I Bought a Junk Wax NIGHTMARE!

I bought a junk wax nightmare. [music] [music] It was a dark and stormy night. No, but actually it was a dark and stormy night. I had been following a collection for sale for almost a year. It started life at $2,000. After many months, it came down to 600. But the photos, oh, the photos, tote after tote of junk wax cards. But in one of the photos, there was a picture of vintage football cards from 1974 Tops. Feeling more confident in my football chops after the last collection purchase, I figured if those cards are there, then it can't be all bad, right? I have railed against the cards in totes for idiotic money listings and even made a video condensing my thoughts on the matter into a public service announcement for sellers. But that cards in totes listing had been up for a year. Maybe they would listen to reason. So I messaged the guy and set up a time to go see it. It was a dark and stormy night. But seriously, it was actually a dark and stormy night. Due to my work schedule, I couldn't get to his place until after 8:30, and the winds were whipping, and it was beginning to rain with epic spring thunderstorms on the horizon. When I pulled up to his house, his garage was open, and there was no less than seven Rubbermaid totes of cards. I didn't get any pics of the transaction because the thunderstorm was bearing down on us. I needed to move quickly. So, with great haste, I tore into the totes and was met with the worstcase scenario. It was chaos. No organization at all. Just cards, albums, and boxes thrown in the totes. The boxes were deteriorated. The cards were covered in must and mildew. The albums were bricked from the old PVC style pages. Lots of cards just strewn about in bags and shoe boxes, and I couldn't find the vintage football cards, and the rain was picking up. So, I explained to the nice gentleman who I was and what I did, and I gave him the good news and the bad news. The good news was that I did see a few hints of possibility in his cards. The bad news was that most of it would have to be thrown away. I let him know I had the expertise to save what was savable. I offered 60 bucks for the things I was able to identify that had value, like a 2000 Bowman set, a box of 1981 Tops Commons, and what looked like a complete or near complete 1986 top set. I offered him $40 for the rest again, most of which I expected to have to throw away. $100 cash. He shook my hand, ready to be done with the heavy totes, which he was tired of moving around and taking up space in his garage. Like a tweaker on payday, I threw the totes in my car as fast as I could as the rain began to pour down. Every square inch of my car was full of cards that rire of mildew and years of neglect. Off I drove, wondering if I just made the biggest mistake in my card collecting career. The next day, I dug into the totes with a hint of trepidation. I had to start somewhere, so I started with the unopened wax. Mid90s Upper Deck Collector's Choice. I turned it over and >> Oh my god. I am never gonna financially recover from this. >> What? What happened here? These sealed boxes had been wet and somewhere along the way rotted from the inside out with mold. I removed some of the packs which were absolutely roached. I opened them and found the cards were okay. Actually, in fact, one of the very first cards I saw was a 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Derek Jeter rookie. Huh, that's a solid dollar card right there. Not all WAS LOST. >> HIS EYES UNCOVERED. >> I've been known to rescue collections before, and this was now a straightup rescue mission. If there were cards to be saved in this mess, I was going to save them. The Fleer Ultra Box was next, and same mold. Woof! The Pinnacles, too. Moving on, I opened the first binder out of the first tote, only to find Jordans. Huh? Now, before you jump out of your seat, know that these pages were melted to each other. The cards were warped and locked into the pockets. They would need to be excised. With an X-acto knife, I carefully cut the PVC and removed each card. Most eventually came out okay, but I did have to throw away a bunch, too. You can see here that some still had warping, so I used an old trick I picked up a long time ago. I use a mister with 80% isopropyl alcohol and 20% distilled water. I pump one spray between two old floor tiles, something nonabsorbent, and I put the cards between the two tiles for a few hours. Just that tiny little bit of humidity and light pressure tends to relax the cards back to flat. One by one, I got the Jordans looking respectable again. This unlicensed card was unknown to me, but looked pretty cool. There was another Jordan hanging on by his chinny chin chin on this plaque. I was able to pry the card out of the holder and into the bin the plaque went along with the moldy wax boxes. So far I had more garbage than cards. Digging through, I was able to find the binder of vintage football, and indeed there were 34 cards from 1974 Tops, including Mean Joe Green. They were low grade, but had some value. This plus the Jordans I was able to rescue relaxed my anxiety a bit. The same album with the vintage football also had a few random vintage baseball cards in it too, including an offcenter but otherwise nicel lookinging 78 Tops Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton and Jim Cot. A 79 Raleigh Fingers and a 73 Catfish Hunter and a Dale Murphy rookie and a Jack Morris rookie. An 81 bench. I exhaled. The dollar cards were already adding up. Maybe I didn't throw a $100 down the junk wax toilet. But to give you an idea of what I was working with, here's a chunk of pages from the same album. All the pages were like this, bricked together by PVC pages roasted in a hot attic or a hot garage. So, there were some cool cards to be had, but this was going to be slowgoing, and I had to be precise on what was and what was not worth my time to rescue. With so many cards locked in petroleum prism, I wouldn't be able to save them all. moving through the bins and taking out random things. I kept bumping into stuff like pages full of Don Russ Griffy rookies. Lowgrade, but more dollar cards. Continuing the tear down, I ran into more Jordans, just loose in the totes. After about an hour, I had a rough sorting done and all of the components out of the totes. There was this nightmare and this nightmare. But worst of all, this nightmare. 25gallon Ziploc bags full of loose cards. All sports, all years, all brands, all junk wax. I did this to myself. I went to sleep that night with an uneasiness, not sure how to tackle the next step. Well, I woke up the next morning with a plan devised in some distant dream. After a coffee, I got to work. My plan was first to separate everything into sports. Basketball first. Every piece of basketball stuff I could find got spread out on the dining table for organization and cataloging. There were more bricked pages to deal with, but I was able to make slow progress. I found a shack flashback rookie, a complete set of 199394 National Championship Arkansas Razerback cards, some dream team cards from '92, and other stuff. A few cups of coffee later and I had a mess of trash on the floor and a sorted basketball lot, or at least the beginnings of one. There were some good cards there. I was able to salvage. Some Playing Days cards from Michael Jordan, some Magic Johnson, worth the time and the trouble. The next destroyed box I opened had football cards in it. And I wasn't ready to switch sports yet, so I set it aside and went ahead into the Badlands. Just look at this album. It creaked like Mike Schmidt's knees at the opening of the 1989 season. It was full of mildew and bricked pages, but also 1990 hoops cards worth saving. I got out the X-Acto knife and tore in. I saved this DMBBE Mumbbo prospect card and a few more choice Hoops cards. The basketball portion of this collection was starting to look like something I could resell. I went through another disheveled box and then this mess, mostly 1990 fleer, but the edges you can see are all stained with years of neglect. So, I was sorting the cards in the shoe box when in the middle of hundreds of sticky 1990 basketball cards was a Tony Gwyn rookie. Huh? What? How? Why? But most importantly, huh? It wasn't in the best of shape. Each corner had a ding, and the edges were a little worse for wear after banging around a shoe box full of basketball cards for 35 years. But it was another sign of spring in this bleak midwinter of junk wax weariness. Another Jordan popped out of the shoe box to round out the basketball stuff. Thinking I was done with the basketball, I started to round up the football stuff. Starting with the 1974 Topps cards and Mean Joe Green. Some of the pages weren't bricked, which made easy work of removing the cards and sorting them into years and sets. This was a good start. And look what I found. Some vintage, some Montana. No rookies this time, but Montana's nonetheless. O Jackson, Jerry Rice, and a Michael Strahan rookie. The vintage cards were in good condition. A few were VG. With the basketball and football pretty well squared away, it was time to face the junk wax music and attack the baseball cards. And the first thing to do was to go through all of the Ziploc bags to see what was there. I had already found Jordan cards where I didn't expect them and a Tony Gwyn rookie in a completely random place, so I knew I couldn't trust a single box to be completely junk. I had to go through every card. So, I got to work. It was mostly the junkiest of junky whacks. I'd think about just throwing it all away and then boom, a Billy Wagner rookie. I'd get frustrated and then boom, a Pedro rookie. And in the middle of a Ziploc bag full of 89 genres, boom, another Jordan. Trust nothing. Trust no one. There were 24 of these Ziploc bags. Each a little bit like Christmas and a little bit like tax day. There were some early days repacks full of absolutely no value. The Akunia on the front was the only card worth more than a penny. Some things never change. I found an 86 Don Ross Cono rookie from the rookie set. Beat to hell, but worth saving. And in the same bag as the Cono, boom, another Jordan. Trust nothing. Trust no one. And then another Jordan. Things got weird when I ran into Garbage Pale Kids and the awesome Allstars cards from 1988 Leaf. I mentioned these cards in my last Halloween episode, and here they are. They do indeed exist. After another morning of sorting, things were getting out of control. This wasn't even close to all of it, but I was starting to get an idea of what I wanted to do with it all. There must be a few complete sets here. So, I'll complete what sets make sense to complete. I've got a pile working on singles I'd like to keep. I'm preparing a lot of basketball cards and football cards to sell along to help recoup some of the $100 I spent on the collection. And I was still digging for treasure. This was about all the football stuff, about 2,000 cards total. Some vintage, some junk wax, some stars and Hall of Famers, and more of those McDonald's sheets. This was organized enough that I could put up a listing clearly describing what was and what wasn't there. I put the football card portion of this collection up on marketplace for 50 bucks highlighting the choice singles. And in a few days, I had it sold to a football collector who will appreciate the cards and give them a good home. That got me halfway back on my acquisition cost. In the meantime, I was able to put together a complete mint set of 1989 Don Russ, a set I've actually never owned, and the collection even had the correct box for it. I sleeved the notable rookies like I always do. I made a box block for it in place of where the puzzle pieces would have gone. And this box now enters my personal collection, for now, at least. There were enough 89 Don Rust cards for at least one more full set, but I'll hold off on that for now. Thinking I could handle more sorting after the set completion win, I opened this box to find absolute bloody chaos. Hockey cards, football cards, and Robocop 2 cards all mixed up. I picked through it a little bit, but this box wasn't for me. I had two choices. throw it all away or try and find someone up to the challenge. I did the latter. I threw the whole box up on Marketplace for $5, promising to give the money to charity as I am currently collecting for another Cards for Kids event. Thousands of cards. I have no idea what's in there. It's all pretty beat up, but for $5, you can help a good cause and get to go fishing for rookies. Amazingly, I had a slew of people ask about the box and had it sold in a day. One less thing I need to deal with and the money will go to a good cause. I went to the bin with the first of many loads. Sometimes cards just can't be saved. Godspeed, little cards. Godspeed. >> [music] >> Even with the garbage can full of unsavable cards, my dining table heaped with cards begging for a new life and purpose. I was still $50 in the negative with this collection purchase. But I am determined to show that junk wax cards can have a purpose and bring joy in our collections. And I was in no way prepared for what this collection still had in store for me, but that'll have to wait until part two. 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Episode 125 takes the first steps on a journey that seeks to make sense of a massive junk wax collection.