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Introducing Mike's Morning Minutes

Introducing Mike's Morning Minutes

A new way for me to tell hobby stories

Mike Junk Wax Hero
August 31, 2026

Hi folks, I’m sorry if my comments section isn’t working. I didn’t have time to look into it but hope to soon.

As a longtime YouTuber, my first thought is always “can I get 8 minutes out of this?” Sometimes the answer is no. Historically, I’ve pushed those items into my weekly Clearing the Bases episode, but sometimes there needs to be an in-between.

I am not a YouTube Shorts guy. I’m a big believer in not overwhelming a viewer’s feed with videos of me. Too many notifications, too much me.

So that brings me to this announcement:

I am starting a Mike’s Morning Minutes daily-ish Reel on Instagram.

Here’s my first one, from Sunday:

There are things I can do better! Look at my lighting, for instance. Blech. But it’s done really well and it’s a format I want to explore.

So then I asked myself, why not try TikTok too? Well, there are a bunch of reasons why I shouldn’t. For one, I’ve never used TikTok, and there are a lot of risks posting to a platform I don’t know.

But I decided to anyway:

@junkwaxheromike
A brick of 8 sealed 1952 Topps wax packs sold for $1.1 million. Would you rip them? #baseballcards #vintagebaseballcards

It turns out TikTok automatically adds music over my talking, which is dumb. I’ll figure out how to prevent that next time.

I hope you’ll follow along in one of those spots.

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Viewer Corner

Longtime viewer/commenter Sam sent me this really cool piece he had made:

He writes:

My favorite pack opening and greatest hobby memory from my childhood (and probably still) came out of a pack of 95-96’ series 2. My mom took me to the mall and bought me some packs from my LCS and we opened them right there on the spot and I hit a Hot Pack! It was the entire Total O insert set!

After I got back into the hobby in 2020, I knew I wanted to do something special with the cards (thankfully I still had them). Last year I finally decided to frame them to memorialize that moment. It turns out the Hot Pack inserts have the same pop counts as the normal ones, but back then it was like hitting the golden ticket.

For a closer look at the Jordan:

🗣️ YouTube Comment Of The Week

🎬 Upcoming Videos

Same as I promised last week…

🎙️On the Pod

I’ll always promote Surface Issues, my weekly podcast with Graig, but we have so many great things happening on the pod. Jeremy Lee’s weekly episode of The Hangover, various Extra Innings contributors, and Midlife Card Chase.

But have you checked out Adam and Dylan on Turn Back the Clock lately?

It’s really good! And if that theme song doesn’t end up stuck in your head, we’re not the same.

🎬 Channel Highlights From the Past Week

My channel is on a bit of a heater lately. I will destroy my personal record for views in a month, and it feels like every video is hitting big. Strange for a summer month.

This one has 12,000+ views:

I also had my most net-new subscribers since December and my second-most in 18 months!

🎁 My Pickup Of The Week

No, I didn’t win the Saturday Gwynn. It went for $790, meaning two people were above me. I wonder how much it would’ve gone for had I put in a higher max bid. How high was the winner willing to go? $790 feels downright cheap for that card considering what they’re going for. I wish I had more money for it.

Here’s what I did buy: