This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2023S1 (2021S2) GPK Vacation. If you missed Part 1 you can go here to catch up.
In the first post we looked at how many packs/boxes/cases were produced of 2023S1 (2021S2) Garbage Pail Kids GPK Goes on Vacation. Here’s a review of what we came up with.
- Total Production – 1,737,000 Packs
- Collector – 180,000 Collector Packs or about 7,500 Collector Boxes or about 937 Collector Cases
- Retail Display – 297,000 Retail Display Packs or about 12,375 RD Boxes or about 1,546 RD Cases
- Blaster Box – 1,260,000 Blaster packs or 126,000 Blaster boxes or about 3,150 Blaster cases
I’ll be using these numbers to try to come up with an idea how many of each type of parallel and insert were created for the set. This will give you a good idea how rare a set is and how quickly you need to snap up that card for your rainbow! I’ll also compare some of this info to the previous sets for reference. As a reminder, in addition to using the sell sheet and odds, we will also have to make some assumptions and flat out guesses when trying to figure some of these out.
So how many of each type of card was made? Compared to Chrome 5, GPK Vacation is a breeze to figure out. Topps supplied enough information for us to figure out each pack type. Therefore, that allows us to figure out how many of each parallel and insert were made. Like previous sets, Topps has continued to number many card types. This means we already know most of the parallel and insert numbers already! Makes this post a lot easier! We know Asphalt /66, Blue /99, Red /75, and Gold /50 for the parallels, Artist Autos /75, and State Quarter Relics /99.
First let’s figure out production for the three parallels that aren’t numbered.
- Black Borders – 180,000 Collector packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 180,000 total Black borders / 200 cards in set = 900 per card.
- Green Borders – 1,557,000 Retail packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 1,557,000 total Green borders / 200 cards in set = 7,785 per card.
- Yellow Borders – 1,260,000 Blaster packs / 5 Odds = 252,000 total Yellow borders / 200 cards in set = 1,260 per card.
Again, since we were able to determine each pack type, figuring out the unnumbered parallels was easy. No big surprises here, the sharp drop in production leads to much less of each parallel type compared to Book Worms. Of course there are still a large number, especially the greens. Putting these sets together is very doable for many collectors.
Now let’s take a look at the various insert sets.
- Wacky Packages – 180,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 7,500 total Wacky Package / 10 cards in set = 750 per Wacky
- Luggage Tags – 180,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 7,500 total Luggage Tags / 12 cards in set = 625 per Tag
- Famous Landmarks – 297,000 Retail Display Packs packs / 3 odds = 99,000 total Landmarks / 10 in set = 9,900 per Landmark
- Don’t Make Me Pull This Car Over – 1,577,000 Retail Packs / 3 odds = 519,000 total Pull Over / 20 cards in set = 25,950 per card
- Travel Stickers – 1,260,000 Blaster Packs / 3.33 odds = 378,378 total Travel / 10 cards in set = 37,837 per card
A few notes on the Inserts. With less collector boxes and a higher Wacky set compared to Book Worms, it’s no wonder why the per card numbers are so low. Wacky’s are about 1/3 compared to Book Worms. Luggage Tags are even less. While those sets are doable, it might take a little searching and more money for collectors to complete. It’s no surprise the retail inserts have huge print runs, especially the ones found in Blaster packs. The Travel Sticker odds are the only ones I noticed that were wrong. For some reason, Topps listed the odds as 1:4. This makes no sense as they are advertised as 3 per Blaster, and box breaks show there are indeed 3 per blaster. I guess since the odds were greater than 3 Topps just used the next number up. The problem with that is, using 1:4 would throw the actual numbers off. So in my calculations I used the real odds of 1:3.33 packs. When looking at the tins we know the total Collector tins are 7,500. The Blaster tins appear to be evenly distributed, so 180,000 boxes / 3 different tins = 42,000 of each Blaster Tin.
Now let’s turn our attention to the Employee Base Short Print Cards. These are the second group of employee SP cards to appear in a set, the first was in the 35th anniversary set. However, this time Topps was nice enough to not only put them on the checklist, but also put odds on each pack type. The ones from the 35th did not list odds, so we couldn’t figure out the print run on those. However, this time we can.
- 180,000 Collector Packs / 652 odds = 276 SPs in Collector packs
- 297,000 Retail Display Packs / 1,056 odds = 281 SPs in Retail Display packs
- 1,260,000 Blaster Packs / 3,670 odds = 343 SPs in Blaster packs
- 276 + 281 + 343 = 900 total SPs / 9 in set = 100 each SP
Wow, well that number came out pretty even. Gives me even more confidence the pack production numbers are correct. Some collectors are going to see there are 100 of each and be surprised. Don’t let that fool you! These are still rare, they aren’t coming out of every case or anything. With the much easier odds in Collector boxes, we are seeing a good number of these early. Antidotally these seem to be falling more frequently than the 35th anniversary employee SPs. But truly since we don’t have a way to figure out the print run of the first batch of these, we have no way to know if there are more of this second group of employee Short Print cards.
Collectors are going to see the sharp declines in production and might think GPK Vacation is rare. That’s both true and untrue. There are a lot of Blaster Tins, a lot. So many, that this set is still the fourth highest produced modern GPK set. However, the Collector tins, and to an extent the Retail Display boxes aren’t nearly as overly produced as some recent series. Collector tins might dry up fairly quickly and could see pricing increase on those. Blasters however, will be side by side with Chrome 5 and Book Worms boxes on store shelves for weeks and months to come.
Finally, can we figure out how many base cards were produced? Not really, but we can use what we know and give it our best guess! We know Collector packs have 6 or 7 base cards per pack. We will go with 7 for those packs. Retail Display and Blaster also have 6 or 7, but there are more packs than usual that have 6, so let’s use 6.5 for these pack types.
Base Cards – (180,000 Collector packs * 7 cards per pack) + (1,557,000 Retail packs * 6.5 cards per packs) = 11,380,500 total base cards / 200 cards in set = 56,902 per base card
Still well over 10 million base cards! There will be plenty of base sets to go around. But hey, at least it’s less than half the Book Worms sets!
This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2023S1 (2021S2) GPK Vacation. If you missed Part 1 you can go here to catch up.