Collector’s heads might be spinning a bit after the latest GPK release, 2025 Worst of Garbage Pail Kids 40th Anniversary Edition. After more than a decade of massive overproduction of retail sets, Topps pulled a 180, with a much smaller print run. The product being Hobby only, coupled with a complete restructure of the set structure, puts this set in a whole new realm. Can production be compared to past sets? Is it bigger than recent online releases? Bigger than Sapphire? Let take a look and see just where the 40th anniversary set fits in.
First my disclaimer! Production numbers are never an exact science, and Topps makes it tough on us. In order to attempt to solve this riddle we need to look very closely at the clues in both the odds and the sell sheets. Some things to keep in mind for this post. 1) Topps doesn’t want the public to know exactly how much of each card was made. Why? No idea really, I think it’s dumb, but historically Topps only provides enough information to get close. 2) We need to make some assumptions. Those assumptions will be based on the clues we have, but still some guessing has to happen. 3) The odds never quite seem to come out completely equal. However, we can round and get pretty close to how much was produced. 4) Topps changes what is printed from what the sell sheet says all the time. This will throw off all our numbers. 5) Keep in mind Topps historically holds back up to 5% of the print run to cover missing hits, damaged cards, and their No Purchase Necessary program. These numbers would include that 5%. With all that in mind let’s get started…(Warning lots of math coming up. If you don’t want to read about the process, skip to the bottom for the answer sheet!)
Being a Hobby only release makes this exercise really easy. There is only one set of odds to deal with. As long as there is at least one numbered card type, and the odds Topps printed are correct, it’s a piece of cake. Luckily, Topps loves their parallels. For the most part, the odds do seem to be accurate based on case breaks, with a handful of exceptions we will go over below. We have a couple of dozen examples we can use to figure out total production. Let’s take a look at a few and see what that gives us.
- Gold A Parallel – 100 cards in set * 50 made per card = 5,000 total Gold A * 42 odds = 210,000 total Hobby packs
- Foilfractor A Parallel – 100 cards in set * 1 made per card = 100 total Foilfractor A * 2,101 odds = 210,100 total Hobby packs
- C Cards Orange Parallel – 23 cards in set * 25 made per card = 575 total C Oranges * 365 odds = 209,875 total Hobby packs
- Global Takeover Gold Parallel – 20 cards in set * 50 made per card = 1000 total Takeover Golds * 209 odds = 209,000 total Hobby packs
As I mentioned above, easy. All four of the numbers above are within 1,100 of each other. You can look at any of the other odds printed and come up with similar results. The variation is due to Topps rounding odds, but everything is really close. So, we are going to go with 210,000 total packs produced. That works out to 26,250 boxes, or 2,625 cases. We’ve never seen a retail set produced that small.
How do these numbers compare to recent releases? Let’s take a look at the most recent Chrome, Sapphire, retail, and online packed out release.
- 40th Anniversary – 210,000
- 2024 Sapphire – 45,000
- Chrome 7 – 1,612,000
- Valentine’s Day – 12,150
- Kids At Play – 2,085,000
It’s kind of hilarious to look at the numbers above and compare recent releases. However, you can clearly see 40th anniversary is much, much less than the last retail releases, Chrome 7 and Kids At Play. However, the release is much bigger than online releases like Sapphire and Valentine’s Day. The big question going forward is, if Topps will continue this structure and production with the next retail release.
Now that we know the pack production we can review how many of the various inserts and parallels were made of each type. While the set has dozens of numbered card types, there are still a few we can look at.
Usually, base cards are saved for the end of the production articles. Since Topps flipped this set upside down, let’s do that here. It’s almost like the base cards are the “hits” in the product! Here’s our first mistake collectors found on the odds sheet. Base “a” name cards were listed as 1:1, however collectors have been pulling anywhere from 16-19 per box. It’s just over 2 per pack. From hands on experience, the majority of boxes have 17 per box. We will use 17 per box for our calculations. Let’s also look at the Short Print “b” name, and Super Short Print “c” name cards.
- Base “a” cards – 17 per box * 26,250 boxes = 4,462 of each Base “a” card.
- “B” Name SP – 210,000 packs / 2 odds = 105,000 total B cards / 100 in set =‘1,050 of each B card.
- “C” Name SSP – 210,000 packs / 121 odds = 1,735 total C cards / 23 in set = 75 of each C card.
If you’re a set collector, you aren’t happy with these numbers. While 4000 base sets is possible, the actual number that gets made will be much, much less. Collectors wanting a base set might have a tougher time finding one. Want the short printed B name set? Well that one is very tough. Will take 4+ cases to just complete one b name set. How about C names? These are even rarer, according to the odds. However, it appears Topps found a way to make it impossible to collect a C set. After seeing results from 50+ cases, no base C name cards have surfaced. It looks like those didn’t make it into the product for some reason. Next, let’s look at the unnumbered parallels and common inserts.
- Green Parallel – 210,000 packs / 1 odds sheet = 210,000 total green cards / 100 in set = 2,100 of each green parallel.
- Crumpled Parallel – 210,000 packs / 120 odds sheet = 1,750 total Crumpled cards / 100 in set = 17 of each Crumpled parallel.
- Takeover/Eras Insert – 210,000 packs / 4 odds = 52,500 total Takeover/Eras cards / 20 in set = 2,625 of each Takeover/Eras cards.
- Wacky Packages Insert – 210,000 packs / 8 odds = 26,250 total Wackys / 8 in set = 3,281 of each Wacky Packages card.
Based on what we’ve already seen, those numbers fall right in line as expected. Once again, not a huge number of insert sets out there. Set collectors are looking at one insert set in a full case. One thing that does stand out is how rare the Crumpled parallel is. At just 17 copies, those will be very tough for collectors to find. Now let’s look at the other inserts and autographs.
- Adam Bomb Homage – 210,000 packs / 40 odds = 5,250 total Homage cards / 40 cards in set = 131 of each Homage card
- AB Homage Auto – 210,000 packs / 27 odds = 7,777 total Homage autos / 30 cards in set = 259 of each AB Homage Auto
- Artist Auto – 210,000 packs / 108 odds = 1,944 total autos / 12 cards in set = 162 of each artist auto
- OS Buybacks – 210,000 Hobby packs / 217 odds = 967 total OS Buybacks
Yes, you’re reading that right, it’s easier to pull an Adam Bomb Homage auto than it is to pull an Adam Bomb Homage insert card. Have you ever seen that before? There’s an easy explanation for this. With Topps guaranteeing an auto, sketch, or plate per box, they had to drastically raise the number of autos. 250 is a lot for a base auto. On the flip side, collectors will have a tough time putting together the regular AB Homage set with just over 100 of each available. The other strange thing on here is Buybacks. On the odds sheet Topps listed Buyback odds as 1:8. Topps confirmed with GPKNews that the odds for Buybacks and the GPK Yourself cards were inadvertently switched on the odds sheet. While Topps wouldn’t reveal which buybacks were inserted into the product, they told GPKNews it was a random assortment of OS cards. So far the ones surfaced have been stamped anywhere from 1/1 to #/7.
Worst of GPK 40th Anniversary is truly a set that might be the beginning of a new era for Garbage Pail Kids. After massively overproducing retail GPK sets for over a decade, it’s clear Topps sat down and made the decision to flip the brand on its head. How will this be received by collectors? So far due to the very limited print run, box prices are soaring. How will this set affect the brand? A limited production and high price point does not serve to bring new collectors into hobby. So the big questions is, what will Topps do going forward? We will have to wait until next year’s 2026 GPK Universe set to find out.
Finally, we usually end the production articles by looking at the most common card type in the retail sets, base cards. We covered base cards earlier, so we might as well look at the most common card in this set, GPK Yourself. As we mentioned above, Topps switched the odds on the GPK Yourself and Buyback cards. That means the real odds on the GPK Yourself contest cards is 1:8 or one per box. That means there are 26,250 total GPK Yourself cards out there! Plenty for everyone! Enter often, you might just find yourself as a Garbage Pail Kid in the next retail set. That is, if Topps can fix their code entry website…
