Remembering The Junk Wax Era: 1986 Topps Baseball on the 40th Anniversary
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The Hobby has changed a lot in the past 40 years. In 1986 there were no "1 of 1" cards, no refractors, no auto inserts, and no slabs. Still, that's not to say there weren't at least some similarities. Rookie cards, for example, were as hot then as they are today, and the price tag on an unproven but "can't miss" prospect was definitely higher than a veteran with a surefire path to Cooperstown. For a lot of reasons, one being the dreaded Junk Wax label and another being that Donruss had the year's hottest card, the 1986 Topps Baseball set is an afterthought to collectors today. Still, to paraphrase Glen Powell in Hit Man, any baseball cards are good baseball cards.
Hottest Rookies Then and Now
At the time, the hottest rookie card by far was St. Louis Cardinals speedster and 1985 National League Rookie of the Year, thanks to his 110 swipes the year before. That Coleman already had a card in the 1985 Topps Traded set meant little. While most collectors at the time considered the Traded card his rookie card, they also considered the 1986 Topps card his rookie card. It would be several more years before the Hobby made serious distinctions between rookie cards and what are now called "extended rookie cards."
Fast forward to today, and the Coleman card is as likely to be found in a card show dime box as it is a dollar bin. And if it does turn up in the dollar bin, good chance the sticker says "50% off." As for which rookie cards from the set have passed Coleman in the time since, there was a brief stretch where Cecil Fielder cards were hot, but otherwise the year's entire crop more or less ended up fizzling. If pressed, collectors today might, largely by default, cite Lenny Dykstra as the set's top rookie. And no, that wasn't a joke.
Sophomore Sensations
Then, more than now, a second-year or even third-year card of a young superstar was a big deal. Granted, the value of these later cards paled in comparison to that of the rookie card, but these cards were still considered "hits." In the 1986 Topps set, this meant super sophs Doc Gooden, Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett, and Eric Davis, not to mention third-year phenoms Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry. Not that anyone would trade you a Vince Coleman for these cards, but still, they were serious pulls back in the day.
Super Vets
The mid-1980s were practically overflowing with aging veterans on their way to Cooperstown. George Brett, Mike Schmidt, and Tom Seaver were just a few of the examples of first-ballot inductees with late-career cards in the 1986 Topps set. Still, collector interest was strongest around two in particular, Nolan Ryan and Pete Rose. Again, you weren't getting a Coleman for either one, but these cards were going straight into top loaders, if not Lucite. Needless to say, one of the two cards has since been demoted to raw or at best penny sleeve status.
The Calm Before the Storm
While Vince, Doc, Nolan, and Charlie Hustle were enough to make 1986 Topps pack a must-buy from the day they hit shelves, the true collector-investors of the Hobby were redirecting their baseball card budgets toward Donruss, at least if they could find any. After all, Donruss had something Topps did not: a Jose Canseco rookie card. While Topps whiffed on the A's slugger in its flagship product, there was no way Topps was missing out on the Jose hype in its Traded set.
In fact, the 1986 Topps Traded set is practically legendary for the star power it brought to the table. Besides Canseco, the checklist included Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Will Clark, Wally Joyner, and Bo Jackson! That none would make the Hall would have been news to anyone buying back in 1986. In fact, the only Hall of Famers in the set were Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Ted Simmons, Dick Williams, and a Jimmy Leyland card with an impossibly tall headwear.
Buy, Sell, or Hold?
While collectors at the time imagined strong returns on these cards, the truth is a box today wouldn't run you much more than it would have 40 years ago. In other words, virtually ANYTHING would have been a better investment than 1986 Topps Baseball. (Just two simple examples from the sports card world are 1986 Topps Football and 1986 Fleer Basketball.) Similarly, buying these cards today doesn't seem to offer any real financial upside. And as for selling, unless $3 for your carefully collated 792-card set sounds enticing, there ain't really much reason to sell. In the end, this is a set to hold, not for any financial reason but simply so it's there when you want to flip through it and remember a great decade of baseball and a set that was a blast to collect at the time. You can't cash checks on sentimental value, but it sure comes in handy in all other ways.
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.