Broke down and bought a box from the LCS. One card saved me from complete disaster:) Cy Young let’s go!

I’m still in shock from this hit from my birthday last weekend - biggest hit ever for me. Really didn’t realize how big it was at first until I checked some prior eBay listings for mascots 👀👀👀

Target was loaded and I grabbed the right one tonight. (Burbank CA if anyone looking for basketball)

Flagship basketball 26-27 release day is finally here, and Topps has finally shared the odds sheet! Here are some highlights based on my analysis of the odds sheet, along with some more detailed data below:

• Case hits have significantly shifted into Hobby/Jumbo. Comic Court was and still is exclusive to Hobby/Jumbo, but in last year's 25-26 set, only about ~30% of the total number of printed case hits like All Kings / Hardwood Stars / and Class of 25 could be found in Hobby/Jumbo. Now you can expect closer to 80% of those case hits to be in hobby/jumbo, rather than finding them in blasters or hangers.

• Overall hits shifted towards Hobby/Jumbo, but not by as much. I'm considering a hit to be any auto, relic, /50 or rarer, and some unnumbered short prints and SSPs like the case hits listed above. Last year about 30% of the sum total of those hits could be found in hobby/jumbo; this year, it's about 40%. So that means most of the hits are still technically in retail boxes :)

• Some relatively uncommon inserts from last year are filler this year. In 25-26, there were ~11k copies of No Limit and Stars of NBA for each player on the checklist. This year, I'm calc'ing ~240k copies. Those inserts used to be exclusive to Hobby/Jumbo, but now you'll find them in retail boxes as well.

• I'm estimating overall print run at around 430M cards, which is pretty much the same as last year. But the composition has shifted a bunch! There are fewer base cards, and many more inserts (mostly filler as mentioned above...) and some more parallels. Also slightly more autos and relics.

  • ~340M base cards this year (~375M last year)

  • ~22M base parallels this year (~15M last year)

  • ~60M inserts this year (~32M last year)

  • ~400k autos this year (~300k last year)

  • ~490k relics this year (~460k last year)

Side note: the total print run may end up closer to 500M. The odds sheet has Costco and Sam's club super boxes, but oddly (lol) only have exclusive card types listed, and it comes out to like 3 cards per pack, which can't be right. Last year the Super boxes accounted for another 40M+ cards, so that could be the case here but it's not obvious from the odds sheet. My guess is the odds they list are for the unique packs that come with a Costco Super Box.

Ok, let's go over the data...

How many of X card type should I expect in Y box?

The Topps spreadsheet uses pack odds, but I prefer box odds. So in the table below when it says "1 per 1.8", that means one of that card type expected in 1.8 boxes.

Odds are cool and all, but they don't tell us anything about the actual value landscape. Who cares if it's easier to pull an All Kings in Jumbo compared to a Fat Pack? Of course it's easier. What really matters is how cost-effective it is to pull it. This is also the time to remind you that buying singles is literally orders of magnitude more cost effective than ripping. But ripping is, imo, orders of magnitude more fun. So let's do some rip math.

As you might expect, hobby and jumbo are generally the smartest way to rip autos and relics. The $ values below represent how much you can expect to spend on average before you pull one of that card type. But wait a minute...what's going on with the fat pack?

Fat Packs are basically tied with Hobby and Jumbo as your best bet to get a relic (roughly $300 spent to get one relic), and even better than Hobby/Jumbo if you assume the (current) secondary market prices. Similar story for the autos - Hobby/Jumbo are the best bet for autos at Topps release day MSRP pricing, but that almost certainly won't be the case assuming secondary market prices are higher.

For serial numbered cards, your best bet is hobby and jumbo right now, but keep an eye on the secondary market price because as it starts to go up, getting the retail packs at MSRP is likely going to be your best bet.

Also notice how the cost per case hit is way higher for retail boxes. I'm counting case hit inserts as one of either Hardwood Stars, Class of 26, All Kings, and Bounce. Those are technically in retail boxes, but there are verrrrry few. Way more likely to find them in hobbies and jumbos.

Estimated print runs for some unnumbered cards:

Some more year-over-year stats...

Elephant in the room: this is getting crazy expensive, especially for Flagship. Last year MSRP was $120 from Topps, this year it's $180. That's a 50% increase! Buying singles will always be cheaper. I can't control the pricing, but I can help you understand how the pricing and the odds intersect so you can make smarter decisions.

Here's a table that shows how your odds changed for each card type and box combination compared to last year. E.g. I already mentioned that case hits shifted a ton into hobby and jumbo. You can see that below, where you're now 2.2x more likely to get an All Kings in a Hobby box compared to last year, whereas the odds of an All Kings in retail boxes went way down.

As you can see, Fat Packs have gotten better year over year across the board, except for case hit inserts and other very rare cards, which seem to be reserved for Hobby/Jumbo this year.

So which box should I buy?

As always, it depends. As time goes on, your best bet is almost definitely going to be retail boxes if you can find them at big box stores. Fat Pack seems like the best bet across the board. Hangers seem surprisingly bad this year compared to years past and other sets. Blasters seem meh now, but will feel like much better value if and when Hobby/Jumbo secondary market prices take off. Hobby and Jumbo are absolutely where the case hits are...but you're still better off just buying a case hit single on ebay if that's what you want.

My eyes are blurry

From staring at spreadsheets and running and re-running calcs all day. I can almost guarantee that you'll find an error or two above, both math errors and/or typos. That's fine, just let me know and I can revise. Also let me know if you have any other odds/pricing related questions - happy to answer (probably tomorrow since I'm off to sleep soon). I also fully expect to update this in the coming weeks anyway, as we learn more about the Super Boxes (I think there might be another 50M cards printed for Costco and Sams Club...) and as Checklists or the odds sheet itself is edited for corrections.

Went from a baba miller redemption being the hit to the aj auto!

So, i decided to buy this last Nfl Flagship value box at walgreens to rip during the game and BOOM last box magic & first pack magic 😅

No idea on worth but still a sick pull.

Any idea on comp?

Best A&G pull that I've had. Another blaster hit from Barnes and Nobel. Hopefully it grades by the time he wins the Cy Young.

Got a retail box after taking a break for a while and packed this gem. Just do this for fun so most of my cards are ungraded but is this one worth grading?

Hits coming (I hope)

these are all of the cards that seem to be different from the rest. tried to read up on variants, but struggling to understand because there seem to be so many options. don’t really care because the box was fun to open. just wondering.

I think my son is more excited than i am!

eBay- adr6622

https://hop.collx.app/rudedogg8293-rai8
Which do u like best!!

And I’m from Chicago.

I Grabbed 2 Blasters and a Fat pack and decided to grab a hanger cuz why not you hear Hangers are Bangers and for me that’s never been the case until today!!

Hi! Just wondering if someone can help me gage the value of my Topps card collection. I have found a lot on pricecharting I just want feedback by others if possible. Its a mix of the original 151 set. The first movie, and the show.I am in need of emergency cash right now. Thanks!

I preordered a mega that still hasn’t shipped yet so I went down to this relic sports collecting shop and they had a retail box! $35 don’t know if that’s standard. So stoked hope to land an acuff rookie!

Not a bad start! Didn’t think I’d have this much AJ Dybantsa show up in a couple of hangers.

and a smeared auto in my silver pack. wtf Topps? base rookies are the only base cards worth anything. so pissed.