolest sport on ice.

Interestingly, the junk wax era for hockey cards didn't follow quite the same timeline. In the second half of the 1980s, when baseball junk wax was booming, you still only had two choices for hockey cards: Topps and O-Pee-Chee. But that all changed during the 1990-91 season, as FIVE new brands emerged on the scene (Pro Set, Score, Bowman, OPC Premier, and Upper Deck). It was a wild time to be a collector, that's for sure.

For the sake of this post, I think I'll set the junk wax hockey years as 1990-91 through 1994-95. After that, a whole bunch of premium brands came around, with all sorts of inserts and parallels and rare cards. I'd say that effectively ended the era.

So let's start with my selections for the five worst junk wax sets, in no particular order.

 

 

 

1991-92 Pro Set

The 1991-92 Pro Set design was never going to be as rambunctious as the inaugural version the year before (we'll get to that one later). However, I think the company might have gone too far in the opposite direction this time, and fallen flat. The loud colors and stripes of the 1990-91 set were replaced with. . . almost nothing. Just a full-bleed image and a little black tab across the bottom for the player name (not even a position!). Even some of the subsets in this set were boring. You could only tell one from another by a little half-circle banner over the team logo that indicated what subset card you were looking at. In addition, the photography was not great at times, with images that were a bit blurry, or that were strangely cropped. The black tab can kind of get in the way of the action on the card, too, as evidenced by Dale Hunter on the face-off and Chris Winnes taking a slap shot up there. Maybe the design team at Pro Set was still exhausted from the previous year.

 

 

 

 

1991-92 Score

 

Yeesh. Score was really trying to cash in on excitable collectors during the 1991-92 season. They produced three variations of the same set, each with a different color for the borders. Card backs were written in English, in French, or both. The adolescent version of me sure did get swept up in it, buying plenty of packs of the American (purple border) and Canadian English (red or light blue border with purple interior) versions. I might have bought packs of the Canadian Bilingual version too (red or light blue border with green interior), but I don't remember seeing packs in card shops or at card shows very often in my region of the US. It's true that there were a few exciting insert cards available in each set that featured Bobby Orr—including an autographed version. And occasionally a player's photo did differ from one version of the set to the next. But that certainly doesn't rescue 1991-92 Score from my bottom 5.

 

1993-94 Topps Premier

 

Back in 1990-91, O-Pee-Chee released their first premium set, called "Premier". It went over pretty well with collectors, and for the next two seasons, O-Pee-Chee continued with the brand. Then in 1993-94, Topps decided to jump in with "Topps Premier". It was the same exact set as the O-Pee-Chee version, other than the lack of French text on the card backs. I think I'd learned my lesson from Score a couple of years prior, and didn't fall for the Topps Premier hoopla—even with the allure of the special Black Gold inserts, which were admittedly pretty cool. 1993-94 Topps Premier was also one of the early hockey sets that suffered from "bricking" due to the ultra-varnish coating, which was another strike against it. Adding to the negatives, it was a time in the hobby when close-cropped player photos were in style, across many sets. Too close. I mean, look at how cramped those three guys are.

 

1993-94 Fleer Power Play

 

The irregular size and shape of these cards was eye catching, that's for sure. But I also think that a lot of folks bought one or two packs for the novelty of it, and then just never bought more. If that wasn't enough of a deterrent for collectors, the large set size (520 cards) probably did the trick. Even though it turned out that the cards measured the same as the vintage "tall boy", I didn't know many collectors who were willing to buy all the unique storage supplies necessary to complete and display the set, or even finish a team set. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Power Play did not return the next season. The thing is, Fleer didn't do such a bad job with the photography, oftentimes setting part of the player outside of the frame for that 3D effect. This works well on the taller template—especially in the digital image. As for how they looked on the actual cards in hand? I'm not so sure. Maybe the images would have worked better in some other form. Just imagine those three cards above as banners hanging throughout the concourse of an NHL arena, for example.

 

 

1994-95 Upper Deck Be a Player

 

I think 1994-95 Upper Deck Be a Player can be argued as a best set AND a worst set. It's a potential worst set because of the photography. It's a potential best set because it was the first one outrageous enough to put an autographed card into every pack. The list of autographs was an astounding 178 cards deep, and it contained many of the big names of the time: Brodeur, Selanne, Bourque, Leetch, LaFontaine, Shanahan, Gretzky, Yzerman, Kariya, Yashin, Lidstrom. 

 

The big negative, though, is for that photography. There are players standing outside in the cold, wearing ski jackets. There are players on the golf course, wearing polo shirts and khaki shorts. There are players wearing NHLPA jerseys instead of their team's jersey. (There was a lockout during part of the '94-95 NHL season.) Ultimately, even though this inaugural edition of Be A Player really changed the game with the one-autograph-per-pack thing, I still have to put it in the bottom 5.

 

 

Now let's get to the top 5, also in no particular order.

 

 

 

 

1991-92 Upper Deck

 

If the inaugural Upper Deck hockey release came out with a bang, their follow-up set in 1991-92 was even louder—and in a good way. The designers really upped their game. You've got some fantastic subsets like the Canada Cup and All-Rookie Team, plus much better quality on the hologram inserts. In addition, there are lots of great rookie cards to be found (Teemu Selanne, Nicklas Lidstrom, Peter Forsberg, John Leclair, Alexei Yashin, Alexei Kovalev, and Keith Tkachuk to name a few). This is probably the Upper Deck set I collected the most back then, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I still remember walking to the local card show with my friend on the first Friday of each month, going back to my house with packs and packs of 1991-92 Upper Deck, and playing NHL Hockey on Sega Genesis while we flipped through the cards.

 

 

 

 

1990-91 Pro Set

Despite the many errors in this set (and many stripes of many colors), I've got to put this set in my top 5. It's large and colorful—perfect for young collectors—and both Series I and Series II have some great rookies. On top of the standard subsets like All-Stars, Draft Picks, and Award Winners, you've also got some fun subsets like Head Coaches, Career Leaders, and even Referees! Oh, and collectors had the rare chance to pull a Stanley Cup hologram card. The photos in this set weren't always the best, but they also showed some decent action and weren't cropped so tightly or oddly as some other sets of the hockey junk wax era. That's nice.

 

 

 

 

1990-91 OPC Premier

 

I remember packs of 1990-91 OPC Premier being tough to find back then. But if you did find them, you had a good chance at putting the complete set together—it's only 132 cards deep. There are certainly some big-name rookies (Jagr, Modano, Fedorov, Roenick, Bondra, Mogilny, Nolan, Sundin), and a decent design that helps to make it memorable. The photography can sometimes be plain, and I'm not sure this set would have been in my top-5 back in the early 90s, but history has shown that it holds up, and the big rookie cards are still prized among collectors.

 

1990-91 Score

Score made a splash with their inaugural hockey set. Part of the buzz was generated from their exclusive rights to Eric Lindros. He appeared on the final card in the set, and if you purchased a factory set, you received 5 "bonus" Lindros cards that featured him in various photoshoot-style hockey poses. Here in 2024 it might be hard to understand how big of a deal this was, but Lindros was the hottest name in the sport back then, and hockey card companies all wanted a piece of the big power forward. Lindros aside, Score did very well with their first design. There were hardly any errors, especially when compared with some of the other brands. The "hockey rink" design—featuring a blue line, red line, and blue line across the borders—was pretty cool. In addition, there were some fun subsets like "Blaster", "Sniper", "Magician", "Stopper", and "Speedster". Baby-faced Jaromir Jagr and Martin Brodeur rookie cards add to the good grade here.

 

1990-91 Upper Deck

Upper Deck took their baseball card success from 1989 and rolled it right into hockey for the next season. Their photography was unmatched, and gave hockey card collectors the best look they'd ever had into what the sport was all about. (Flip through the set and you'll see that Theo Fleury and John Tonelli up there represent just two of many fantastic, descriptive images.) The tamper-proof foil packs and anti-counterfeiting holograms on the card backs were cutting edge. The rookie cards were highly sought after. And on top of all that, the Young Guns series was created that very first year. It's still going strong to this day, which is truly impressive.

 

So that's my bottom-5 and top-5 hockey sets from the junk wax era. If any of you readers collected hockey cards back then, share some of your rankings in the comment section—or create your own blog post!

Thanks for reading, as always.

Embracing the Best and Worst of the Junk Wax Era

This past summer, a couple of bloggers shared their personal rankings of junk wax–era baseball card sets. Dime Boxes started it off with a worst list, and then Night Owl followed with a best list. Once I finished reading those two posts, I thought it would be a fun exercise for me, too. The junk wax era was part of my childhood, after all.

 

Let's go with the span of years from 1987 to 1993. And note that by 1992, my collecting focus had mostly transitioned from baseball cards to hockey cards. (Hockey was having a junk wax era of its own at that time. Maybe I'll come up with a list for hockey next. Pro Set and Score, I'm looking at you.)

 

Anyhow, let's start with my bottom 5 junk wax–era baseball sets, in no particular order.

  

 

 

 

1991 Fleer

 

You could probably light up a dark room simply by opening a binder of 1991 Fleer. I think it's safe to say that the bright yellow borders, which ran from card #1 all the way to card #720, caught just about everyone by surprise back then. A couple of years ago, I revisited the set and did a redesign, suggesting that it might have been a better idea for Fleer to go with white borders or charcoal borders. I still stand by that suggestion.

 

 

 

 

 

1988 Donruss

 

Did you know that when a group of zebras feel threatened, they begin running around in zig-zag patterns? All those black and white stripes moving in different directions are bewildering to a predator, which gives the zebras a better chance of escaping unharmed. 

 

Well, the blue, red, and black card stripes moving around those 1988 Donruss card borders can be equally bewildering to a collector. In fact, after looking up current ebay prices for full wax boxes of this stuff, it seems that quite a lot of collectors must have avoided '88 Donruss back then. And although it is true that sometimes the stripes line up in symmetrical ways when the cards are next to each other in a nine-pocket page, it certainly doesn't save this set from the bottom 5. Neither does a fairly strong rookie class (Roberto Alomar, Mark Grace, Tom Glavine, Matt Williams, Al Leiter, Ken Caminiti, Ron Gant, Gregg Jefferies.)

 

 

 

 

1990 Donruss

 

In all fairness, some of the trading card companies of the time were really going for it. And that's commendable. The market was more saturated than ever, and premium brands like Stadium Club and Ultra were appearing on the scene. For the flagship sets, there was pressure to really stand out. And listen. Sometimes you swing hard and hit a homer. Other times you swing hard and whiff. And your helmet flies off. And you fall down. That second scenario was 1990 Donruss. From the redder-than-red borders to the black and white paint speckles to the facsimile script to the clashing bright orange card backs to the litany of errors, it just hurt to open packs of these cards.

 

 

 

 

 1992 Leaf

 

Speaking of premium sets, there were a few years of Leaf designs in the junk wax era. And they started out well. 1990 Leaf was different and exciting with those silver rays shooting out of the bottom left corner of the card front. Then 1991 Leaf had those make-believe photo album borders, which were a little cheesy, but not terrible. Then 1992 Leaf came along, and it was just . . . boring. If I didn't know which year was which and you asked me to put all three of those "silver border" sets in chronological order, I would have guessed that the 1992 Leaf design came first, then they tried to do a little more with it (1991 design), and then they found their stride (1990 design). Note some of the odd photography and cropping in the 1992 set as well, featured on the three cards above.

 

 

 

 

1988 Fleer

 

The 1988 Fleer design seems unfinished to me. Or maybe it's that the designers had a few different ideas saved on a template, and just mashed them all together and called it a day. Some of those red and blue stripes are so short that they look out of place. They're really more like random dashes. Whatever they are, I want to tell them to follow through and go all the way across the card and to the edges of the borders. There are some memorable cards in this set, like San Diego's Tim Flannery posing with a surfboard, but there are also way too many photos of players standing around and looking sad. Or bored. Or nonplussed.

 

 

Now the top 5, also in no particular order.

 

 

 

 

1989 Bowman

 

Many collectors seem to loathe this set and would readily include it in their bottom 5. However, it's all about nostalgia for me. I was a kid collector back in 1989, and the uniqueness of '89 Bowman—from the larger size to the "stats by opponent" on the card backs to the reprints of the golden-age Bowman cards (an era that I was learning about for the first time)—conjures up a lot of good collecting memories for me. I also think this was the first set I collected that featured facsimile autographs on the front. It was fun seeing the penmanship of the pros.

 

 

 

 

 

1991 Topps

 

The 1991 Topps set marked the company's first concerted effort to keep up with the great photography of the newer brands like Upper Deck, Score, and Leaf. They did an excellent job, and the set has held up so well that I decided to complete it a few years ago.

 

 

1989 Fleer

 

1989 Fleer has a solid design. There are some great action shots, and the 3D effect of the players overlapping the interior card borders works very well. Add the color-matched diagonal stripes, which really stand out against the surrounding light gray and white, and the coolness factor increases even more. You've also got many of the same rookies as '89 Topps and '89 Donruss, along with a couple of memorable errors and all their variations. (Billy Ripken and Randy Johnson.) And as usual with Fleer, the card backs were interesting and informative, showing some of the player's stats before and after the All-Star break. Just as with '89 Bowman, I have good memories of collecting this Fleer set in my young days. 

 

 

 

 

 

1989 Upper Deck

 

I think to this day, a lot of young collectors of the time will remember the feel and sound that came with opening those foil wrappers. But is it weird that I remember the smell, too? Regardless, 1989 Upper Deck changed the game. The crisp, bright white card stock, the hologram and full-color photography on the back, the Griffey Jr. star rookie. Upper Deck was a sensation. It's hard to leave it out of my top 5.

 

 

 

1987 Topps

 

I know The 1987 Topps design has been done, and redone, and redone again over the years. (Even the '87 set itself is a not-so-subtle redesign of 1962 Topps.) However, this is the set I collected the most when I was a baseball-loving, baseball-playing kid in New York. The Mets had just won the World Series with their fantastic cast of characters, and the Yankees had a good bunch of their own with Mattingly, Rickey, Winfield, Righetti, and broadcaster Phil Rizzuto on WPIX channel 11. I still get a big dose of nostalgia whenever I see a Mets or Yankees card from this set. All those fond memories outweigh the fact that Topps has exhausted this design.

 

ADDENDUM

 

Let's take a minute to talk about the term "junk wax".

 

I can understand that many folks automatically take it as a negative—enough to be upsetting, or insulting, even. But I also pause, and ask why? 

 

I mean, think about it. Junk can be a positive. Some of the coolest dudes out there are junk collectors. Have you ever watched the show American Pickers, for example? Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz meet some authentic people with some authentic junk, that's for sure. There's nothing negative about that. And besides, there's almost always potential to find some gems within the junk. A 1991 Topps Chipper Jones Desert Shield. A 1990 Topps Frank Thomas no name on front. A 1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy reverse negative. So how about we start thinking of the term junk wax with more positivity? With more fondness? Let's enjoy the term in all its junkiness. Put mustard on junk wax and eat it. (Not literally.)

 

And if you're so inclined to come up with your own best and worst lists of the junk wax era and post them on your blogs, go for it!

Thanks for reading, as always.

1981 Topps Scratch-Offs: Hockey Edition

Scratch-off games were big in the 1980s. State lotteries had them. McDonald's had them. Publisher's Clearing House had them. And as many of you readers may know, trading card companies had them.

 

The most popular example would likely be the 1981 Topps baseball scratch-off game. (Honorable mention to 1980 Donruss Pac-Man.)

 

These three-card panels were separate from the flagship set, and were issued in their own wax packs—six panels per pack, plus one stick of bubble gum. The cards came in two color varieties: green for National League players and red for American League players.

 

Kids would use these cards to play an actual "game". The rules were the same as real baseball: Choose your team of nine players, create your lineup, and scratch off one of those little black circles on the player's card when he comes to bat. Each circle reveals a hit or an out of some kind. Score as many runs as you can before revealing three outs. Once your side is retired, the other player starts scratching off his circles for the inning. Fun!

Now here's the interesting thing: Topps decided to do something similar during the concurrent hockey season (1980-81). But they went scratch-off mad. 

 

Instead of creating a separate hockey game similar to the baseball version, Topps added the special scratch-off coating directly to the front of all the cards in the flagship set.

 

Specifically, the coating appeared over the player's name. And to add to the challenge, the names were deliberately left off the back of the cards too. So, if you didn't have good knowledge of an NHL player by his image or jersey number, you'd have to find out by scratching off the puck to reveal the name underneath.

 
 

Who's that goalie? (scratches off puck) Oh, it's John Garrett.

 

Personally, I don't really mind the idea. Well, at least the little-kid version of me wouldn't have minded, because collecting cards back then was for fun, not dollars. And besides, Canadian counterpart O-Pee-Chee decided against the scratch-off pucks for their 1980-81 set, so examples of how cards look when they are undamaged and free from scratch-off residue do exist out there.

 

However, to many collectors the scratch-off puck idea was a poor one, and I understand that. After all, if you're trying to put a complete set together, do you go scratched? Unscratched? A combination of the two?

 

I was thinking about all this a couple of months ago, and came to the conclusion that it may have been a better move for Topps to keep the flagship cards uncoated, and if they really wanted to cash in on the popularity of the scratch-off craze, issue a separate game like they did for baseball.

 

And that's exactly when I said, "Hey, let's create one!"

 

Here's what the hockey version of the scratch-off game could have looked like. 

 

First, the panels.

 

I like the green color of the baseball panels, but decided to ditch the red. After trying various colors, I chose purple. The cool-ish color seems to work with hockey, a cool-weather sport. And Topps did use a similar purple color for some of the card borders in the 1980-81 set. (See the John Garrett card above.)

Next, the panel backs, featuring the rules, scoreboard, and a merchandise offer. Original baseball panel on the left, newly created hockey panel on the right.

 

 

For the baseball version, Topps used the same red and pink colors that they did for the backs on their flagship 1981 set. I tried the same thing for the hockey version, using the green and yellow colors that Topps used for their 1980-81 flagship hockey set. 

 

Here's an enlarged shot of each panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't send $5.00 to that P.O. Box. You won't receive your NHL mini-bag.

However, there is a prize of sorts. We're actually going to play a game, right here, virtually! (I didn't do so much design work on these panels for nothing.)

First, let's go over the rules. If you don't want to zoom in on the image above, here's the summary:

 

(1) You and your competitor each select a team of five skaters: Three forwards and two defensemen. Each skater will "shoot" once per period. You choose the order in which they'll shoot and write that number in the box at the bottom right.

 

(2) You and your competitor take turns shooting by scratching off a circle on your next shooter's card. Revealing a "GO" means that player has scored a goal. Revealing an "X" means that player has missed, and revealing a "P" means that player has committed a penalty. When a penalty is revealed, the next player in your shooting lineup will miss his turn.

 

(3) At the end of the period, you and your competitor tally up the number of goals scored and write the totals in the corresponding box on the scorecard. Repeat for periods 2 and 3. If the game is tied after regulation, an overtime period is played. First player to score a goal wins.

 

(Note that better players will have more "GO" circles, and therefore fewer "X" and/or "P" circles. This means that the shooting order you choose for your five players does have some importance.)

 

Now let's imagine we're right in the middle of the 1980-81 season and two hockey-loving kids are setting up a game. We'll call one kid Tim (a.k.a. Timmy), and the other kid Steve (a.k.a. Stevie). Picture them sitting on the floor facing each other, shoe boxes filled with hockey cards and scratch-offs at the ready.

 

After downing some Hi-C juice boxes, they're ready to get down to business:

 

Timmy was recently rewarded with a few packs of 1980-81 Topps Hockey Scratch-Offs for a good report card, and with those packs he's put together his starting five as follows: 

 

 

 

His shooting order will be: Simmer, Potvin, Propp, Bourque, Trottier

 

Sitting across the floor we have Stevie, who's been shoveling snow for his neighbors this winter, and has used a good portion of that shoveling money on trading cards and scratch-offs. One look at Timmy's lineup, and Stevie felt he needed to bring out a couple of big guns of his own. Here's his group of five: 

 

And his shooting order: McDonald, Salming, Howe, Gretzky, Gartner

 

With the teams ready, both kids grab their quarters for scratching. Can you feel the tension?!?

 

Let's start the game. 

 

(Note: I simulated the "scratching off" by putting a player's 24 outcomes in a randomizer, randomizing them five times, and then choosing the outcome that landed in the first spot. Then I removed that selected outcome before the player's next turn, so it couldn't be repeated.) 

PERIOD 1
Team	Player	Result
Timmy	Simmer	Penalty
Stevie	McDonald	Goal
Timmy	Potvin	Misses turn (Simmer penalty)
Stevie	Salming	Penalty
Timmy	Propp	Penalty
Stevie	Howe	Misses turn (Salming penalty)
Timmy	Bourque	Misses turn (Propp penalty)
Stevie	Gretzky	Goal
Timmy	Trottier	Goal
Stevie	Gartner	Miss

What a chippy start—three penalties in the period, including the very first attempt of the game! Bryan Trottier finally got Timmy’s team on the board with their last shot of the period, but Stevie has the early lead, 2­–1. 

PERIOD 2
Team	Player	Result
Timmy	Simmer	Goal
Stevie	McDonald	Goal
Timmy	Potvin	Miss
Stevie	Salming	Miss
Timmy	Propp	Goal
Stevie	Howe	Goal
Timmy	Bourque	Goal
Stevie	Gretzky	Miss
Timmy	Trottier	Miss
Stevie	Gartner	Penalty

Things settled down in the second period, with a couple of goals right from the start. Timmy’s team got back in it with Simmer, Propp, and Bourque all lighting the lamp. Surprisingly, clutch players Gretzky and Trottier both missed their attempts. And so the score is now tied, 4–4! 

Remember, Mike Gartner’s penalty with the last attempt means that the first shooter on his team will miss his turn in the third period. Will it come back to bite Stevie?

 

PERIOD 3
Team	Player	Result
Timmy	Simmer	Goal
Stevie	McDonald	Misses turn (Gartner penalty, period 2)
Timmy	Potvin	Goal
Stevie	Salming	Miss
Timmy	Propp	Goal
Stevie	Howe	Miss
Timmy	Bourque	Miss
Stevie	Gretzky	Goal
Timmy	Trottier	Miss
Stevie	Gartner	Goal

What a finish! Timmy’s first three players scored on their shots, and although Gretzky and Gartner both scored to finish for Stevie’s team, it just wasn’t enough. Team Timmy wins, 7–6!

Mike Gartner might be in the doghouse for a day or two.

 

 

 

And just for fun, here's the Gretzky panel after the game, showing the scratched-off circles. (Stevie is definitely keeping this card for another game.)
 

Well, that was even a little more fun than I thought it would be. Hope you all enjoyed the post.

Now who wants next game?