1989 Topps Wax Pack: Looks good, to bad it's worthless

THE BASEBALL CARD SNOB
An occasional look at the overproduced, sub-standard junk
we collected in the 1980s and 90s

I recently bought a few packs of 20-year-old wax packs at my local baseball card shop. They were dumped in a bin near the front of the store with a sign that read 75 cents each or five for $3.

So being the risk taker, I took out three bucks and walked away with packs of 1989 Topps, Bowman and Donruss as well as packs of 1990 Score and 1991 O-Pee-Chee Baseball Premier.

My plan is to reveal the contents over the next few weeks. Will I be disappointed? You know I will.

Here’s what I pulled:

1989 Topps







38 Paul Runge
63 Mark Clear
103 Tim Birtsas
159 Pat Clements
197 Neal Heaton
245 Jim Rice
277 Mike Davis
354 Larry Parrish
377 Mike Smithson
407 1988 AL Leaders (Winfield)
603 Frank Tanana
642 Argenis Salazar
681 Jeff Robinson
757 Brady Anderson
781 Greg Briley
(1) Broken piece of gum
(1) Advertising card giving me a chance to win a trip to my choice of 1990 spring training camps
(1) Wax wrapper

Players: B+ (A Hall of Famer, a soon-to-be Hall of Famer, and a Brady Anderson Rookie)
Design: B (Simple is always good)
Quality: D (Lots of smudges, poor quality overall)
Overall grade: C (Nice looking, bad quality)