Lets hop in my DeLorean time machine and head back to the 1980s. Dont worry, I wont leave you behind, but you may want to stay. The 1980s are often considered to be the decade of greed and excess. Looking back, there were many speculative crazes and pop culture phenomena that came out of this self-proclaimed decade of decadence. From Nintendo to The Masters of the Universe, from Madonna to Prince, the 1980s had something to offer everyone, and its influence still lives on 40-plus years later. There is, however, one pop culture phenomenon that set the early 1980s on fire and spanned a unique collectible trading card series that still lives on to this very day. In any other time period, pudgy mass-produced dolls would probably crash and burn in the toy aisle and end up in the clearance aisle. But this was the 1980s, and both consumerism and Wall Street (good 1980s movie by the way) greed were running rampant. Coleco was an American company founded in 1932 as the Connecticut Leather Company. The company eventually expanded into plastics and started making toys and games. By 1982, Coleco secured the rights to produce Cabbage Patch Kids, not realizing the true gold mine they stumbled upon. Cabbage Patch Kids were thought by toy industry insiders at the time to be too quirky and unrealistic to appeal to mass audiences. As such, while Coleco believed in the product, the company started out only producing a modest amount of the dolls, not expecting massive demand would ensue. Due to a clever marketing campaign emphasizing the idea that Cabbage Patch Kids were not purchased but instead adopted, children clamored for the deformed dolls. By the 1983 holiday shopping season, it was clear that Coleco was in over their head. The company could not produce enough of the dolls to satisfy consumer demand. There are videos on the internet that show riots breaking out at toy stores across the country with people paying tidy premiums to secure one of the dolls on the secondary market. Cabbage Patch Kids were one of the very first speculative toy crazes of this time period. Incidentally, this article is not about Cabbage Patch Kids, because by 1986 the craze would fizzle. This article is instead about a pop culture phenomenon giving birth to the rise of another pop culture phenomenon. Since the Cabbage Patch Kids craze lasted from roughly 1983 to 1986, other companies sought to cash in and even parody the craze. The Topps Company was a trading card manufacturer who had a hit with Wacky Packages trading cards, which first premiered in 1967. Wacky Packages trading cards featured hilarious parodies of consumer products. Cartoonist and Topps Company consultant Art Spiegelman, who created Wacky Packages and is credited with their success, came up with a new idea: a product line of peel and stick trading cards that parodied the Cabbage Patch Kid toy line. The result was a humorous and sometimes grotesque line of trading cards that featured a cast of characters that looked eerily similar to Cabbage Patch Kids with names like Adam Bomb and Dead Ted, who each faced some kind of unique death or comical deformity playing on the design of the original Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. The series was an instant success upon being released in 1985, and Garbage Pail Kids were soon banned from most schools. Besides being a distraction to learning, school officials also thought the designs of some of the cards were too inappropriate and grotesque for a school environment. I fondly remember completing a full first series set of the cards that I unfortunately did not hold onto. Fifteen series of cards were produced over the few short years the craze lasted, and by 1988 it was already dying out. This was due in part to a horrible live-action movie that premiered in 1987 and is still to this day considered one of the worst movies ever made based on a licensed property (word to the wise: dont watch it). Over the years, Topps released various other trading card sets and products devoted to the Garbage Pail Kids line. Still, most of these products do not compare to the original series, and the very first series of cards is considered to be one of the most collectible. A lot of collectors have chosen to have their cards third-party graded, and top tier third-party grading companies like PSA have started to grade and encapsulate Garbage Pail Kids. Many people who fondly remember the Garbage Pail Kids craze are surprised to learn that some of the early cards, especially if graded by a company like PSA in 10 (gem mint) condition, can sell for thousands of dollars to the right buyer. This is par for the course as 80s pop culture is currently selling for all-time highs. That said, should you discover a collection of these cards in your former childhood bedroom or basement, just know that most opened loose cards will not grade in the coveted 9-10 grade condition required to command a premium on the secondary market. The secondary collectors market for Garbage Pail Kids is stable at present time but limited in scope due to the amount of collectors willing to pay a premium for these kinds of items. To use this comparison as an example, the market for vintage Star Wars toys and collectibles is much larger than that for vintage Garbage Pail Kids cards. That said, Garbage Pail Kids do have organic collectability as anyone buying these items were not hoarding them back when they first premiered. Just know that a lot of cards were produced and the early original series are generally considered to be most collectible with few exceptions. There are some excellent collecting guides and pricing info readily available online, but be sure to check actual sold prices of the cards before attempting to value an item you have or one you are considering buying. I have always been fascinated by how one pop culture phenomenon can spawn another and looking back at the collectability of both original Coleco Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and Garbage Pail Kids, Garbage Pail Kids, with a few exceptions, can be much more valuable than most vintage Cabbage Patch Kids! Topps still releases anniversary collectible sets of Garbage Pail Kids, and even Cabbage Patch Kids are still sold today thanks to an updated licensing agreement with Wicked Cool Toys since Coleco went bankrupt back in 1988. The 1980s were an incredible time to be alive. For anyone reading this who was not lucky enough to remember the 1980s, you just had to be there to understand it. For everyone else, we have mementos like Garbage Pail Kids that remind us of our youth and what a crazy time it was! Now where did I park the DeLorean? Shawn Surmick has been an avid collector since the age of 12. He currently resides in his hometown of Boyertown, Pa., and is a passionate collector of antiques and collectibles. His articles focus on various topics affecting the marketplace.