Five Impossible Baseball Cards of the Junk Wax Era
In previous articles we looked at the Impossible Baseball Cards of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this article, we look at the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period in the Hobby disparagingly dubbed the "Junk Wax Era" for its overproduction and largely worthless card collections. Still, while those Gregg Jefferies rookie cards you stashed away in Lucite holders are today most valuable as paperweights, that doesn't mean every card from the era was a bust.
1987 Topps Ricky Wright (SIGNED)
Ricky Wright won a total of three games over five seasons with the Dodgers and Rangers. Even granted that today's Baseball's intelligentsia thumb their noses at pitching wins when evaluating Hall of Fame credentials, it's safe to say that Wright's only real chance at the Cooperstown plaque gallery involves standing in line and buying a ticket like the rest of us.
RELATED: Even More Impossible Baseball Cards of the 1980s
Still, you might just pay more for his signed 1987 Topps card than you would a Mickey Mantle autographed baseball. For whatever reason, Wright, who doesn't sign much anyway, is not a fan of signing this card. That's bad news for collectors as the 1987 Topps set, popular for its faux wood grain finish, is probably the single most collected signed set of the Junk Wax Era. Find this card in your shoebox and (if real) you're looking at a grand, easy. And Lord only knows what a signed Tiffany would go for!
1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy ERR
RELATED: Sorry, Upper Deck. That Griffey Ain't His Rookie Card!
The 1989 Upper Deck baseball set is practically synonymous with Ken Griffey, Jr., who famously leads off the set's checklist. And while Junior's cardboard has bucked the trend of most cards from the era, it is hardly the priciest card from the set. That honor instead belongs to Braves legend Dale Murphy, but there's a pretty big "if" to go with that statement.
If the tomahawk on your Murph card points right, then bad news. It would be overpriced even in a card show dollar box. However, if that tomahawk points left, you may just have something. The Dale Murphy "reversed image" error, which was corrected very quickly, remains a highly collectible (and valuable!) card, owing both to its relative scarcity and the immense popularity Dale Murphy still (rightly) commands today.
1990 Topps George H.W. Bush
My colleague Clemente Lisi wrote about this card last October, and you can read his full article here. The short version is that the card was produced in extremely short supply and largely landed in the collections of Beltway VIPs.
1990 Topps Frank Thomas NNOF
𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊: 2025 Topps Series One will feature “No Name” variations, paying homage to the famous 1990 Frank Thomas No Name rookie card.
— Topps (@Topps) February 8, 2025
There are “No Name” cards for all 100 subjects, and each card is limited to exactly 35 copies. pic.twitter.com/INodohdrbi
What happens when the most sought after Topps rookie card of the year also has a nearly impossible variant? Well, that's exactly what happened in 1990 when a very small number of Big Hurt rookie cards suffered a snafu in the printing process that resulted in the card's nameplate ending up blank.
Just how tough is the 1990 Frank Thomas "No Name on Front" variation? Let's just say you could probably trade it in high grade for a signed 1987 Topps Ricky Wright! So yeah, this is an absolutely elite piece of cardboard.
1990 Upper Deck "Baseball Heroes" Reggie Jackson
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While the 1989 Upper Deck set was absolutely revolutionary in the Hobby, it was the 1990 follow-up offering that introduced autographed chase cards to the Hobby. Though 2500 sounds like a lot in today's era of ultra-rare "one of ones," these signed Reggie inserts were regarded as impossibly rare back in 1990. After all, keep in mind that Upper Deck produced a billion gazillion trillion cards that year, meaning the chance of a signed Reggie in any particular pack was approximately 0.000000000000000000000000004 and change.
The result is that even today, you're likely looking at $400 to $1000 to take home a signed insert of Mr. October. Of course, that's if you're not particularly picky about which one you want. Imagine instead that you're shopping for premium serial numbering such as 44/2500 or 2500/2500. Well, now you're really talking impossible. (And I may even mean this literally, considering there remain countless cases of 1990 Upper Deck that haven't even been opened yet!) That said, I suppose Reggie himself could play quite a prank on the rest of us if he still has that blue Sharpie and doesn't mind laying out a few bucks for a stack of cheap base cards. 😉
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.