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During last summer, I purchased a total of four hobby boxes and five retail blasters of 2018 Topps Allen & Ginter. As a mathematically minded person, I'm interested to see which purchase ended up being the better deal. Luckily, I kept the statistics of what I pulled from each box and blaster - so let's take a look, shall we?
Heading into this little experiment, I assumed that hobby boxes would be the way to go in terms of total value. I ended up buying four hobby boxes in total, here are the results:
Let's look at the base set first.
As you can hopefully make out from the screenshots of my Excel file, three of the four hobby boxes has 189 total cards while the fourth had only 188 cards in it. In all cases, I didn't count the box loader as a card.
From a set collector's standpoint, I need to mention that box 2 was a "hot box" which meant that none of the base cards were the normal cards. Instead, they were all a shiny foil card - certainly nice but not what I want for my own set. Based on the numbers, it seems like maybe the hot box cards are all seeded roughly equal instead of the final 50 cards being short printed as in the regular base set. I didn't do particularly well with any of the super rare minis - only a single no number mini showed up and nothing rarer than that!
Moving on to the full-sized inserts:
The four boxes had remarkable consistency here. Safe to say that you know exactly what you'll get in terms of the full-sized inserts in 2018 Allen & Ginter. Moving along to the mini inserts.
Now here we see quite a bit of differences between boxes! Only the Indigenous Heroes were represented with at least one card in each hobby box. The rest were a true crap shoot! Note that the Exotic Sports are retail only and so they don't show up here.
Finally, the hits!
This is where I figured hobby would get the edge. I ended up with a pair of autographs, a pair of framed relics, and rip card out of my four boxes (plus seven of the more boring "regular" relics). That was a pretty nice haul if you ask me!
Now, let's take a look at the five retail blasters!
Again, we start with the base set.
This time, you can see that the blasters had a little bit more variation in terms of the total number of base cards inside (though all had exactly four short print base cards). The reasons for the two blasters with only 26 base cards will be seen soon enough.
For the full sized inserts, the blasters were also quite consistent though not as perfectly consistent as the hobby boxes.
The World's Greatest Beaches and the Baseball Equipment of the Ages flipped a bit between blasters in terms of which I ended up with two of versus only one of. Otherwise, pretty standard stuff (plus that one Home Run Challenge card).
For the minis, things got even more varied:
I was super sad to have a blaster without one of the retail only Exotic Sports cards. But, on the bright side I did find 2.6 minis per blaster on average as opposed to 4.75 mini inserts on average in each hobby box.
Finally, let's take a look at the hits in the retail blasters.
Surprisingly, I found a hit in three out of the five blasters (including a framed autograph). Truth be told, I think I beat the odds but still, that's pretty cool.
So which is actually a better deal?
If you are going after the mini insert sets, I'd say retail is the way to go. I averaged 2.6 minis per retail blaster as opposed to 4.75 minis per hobby box. When you consider you can basically get 5 retail blasters for the same cost as a single hobby box, it's clear that retail is the way to go for mini cards (not to mention the retail only Exotic Sports minis).
If you are going after the hits, hobby definitely has the more valuable hits (rip cards, booklets, etc.) but I ended up doing fairly well with hits in retail. In fact, if you consider 5 blasters as basically the same cost as a hobby box, I did end up with three hits (including an autograph) in my 5 blasters. That said, I do think I beat the odds somewhat there so I'd give the edge to hobby.
In the end, I do think that hobby is still the way to go BUT I also think you take a risk with Topps putting out the "hot boxes." It actually hurt my set collecting goals to have a full box full of "useless" foil parallels. Sure, it was neat to open but unless you want to be crazy and put together the foil set, those end up being dead cards to a collector (and I didn't even pull the Larkin foil card)! On the other hand, I did pull a rip card which basically paid for an entire hobby box (which tilts the value equation firmly in the direction of hobby). Of course, as always, your luck may vary!
How about you? How do you prefer to buy your cards? In big hobby boxes or smaller retail blasters?
Heading into this little experiment, I assumed that hobby boxes would be the way to go in terms of total value. I ended up buying four hobby boxes in total, here are the results:
Let's look at the base set first.
As you can hopefully make out from the screenshots of my Excel file, three of the four hobby boxes has 189 total cards while the fourth had only 188 cards in it. In all cases, I didn't count the box loader as a card.
From a set collector's standpoint, I need to mention that box 2 was a "hot box" which meant that none of the base cards were the normal cards. Instead, they were all a shiny foil card - certainly nice but not what I want for my own set. Based on the numbers, it seems like maybe the hot box cards are all seeded roughly equal instead of the final 50 cards being short printed as in the regular base set. I didn't do particularly well with any of the super rare minis - only a single no number mini showed up and nothing rarer than that!
Moving on to the full-sized inserts:
The four boxes had remarkable consistency here. Safe to say that you know exactly what you'll get in terms of the full-sized inserts in 2018 Allen & Ginter. Moving along to the mini inserts.
Now here we see quite a bit of differences between boxes! Only the Indigenous Heroes were represented with at least one card in each hobby box. The rest were a true crap shoot! Note that the Exotic Sports are retail only and so they don't show up here.
Finally, the hits!
This is where I figured hobby would get the edge. I ended up with a pair of autographs, a pair of framed relics, and rip card out of my four boxes (plus seven of the more boring "regular" relics). That was a pretty nice haul if you ask me!
Now, let's take a look at the five retail blasters!
Again, we start with the base set.
This time, you can see that the blasters had a little bit more variation in terms of the total number of base cards inside (though all had exactly four short print base cards). The reasons for the two blasters with only 26 base cards will be seen soon enough.
For the full sized inserts, the blasters were also quite consistent though not as perfectly consistent as the hobby boxes.
For the minis, things got even more varied:
I was super sad to have a blaster without one of the retail only Exotic Sports cards. But, on the bright side I did find 2.6 minis per blaster on average as opposed to 4.75 mini inserts on average in each hobby box.
Finally, let's take a look at the hits in the retail blasters.
Surprisingly, I found a hit in three out of the five blasters (including a framed autograph). Truth be told, I think I beat the odds but still, that's pretty cool.
So which is actually a better deal?
If you are going after the mini insert sets, I'd say retail is the way to go. I averaged 2.6 minis per retail blaster as opposed to 4.75 minis per hobby box. When you consider you can basically get 5 retail blasters for the same cost as a single hobby box, it's clear that retail is the way to go for mini cards (not to mention the retail only Exotic Sports minis).
If you are going after the hits, hobby definitely has the more valuable hits (rip cards, booklets, etc.) but I ended up doing fairly well with hits in retail. In fact, if you consider 5 blasters as basically the same cost as a hobby box, I did end up with three hits (including an autograph) in my 5 blasters. That said, I do think I beat the odds somewhat there so I'd give the edge to hobby.
In the end, I do think that hobby is still the way to go BUT I also think you take a risk with Topps putting out the "hot boxes." It actually hurt my set collecting goals to have a full box full of "useless" foil parallels. Sure, it was neat to open but unless you want to be crazy and put together the foil set, those end up being dead cards to a collector (and I didn't even pull the Larkin foil card)! On the other hand, I did pull a rip card which basically paid for an entire hobby box (which tilts the value equation firmly in the direction of hobby). Of course, as always, your luck may vary!
How about you? How do you prefer to buy your cards? In big hobby boxes or smaller retail blasters?
A&G is a good example of the appeal of both forms. With nice hits in hobby, and retail exclusive inserts, you get something nice either way. The trouble is the expense of doing both. I guess the trick is to buy one way and find some others that bought the opposite and trade away. I like the retail-only inserts, but will have to trade for them because I can't justify buying twice as much to get them.
ReplyDeleteWow. That's some deep analysis. Even though I do spend money on both hobby and retail... I honestly prefer buying completed sets on eBay. I realize it's not as fun, but I'd rather use the extra money to buy nice singles for my player and team pc's.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the analysis more than I probably should - much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe! I did the same type of Analysis with the 2017 Topps Fire set. I didn't blog about the results, but I was curious to see the differences.
ReplyDeleteAs a set collector, I usually find retail gets me less cards per dollar than hobby or jumbo boxes. I do like the hits but completing the base set and insert sets is my main mission. Luckily I have the option of getting my boxes at either a local weekly show or a couple of local cardshops that are relatively close to me.
ReplyDelete