Junk Wax Journey 1987: What can we pull?

Let's have a look at some of the cards in the 1987 sets, and what sales data we can see for cards in raw, ungraded state, PSA 9, and PSA 10 grades. These values are not collected programmatically. Please view these values as rough estimates, I eyeballed all the values and rounded a bit and card prices change very frequently.

All prices are sourced from https://www.sportscardspro.com/ , all Gem Rates are sourced from https://www.gemrate.com/

Eventually, posts like this might end up as a Patreon subscriber reward, but for now they will remain for all to view.

Let's begin with Flagship: Topps, Donruss, and Fleer.

1987 flagship card values

The usual suspects (Maddux, Bo, Bonds, Ryan) hold a lot of value here, both in raw, PSA9, and PSA10. Some interesting inclusions: 87 Donruss Jose Uribe ERR and the 1987 Topps Checklist! Tough PSA10 pull, i guess.

1987 Donruss has about a 13% Gem Rate from PSA, of the big cards above only Bo Jackson (17%) is above that, the rest are a bit lower. Diamond Kings have around a 40% Gem Rate all time, so there may be some nice gains to be made there.

1987 Fleer also has about a 13% Gem Rate from PSA. All the big names but Bonds have 13% or greater.

1987 Topps has the highest Gem Rate of the three, at 18%. Only the Barry Larkin RC (30%) is above the set rate, and of the big cards, it's the lowest overall pop and the second-lowest total number of Gems. All-Star inserts, Trademark on Front ERR, and Turn Back the Clock inserts have the highest Gem Rates, all above 29%.

Moving on to some of the premium sets you'll find in the All-Star and Hall-of-fame breaks: O-Pee-Chee and Leaf.

PSA10 values here are, quite simply, staggering. 1987 Donruss is mostly likely difficult to grade due to centering QC issues and black borders chipping. 87 O-Pee-Chee mirrors the Topps set, albeit with a smaller checklist (396 OPC vs 792 Topps), so hopefully we'll see more of these cards, statistically!

1987 Leaf sits slightly above 1987 Donruss, at about a 15% Gem Rate all time. All major cards in the table above are below 12% gem rate. Tony Gwynn (43%) and Ryne Sandberg (40%) are outpacing the set gem rate. Diamond Kings again have a nice rate, at almost 34%, with a total pop of 127 PSA 10s. There are also several other minor stars with gem rates in the 40-70% range, so it's definitely possible to Gem up.

1987 OPC is slightly below 1987 Topps at about a 13% Gem Rate. Nolan Ryan (19.5), Cal Ripken Jr (31.4), Wade Boggs (54%!!), and Ryne Sandberg (29%) are performing significantly better than the set average. Keep in Mind that Bonds is the most graded card in the set, with a total of ~2400 cards graded. The next most graded card is Nolan Ryan at +/- 470 cards graded.

Next up, let's look at some of the lesser-known releases from the big three, namely: Topps Major League Leaders and Fleer Star Stickers:

1987 Fleer Star Stickers shows some modest PSA 10 gains, interesting to note that the Dwight Gooden has never had a recorded PSA 10 sale, in fact the PSA 10 is pop 0! If you pull a nice one and grade it, you may have the best copy in the world! Overall Gem Rate for Star Stickers sits at 3%, with out around 700 cards graded in total. There could be some significant gains to be made if we open some quality packs!

1987 Topps Major League Leaders actually surprised me with the value of PSA 10 sales. Several possible 3-digit pulls if they're in good condition. Overall Gem rate for this set (called "1987 Topps Mini League Leaders" on Gemrate) is a respectable 37%, with fewer total grades than even Fleer Star Stickers. Most stars are Gemming above 25%, and plenty of cards are in the 50% - 70% range. We could pull some sleeper bangers here!

Moving on to the high-end Bonus Rips, we'll take a look at Classic, Classic Update, and Donruss The Rookies.

We will see some nice cards randomed off from 1987 Classic and Update. The Bo goes for $35 in raw state, and if you can gem it up, you may as well take it all the way to the bank and buy in to the rest of the Junk Wax Journey breaks for the rest of the year! The set gems at about a 12% rate, so it's tough to gem. Bo's Gem Rate is about 7%, and he has far and away the most grades in the set with over 1500. Many cards in the Classic set ("Classic MLB Game" on Gemrates) are Gemming over 35% of the time, there are plenty of other stars with value in PSA19 or 10. of Bo is a specifically bad cut, he's on the front of the cello pack so he can be damaged, or maybe PSA is just more critical of this card. Fernando Valenzuela has 9 total graded cards and 0 gems, so another chance to own the best one in the world!

Classic Update will be a VERY interesting rip. My understanding is that We can't know in advance if we end up with the Green Backs or the Yellow backs. Green backs are extremely valuable in high grades. This set Gems up at a very reasonable 38% overall, with most major stars in line with or better than this rate.

Finally, 1987 Donruss The Rookies contains the best rookies of the year, most of which will end up on a random buyer's lot. This set also has black borders much like the '87 Donruss set, so grading can be rough. The set has a 10% gem rate on Gemrates, Bo performing slightly below this at 8.3%. Of the big 4 or 5, we see Raffy Palmiero (14%) and Matt Williams (16%) performing better than the set average. Chuck Crim is the only card in the set with a 0% Gem Rate in 18 tries. Maybe we can pull the pop 1!

One more interesting tier of bonus rips contains Fleer Baseball All-Stars and Donruss Opening Day:

Donruss Opening Day may contain one of the most valuable and quirky cards of 1987 -- Barry Bonds RC showing the photograph of Johnny Ray. This card is EXTREMELY RARE, and if we pull it we're going to random it off to someone in the break. Even if we don't pull it, we're going to random the Bonds off to someone in the break. This set Gems at about a 32% rate, so chances are pretty good if we pull a centered card it may gem up. The Bonds (err and corr) both gem up at about an 8% rate. Bo Jackson sits around 24%, and we're going to random that one off as well. Plenty of stars here over 45% Gem rate.

Of the many Fleer oddball retail sets we will rip, All Stars looks like it's the most desirable. with 459 total grades and a 28% Gem Rate, it's definitely possible to grade these, and there's some good value to be had. Pucket Gems up at a 36% rate, and he's going to the owner of the Twins. Mattingly at 35%, to the Yankees.

Below are the values I've hand-collated for the rest of the sets in this break, use this data to make an educated decision about which team(s) to buy