1986 Topps Baseball. A tale of two cases and...
downgoesfrazier
Posts: 1,515 ✭✭
Recently there have been a couple of threads here regarding this plentiful issue. I stated they're "not THAT tough" and was willing to prove it. I have decided to crawl into the belly of this beast and see what I come up with. I was in search of an oipinion, really and perhaps an opportunity to make some money with little investment. I started with a vending box. I have had four vending boxes with the lids closed for over a decade. When my family moved I remember handling those like china--pretty funny when you think about it, but I'm a condition freak. Cards are art to me. Anyway, the first vending box yielded a couple of real nice cards including a Brett that is outstanding. I thought "there's nothing wrong with '86 vending". Then I opened another box and found precious nothing inside. Ditto with the others...
I moved from there into a 6-box rack case. The cards were generally soft and mushy and extra stock abounds! When you get extra paper on the black you're cooked for reasons I can't get into. The black portion of the card can range from smoky-gray to jet black with the latter being the equivalent to the loch-ness monster. I was overall very disappointed with the cards from the rack case.
I moved from there to three 5000 count boxes that I opened from wax in 1986-1987...OUCH! The sensitive black border was only the tip of the ice-berg with those. Light storage touches hurt what was already a virtual sea of EX+ cards--keep in mind they have NEVER been handled. In college my girlfriend and I played "poker" with them coming out of packs and put them directly back in the wax box and then I inserted them neatly and gently into the monster boxes. My opinion would be that you can expect very few MINT cards coming from wax from 1986--some--but very, very few.
This past week I decided to open another 6-box rack case. The first box was scary, again. Soft mushy cards with no eye appeal. Generally I like the boxes in the middle of the cases as the cards are real tight and flat. So I cherry picked a box with "All-Star" cards that were somewhat unique (each '86 rack has a different glossy all-star card). My luck changed immediately. I have pulled nearly 100 truly MINT cards and learned that some '86's come with a tiffany-like finish with jet, jet black top borders. The second rack case is CLEAN and sharp. These cards now have me hooked. They are absolutely beautiful. Someone on here suggested that these looked "vintagey" and I absolutely agree. The aqua, goldenrod, and blood-red color-tones contrast nicely and the photography mixes classic head-shots (with smiles!) with fantastic action shots of many hitters and especially catchers...I love those. Print residue and fish-eyes as well as soft color-strikes abound so you have to break enough product to learn what these are capable of and stop at nothing to achieve it as the visual reward is fantastic. There is a fine player selection complete with aging HOF'ers and young talented superstars who would crash and burn.
I am now into my third 6-box rack case and my goal has changed. I am now building the set in high-end MINT condition. Each card will have NO print problems as the photos/images are fantastic when they are clean and focused. Centering will be better than 60/40 both ways and no corner wear will be allowed. I will tolerate extra stock as these cards simply come that way when they haven't been trimmed. There are exceptions, but extra stock is the rule here. I doubt whether these will ever see a grading room at even $5 a pop, however. I certainly know a mint card and will put that money into more cases and assemble some pure eye-candy. I sent Gator some scans of the good case and Mike Castaldi--who also broke a 6-box case--got a sneak preview and enjoyed it. His comment was "I didn't see anything that looked like these in my case." Mike has a very good eye as well and he even donated a fabulous Gooden to my set to help me get started. He's great that way, but I digress...
In closing, like many issues, when it's perfect as it was intended the 1986 Topps set is absolutely visually stunning. It is a clean, uncluttered card design with bold colors and thoughtful photography. The stock is thin and soft making it difficult to obtain high-grade copies and providing a necessary challenge to collectors. Because of the thin stock, the climate in which the cases are stored becomes a real factor. The stock will buckle or curl if the temp isn't right or too much/little moisture gets in. Are they tough? Somewhat. They can be had in PSA MINT 9 or better, but to get them REALLY nice is another matter. I will discard handfuls of MINT 9's to arrive at my set card for this project. The price for a 6-box is today between 90-100 bucks generally. This allows for being very discriminate. I have done this with my '77 set also, but it's WAY more expensive with that set. No comparison. That is why I have, for now, chosen not to grade these.
If the added value PSA can provide to these someday pencils I will grade them as a set, until then I am really going to enjoy another "side-project", like I did 82 Football and 81 Donruss.
1986 Topps Baseball...don't be afraid of the dark...
dgf
...no apologies for the long post. If you read it all I hope you feel more in tune with 86's than you did before.
I moved from there into a 6-box rack case. The cards were generally soft and mushy and extra stock abounds! When you get extra paper on the black you're cooked for reasons I can't get into. The black portion of the card can range from smoky-gray to jet black with the latter being the equivalent to the loch-ness monster. I was overall very disappointed with the cards from the rack case.
I moved from there to three 5000 count boxes that I opened from wax in 1986-1987...OUCH! The sensitive black border was only the tip of the ice-berg with those. Light storage touches hurt what was already a virtual sea of EX+ cards--keep in mind they have NEVER been handled. In college my girlfriend and I played "poker" with them coming out of packs and put them directly back in the wax box and then I inserted them neatly and gently into the monster boxes. My opinion would be that you can expect very few MINT cards coming from wax from 1986--some--but very, very few.
This past week I decided to open another 6-box rack case. The first box was scary, again. Soft mushy cards with no eye appeal. Generally I like the boxes in the middle of the cases as the cards are real tight and flat. So I cherry picked a box with "All-Star" cards that were somewhat unique (each '86 rack has a different glossy all-star card). My luck changed immediately. I have pulled nearly 100 truly MINT cards and learned that some '86's come with a tiffany-like finish with jet, jet black top borders. The second rack case is CLEAN and sharp. These cards now have me hooked. They are absolutely beautiful. Someone on here suggested that these looked "vintagey" and I absolutely agree. The aqua, goldenrod, and blood-red color-tones contrast nicely and the photography mixes classic head-shots (with smiles!) with fantastic action shots of many hitters and especially catchers...I love those. Print residue and fish-eyes as well as soft color-strikes abound so you have to break enough product to learn what these are capable of and stop at nothing to achieve it as the visual reward is fantastic. There is a fine player selection complete with aging HOF'ers and young talented superstars who would crash and burn.
I am now into my third 6-box rack case and my goal has changed. I am now building the set in high-end MINT condition. Each card will have NO print problems as the photos/images are fantastic when they are clean and focused. Centering will be better than 60/40 both ways and no corner wear will be allowed. I will tolerate extra stock as these cards simply come that way when they haven't been trimmed. There are exceptions, but extra stock is the rule here. I doubt whether these will ever see a grading room at even $5 a pop, however. I certainly know a mint card and will put that money into more cases and assemble some pure eye-candy. I sent Gator some scans of the good case and Mike Castaldi--who also broke a 6-box case--got a sneak preview and enjoyed it. His comment was "I didn't see anything that looked like these in my case." Mike has a very good eye as well and he even donated a fabulous Gooden to my set to help me get started. He's great that way, but I digress...
In closing, like many issues, when it's perfect as it was intended the 1986 Topps set is absolutely visually stunning. It is a clean, uncluttered card design with bold colors and thoughtful photography. The stock is thin and soft making it difficult to obtain high-grade copies and providing a necessary challenge to collectors. Because of the thin stock, the climate in which the cases are stored becomes a real factor. The stock will buckle or curl if the temp isn't right or too much/little moisture gets in. Are they tough? Somewhat. They can be had in PSA MINT 9 or better, but to get them REALLY nice is another matter. I will discard handfuls of MINT 9's to arrive at my set card for this project. The price for a 6-box is today between 90-100 bucks generally. This allows for being very discriminate. I have done this with my '77 set also, but it's WAY more expensive with that set. No comparison. That is why I have, for now, chosen not to grade these.
If the added value PSA can provide to these someday pencils I will grade them as a set, until then I am really going to enjoy another "side-project", like I did 82 Football and 81 Donruss.
1986 Topps Baseball...don't be afraid of the dark...
dgf
...no apologies for the long post. If you read it all I hope you feel more in tune with 86's than you did before.
0
Comments
For the heck of it I looked at my 86's...trash, trash, trash.
2005 Origins Old Judge Brown #/20 and Black 1/1s, 2000 Ultimate Victory Gold #/25
2004 UD Legends Bake McBride autos & parallels, and 1974 Topps #601 PSA 9
Rare Grady Sizemore parallels, printing plates, autographs
Nothing on ebay
Jim
If you get any nice Trammells or Nelson Simmons (another Tiger) please let me know.
Jim
Who said anything inferred or otherwise about a comparison to 1971??? I did pull a 10 candidate of Trammell (one of a pretty small list of such legitimate candidates)--no Simmons yet.
For the record, while there is obviously more product--seemingly limitless--available, that does not equate to quality. Further, I suspect that if there were equal amounts of '71 product, those would be comparatively easier. I have a handful of 9's from that year as well as oodles of 8's and have found the stock quality clearly superior. '86 is, indeed, a lot like other issues as you stated. However, it is more difficult than most due to inherent flaws in production, fairly poor quality control, and difficulties that stem from the actual card design that are obvious. Not '71, of course, but no one said they were. Apples and oranges. I do feel that locating NM/MTs from '71 would be a fair comparison to '86s in MINT condition, however.
dgf
To me, there is an obvious bias against modern sets. "Overproduced crap, easy to get high grades, not worth the grading fees" Many of these comments are made through conjecture, rather than actually doing what dgf did. But some cases, break them down and see for yourself what the truth is. For 86 Topps baseball, the truth can be eye-opening
<< <i>dgf- Excellent post. You hit all the key points. I'd be interested in many of your 9's (stars, semi-stars etc.). LMK when you get them in.
To me, there is an obvious bias against modern sets. "Overproduced crap, easy to get high grades, not worth the grading fees" Many of these comments are made through conjecture, rather than actually doing what dgf did. But some cases, break them down and see for yourself what the truth is. For 86 Topps baseball, the truth can be eye-opening
For the record, while there is obviously more product--seemingly limitless--available, that does not equate to quality.
Great post and great points.
My Auctions
Robert
I have gotten several "Factory" sets which are factory sealed with a piece of cello tape, so no real absolute positively untouched condition. There are paper stock issues quite similar to those mentioned by DGF, and I have had one set which was about 80 percent miscut or very badly off-center.
The traded set is only 132 cards in size, features my hero Jose Canseco, so is more manageable than the 792 card regular issue monster. The possibility of a nice Bonds card does drive the price up somewhat more than deserved. I believe that in 86 Topps first offered "factory" sets for the larger regular set in addition to the racks, wax boxes, vending, Etc. Perhaps these factory sets might give better results in quality. I assume they might be shrink-wrapped rather than use a piece of Scotch tape to insure their untouched status.
The 86 Traded set is on better quality white stock than the regular set that produced richer color (especially in the black border). From my experience, high grades are much easier to obtain. Overall though, still not the easiest modern release. Good luck!
Did you see the new Ryan 10's up in last couple of days? Little too rich for my blood, but those are amazing cards!!
1979 Topps
1974 Topps
Also did you notice that 4 sharp has relisted that 84 Purina for the 4th time??? I wonder what it would get if they would just list it with a reasonable opening bid- prolly around 60-70.
Joe
In 1981 the new era of many major sets began, 3 regular and one traded/update set. A great amount of errors/variations for 1981 became widely known, much more than earlier years.
By 1986 a single company, Topps, had now a regular set, a traded/update set, a glossy/tiffany regular set, a traded glossy/tiffany set, an oversize super set, a send-in glossy set, a set made from boxes, a 3-D set, and first began issuing "factory" sets to card shops and distributors directly.
Quite a selection from just one of several companies and a few years before "high quality" sets, inserts, game used/worn items, refractors, serial numbered, and the like. The internet and graded cards among other era-changing concepts, were also yet to come.
In 1951 Topps made its first baseball cards, through 1980 there was a very consistent manner in which cards were made available. The corner candy/drugstore's demise in being a primary outlet for collectors. Some Bowman, some Fleer, some minor brands, but nothing to compare to the abundance started in 1981. I do feel that the 30 year period of 51-80 was the end of "vintage" card collecting.
the bbc kid had cases of this last week and if i am not mistaken was selling them for 225? in 1986 wholesale was 160-180
Whitey
Sparky
dgf
I'm just about satisfied with the images on these but there's a micro-chip on the Whitey upper left and extra stock on Sparky--same deal.
I still think grading costs will have to come down a bit ($3 grading special anyone?) before massive submissions of mid-to-late 1980s material start coming in ...
Robert
Interesting observations about this set. That was an interesting year of collecting for me and as a big Rose fan it is a great set because of the numerous Rose cards (#1 card in set, 6 specials, Manager, and RB card) However I was never a big fan of the set as a whole. In my eyes 86 was when the card collecting world started to become what it is today, which is a lot of crap with little substance (I think Sportsflics pushed me over the edge.) However your post got me to go look at these and reflect more, and I do like several of these cards including the #1 Rose. I think this board is creating it's own short termed frenzy about this set, but I admire your desire to put together such a high level set none the less. Thanks for the nice read.
Luke
54 Red Hearts
and now 64 Stand ups
ON ITS WAY TO NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92658
can i ask you a favor...do you have any nm-mt OK condition checklists???? i marked on all of mine in 86!!! It was my first set to collect...if u could spare (what i believe is 7 checlists)....id be abliged
Loth
With 90,000 cards a months graded by 13 employees, that's about 40 cards/grader/hour. I would suspect that under 20X, most cards look pretty much the same - rectangular pieces of cardboard in varying stages of misuse. I doubt they sit at the water cooler and ruminate over the merits of grading 1986 Topps vs 1957. And I doubt that they bemoan their fate of having to do an invoice of 1,000 - heck, 10,000 - cards from the same member.
Or, maybe they are doing that ! Which is why our orders aren't getting logged in for three-four weeks!
Nick
Private email me with your offer to: jeej67@hotmail.com.
If you buy all six I will throw in the freight!
Check out my ebay auctions listed under seller ID: jeej
Unique Chicago Cards
Wrestling Cards
...get in line.
dgf
dgf