Too Much of a Good Thing
In 1987, the card collecting Hobby was booming, and the seemingly unattainable main attractions were the cards that were 30-35 years old at the time — the early Topps cards. Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, they all sat gloriously in glass boxes with staggering price tags attached.
That was 38 years ago, and for Gen X, it was the wood-grained 1987 Topps baseball wax packs that brought many of us, repeatedly, to the corner store. The stick of gum was still included. It was the end of the age of analog, though very few people knew it at the time.
For savvy collectors, it quickly became apparent that, as high as demand was, the supply of cards was overwhelming. It was an “oversaturated” market. Stories appeared in national newspapers and magazines suggesting that collectors might invest in 100-lot counts of standout rookies and reap a reward just a few years later. Some went so far as to refer to it as the “Junk Wax” era.
The Commodification of Nostalgia
If the 1987 Topps baseball set stands as a classic example of the economic principles of supply and demand, and of devaluation, it is no less appealing in sentimental terms. What the classic 1956 cards were to the Baby Boomer generation, the 1987 set will forever be to Gen X.
Seeing the remarkable wood-grain frame design, adults who haven’t collected cards for decades can be transported to childhood. Whether they received a box of wax packs for Christmas or biked with Dad to a convenience store to pick out a winning pack, memory, it turns out, is not devalued by overproduction.
The set includes a few standout rookies, including Bo Jackson, Rafael Palmeiro, and Will Clark. Aside from the light wood grain border, the card design features a team logo, the Topps brand logo, and the player’s name in a memorable stretched-out bold font called Dom Casual.
Card backs were printed in blue and yellow and included a full panel of career statistics. The full 792-card set includes All-Star cards, “Record Breaker” cards, team leaders, and manager cards — including one for Pete Rose. Most interestingly, cards 311-315 constituted a short “Turn Back the Clock” series, featuring old Topps cards for Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Roberto Clemente, Carl Yastrzemski, and Maury Wills.
Memorable Features of the 1987 Topps Set
The full 792-card base set meant that many of the cards were “commons,” or players whose cards were presumed to have little value. But collecting a team set — which typically consisted of around 30 cards — made for a memorable project. Checklist cards were included to help collectors.
The photography featured on the 1987 set is a mixed bag, with portraits, poses, and plenty of action shots. The MLB was packed with talent in the 1980s, and many of the players who were All-Stars at the time are now Hall of Famers. Stars like Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds, George Brett, and Roger Clemens anchor the set.
Perhaps adult hobbyists who had witnessed the rise in card values since the 1950s knew what was going on with the overproduction of cards in the late 1980s, but to children growing up in the decade, the luster still seemed plausible. It was a way to know the sport better, and to learn something about each of the players.
The Process of Authenticity
As the smashing success of Back to the Future made clear, the ’80s were a nostalgic time. The wood-grain design of the 1987s cards, reminiscent of the 1962 Topps cards, certainly participated in that nostalgic impulse. In 2025, when 1987 is closer to 1955 than it is to the present, the “faux” nature of the wood grain may seem corny and contrived. Still, as almost 40 years have passed since the set was issued, the advantage of hindsight makes it seem interesting, even pivotal.
The well-known 1935 essay by Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” makes the case that mass reproduction strips the “aura” out of any potential art-object and nullifies its authenticity. In a certain light, the 1987 Topps set embodies this problem. Nevertheless, Benjamin himself adds a suggestive endnote: “At the time of its origin a medieval picture of the Madonna could not yet be said to be ‘authentic.’ It became ‘authentic’ only during the succeeding centuries and perhaps most strikingly so during the last one.”
Perhaps. Perhaps as decades pass, as surpluses dry up, the financial value of the 1987 cards will gradually increase. But perhaps there are other ways to think about value, and perhaps authenticity is a process — one that is not entirely objective. Those who keep a set of ’87 Topps may keep it because they remember when it was new, and because it was a part of their childhood. And perhaps that is value enough.
