If you are a Wax Tray Collector, you’re in possession of some very desirable items!  Barring a stupendous find of a long lost treasures trove of pre-1978 Wax Trays, there simply aren’t many Trays available.  If a hidden hoard does exist, it would definitely be newsworthy since Topps really didn’t produce Trays in large quantities until the late 1970’s.  What they did produce have become highly desirable due to both their scarcity as well as the extra layer of security, (provided by the cellophane seal) which offers additional protection against fraudulent wax pack resealers.

Wax Trays were produced for grocery type accounts.  Looking only at the 1970’s, most trays displayed similar characteristics; 3 wax packs, cellophane wrapper with either a green or brown (or red in 1980) price logo and a cardboard backboard.  Both the cellophane and cardboard backing bore the standard Topps “wrapper coding”. 

 
                                  Green Price Logo      
 

                                  Brown Price Logo

If you were a retailer, you usually located the trays either in the candy aisle or right at the checkout.  The consumer would purchase the trays because the tray offered multiple packs at a slightly discounted price.  Personally, the slight discount was enough incentive to me to pester my parents to shop at one grocery store as opposed to another, just so I could buy 2-15 cent trays with my allowance.

What Was Produced?

Pre 1970 trays, information or photos are relatively non existent.  Trays had been produced going as far back as the late 1950’s.  The earliest trays I have at least seen a photo of are: 1957 FB, 1962 BB, 1973 Basketball and 1973 Hockey.  

                                         
                                                  1969 BB Wax Tray

Focusing purely on the 1970’s, the following is believed to have been produced:

Market Volume

The easiest and most reasonably priced trays to find from the 1970’s are 1978 & 1979 FB & BB.  Of the four, the volume of 1978 BB is probably 1/10^th of the other three but cases of all 4 are still generally available. 

Looking at the other extreme, 1970-1973 items are virtually non-existent.  For the one or two that show up for sale a year, they will generate some very healthy prices. 

Which leaves everything else…

·        1979 Hockey, with the Gretzky rookie is very popular but the trays are much scarcer to find, which unfortunately has lead to unscrupulous people trying to take advantage and fraudulently selling resealed items.

·        The remaining BB, FB, Hockey and Basketball trays are generally not available in quantities that go above single digits.  For the most part, they don’t even go above 2-3 each depending on the year and sport

·        There were a couple of non-sport trays produced in 1978, Superman and Battlestar Galatica.  Of the two, Battlestar Galatica is much harder to find.

The Tray seems to have phase out in 1980 to be replaced with the “grocery poly sleeve” and ultimately toward the late 1980’s with an extra large, fat cello pack

This article is the first of a three part series.  In the next two parts, the focus of the blog post will be on a visual tour and characteristics you would expect to find on 1970’s wax trays.