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This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2022S1 GPK Book Worms. 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 2022S1 Garbage Pail Kids Book Worms. Here’s a review of what we came up with.

• Total Production – 3,635,000 Packs
• Collector – 405,000 Collector Packs or about 16,875 Collector Boxes or about 2,109 Collector Cases
• Retail Display – 564,000 Retail Display Packs or about 23,500 RD Boxes or about 2,937 RD Cases
• Mega Box – 2,681,000 Mega Box packs or 157,705 Mega boxes

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? Topps actually helped us out with this set. By eliminating Fat Packs and cancelling Blasters, this set ends up being the cleanest one in a long time to figure out numbers for. This is a rare time where we are able to get usable data on nearly every card type. 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 Gray /199, Blue /99, Red /75, and Gold /50 for the parallels, and Patch Cards (/199, /99, /75, /50, 1/1). Like most sets there are changes with this one. Most notable artist autographs are no longer numbered. However we know artists were given 170 of each card to sign, (160 to be inserted + 10 for replacements).

First let’s figure out production for the two parallels that aren’t numbered.

• Black Borders – 405,000 Collector packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 405,000 total Black borders / 200 cards in set = 2,025 per card.
• Green Borders – 3,245,000 Retail packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 3,245,000 total Green borders / 200 cards in set = 16,225 per card.

Topps actually made this pretty straight forward to figure out. There are only 8 card retail packs in Retail Display and Mega boxes. Each one has 1 green border. With production being up over 100%, we see those results in the parallels. Both Black and Green per card numbers are higher than any previous GPK set. Lots of parallel sets to go around.

Now let’s take a look at the various insert sets.

• Wacky Package Prose – 405,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 16,875 total Wacky Package / 8 cards in set = 2,109 per card
• Book Marked! – 405,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 16,875 total Book Marked / 5 cards in set = 3,375 per card
• Iron-On Patch – 405,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 16,875 total Iron-Ons / 6 in set = 2,812 per patch
• Author’s of Their Own Misfortune – 564,000 Retail Display Packs / 3 odds = 188,000 total Author’s / 10 cards in set = 18,800 per card
• Gross Adaptations (#1-15) – 2,681,000 Mega Box Packs / 2 odds = 1,340,500 total GA / 15 cards in set = 89,366 per card

With the recent release of the Walmart Toy Aisle Mega Box, it throws a wrench into trying to figure out the numbers for all the Gross Adaptations cards. With the odds being exactly the same for cards 16-20 and 21-25, we can’t determine the print run for each. We can’t assume Topps printed 50% of both types of boxes. Without knowing the ratio of each type of Mega box, we can’t figure out the numbers. However, Gross Adaptations 1-15 being over 89k is more than base cards in Food Fight! That insert set alone is larger than any base set released in the last 12 years. Increases in the other inserts can also be easily seen. As with parallels, there are no inserts that are particularly rare.

With production being so high, collectors have noticed that the “hits” are few and far between. The odds listed for plates and artist autographs are much longer than collectors are used to. If you are hunting those, let’s take a look at the distribution of both plates and autos in each pack type.

• Collector packs 405,000 / 35 auto odds = 11,571 autos in Collector packs
• Retail Display packs 564,000 / 228 auto odds = 2,473 autos in Retail Display packs
• Mega Box packs 2,681,000 / 1,055 auto odds = 2,541 autos in Mega Box packs
• Collector packs 405,000 / 1,480 Plate odds = 273 plates in collector packs
• Retail Display packs 564,000 / 16,834 Plate odds = 33 plates in Retail Display packs
• Mega Box packs 2,681,000 / 29,166 Plate odds = 91 plates in Mega Box packs

The auto distribution flipped from Food Fight. The majority of autos are now in Collector boxes. This isn’t surprising, we know the artists signed 160 autos to be inserted into packs. We also see the increased print run for Collector boxes, with one guaranteed hit per collector box all these additional autos had to go in Collector boxes. Plate distribution is roughly the same compared to Food Fight. Another note on these numbers. If you add up all the autos and divide by 100 (auto cards in the set), it’s comes to an average of 165 per auto. Which is very close to the 160 Topps had the artists sign for the set. Total plates in all three pack types add up to 397 plates. Oh so close to the 400 plates Topps inserts into the product. This reinforces we are on the right track with our production numbers.

Now let’s take a look at how many of each sketch card is inserted into the product.

• Regular Sketch – 564,000 Retail Display packs / 186 odds = 3,032 regular sketches in Retail Display packs
• Shaped Sketch – 405,000 Collector packs / 356 odds = 1,137 Shaped Sketches in Collector packs
• Triptych Sketch – 405,000 Collector packs / 2,654 odds = 153 Triptych Sketches in Collector packs

This is one of the few times we are able to run numbers on sketches. On average the total sketches inserted match up to what Topps assigned the 59 artists GPKNews identified for the set.

It’s hard to wrap my head around just how much 2022S1 Book Worms was printed. None of the parallels or inserts are rare, there is a lot of everything to go around as long as boxes of the product are busted. Are there enough new GPK collectors to support this high of print run? That remains to be seen. What will also be  interesting in the future is what will production numbers look like for upcoming sets. Will the increases continue?

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 and Retail Display packs have 6 or 7 base cards per pack. We will go with 7 for those packs. Mega boxes also have 6 or 7, but of the 17 packs in a box, 10 or 11 have 6 cards, so let’s use 6.5 for Mega box packs.

Base Cards – 404,000 Collector packs + 564,000 Retail Display packs = 969,000 packs * 7 cards per pack = 6,783,000 base cards + 2,681,000 Mega packs * 6.5 cards per packs = 24,209,500 total base cards / 200 cards in set = 121,047 per base card

Wow! Over 24 million base cards! 121k base sets available!!! GPK isn’t a little tiny niche anymore. These numbers approach some sports card sets. While we can’t figure out ANS print runs, I’m thinking these numbers might exceed those sets. Time to reach for the heights of OS!

This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2022S1 GPK Book Worms. If you missed Part 1 you can go here to catch up.

This is Part 1 of a 2 part series on the production of 2022 Series 1 Garbage Pail Kids Book Worms. Part 2 will be posting soon.

Collectors have had to wait a long 17 months for a new retail GPK set from Topps. With that long of a wait and reported sticker stock shortages, collectors wondered just how much Topps would print of 2022 Series 1 Garbage Pail Kids Book Worms. Any thoughts of a limited print run were thrown out quickly after odds started coming out. After running the numbers its clear this is the largest printed GPK set since at least 2010, and it’s not even close. So just how much of this set was produced? Read on to find out!

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 its 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!)

To begin we need to figure out how many packs were made for the entire print run. We need to use a card type that has the same odds across all various pack types, and where we know the number made. This time there are two types of cards that fit this description, Moby Dick Gray and Fool’s Gold parallels. First, a couple of notes.  As a Topps tradition, they have once again overstated the parallels by double. While Topps left off the 1 per pack parallels like Green and Black from the odds, the other parallels are falling at twice the rate they should based on actual case breaks. This isn’t surprising as just about every retail set has been this way since 2015. Come on Topps, change your methods! The one good thing with this release is because Topps eliminated Fat Packs and cancelled Blasters, with only three box types, it’s very easy to determine most numbers. We have more insight to this set than any other in recent memory.

Gold parallels are listed at 1:726/727 in Collector, Retail, and Mega packs. Since the odds are overstated by double, I’ll be using 1:363.5 as the actual gold odds. There are 200 base cards in the set. This release the Golds are /50 on the back. Therefore, 200 * 50 number of golds per card = 10,000 total gold parallels * 363.4 odds = 3,635,000 total packs made for this release! Holy crap, that can’t be right, is it!?! Ok let’s look at the Gray parallels. Printed odds are 1:183 in Collector, Retail, and Mega packs. Since odds are overstated by double, I will use 1:91.5 as the odds. So, 200 * 199 number of Grays per card = 39,800 total Gray parallels * 91.5 odds = 3,641,700 total packs made for this release! Sticker stock shortages my a$$!!! The print run for this set is  double that of Food Fight, which was already the highest set since we’ve had pack odds. It’s clear GPK is riding the same wave with the rest of the trading card industry, with demand skyrocketing over the last couple of years.

Now that we know total pack production, let’s try to break it down by pack type. Collector and Retail Display packs are easy to figure out because they have a couple of different numbered parallels or inserts exclusive to the pack. Let’s look at red parallels and patches for Collector first.

• Patch Cards – 10 cards in set * 199 made per card = 1,990 total patches * 203 odds = 403,970 Collector packs made
• Red Herring borders – 200 cards in set * 75 made per card = 15,000 total Red borders * 27 odds = 405,000 Collector packs made

Both of these numbers are very close, and gives us a great idea how many Collector packs were made. I’m going to use 405,000 as the pack number for Collector packs. Now let’s look at the Blue parallels for the Retail Display packs.

• Sleep Drool Blue borders – 200 cards in set * 99 made per card = 19,800 total Blue borders * 28.5 odds = 564,300 Retail Display packs made

To make things easy I’ll use 564,000 as the Retail Display pack number. Looking at both the Collector and Retail Display pack numbers compared to the previous release, 2021S1 Food Fight, we can start seeing where the significant increases are. Collector packs are nearly double form Food Fight. Retail Display backs aren’t quite double, but show huge gains. So if Topps eliminated Fat Packs and cancelled Blasters, where are all the other packs? All at Walmart in their exclusive Mega boxes. We know there are 3,635,000 total packs – 405,000 Collector packs – 564,000 Retail Display packs = 2,681,000 total Mega packs! That puts total retail pack production at double of Food Fight. These numbers are really big!

Here’s what I believe the total production numbers to be for Book Worms:

• Total Production – 3,635,000 Packs
• Collector – 405,000 Collector Packs or about 16,875 Collector Boxes or about 2,109 Collector Cases
• Retail Display – 564,000 Retail Display Packs or about 23,500 RD Boxes or about 2,937 RD Cases
• Mega Box – 2,681,000 Mega Box packs or 157,705 Mega boxes

Production is up significantly over Food Fight. This is the fourth straight GPK release to set record release numbers. We aren’t in OS territory yet, but it’s been years since GPK has seen production like this. Take a look at how production compares to recent sets.

• Total Pack Production
  • Late to School – 670,000
  • 35th Anniversary – 1,113,000
  • Food Fight – 1,790,000
  • Book Worms – 3,635,000 (103.1% increase in production vs. Food Fight)
• Collector Pack Production
  • Late to School – 74,000
  • 35th Anniversary – 130,000
  • Food Fight – 225,000
  • Book Worms – 405,000 (80% increase in production vs. Food Fight)
• Retail Pack Production
  • Late to School – 596,000
  • 35th Anniversary – 983,000
  • Food Fight – 1,565,000
  • Book Worms – 3,245,000 (107.3% increase in production vs. Food Fight)

After figuring out numbers on sets for 7 years now, i have never seen an over 100% increase, or double in production. I continue to be amazed by the production numbers over the last 3 years. The popularity of trading cards, including GPK, has exploded and it remains to be seen how long the increases will continue. The odds are so long on hits now, it’s takes 2 Collector cases to just hit 1 sketch card. Printing plates, that were fairly abundant in Collector cases, are now 1:7 cases. Topps has now had to increase auto print run to 160, and add patch card parallels just to get enough hits for Collector boxes. Perhaps most interesting is how this will play out the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. Does the Chrome OS 4 print run surpass Boom Worms? Will Topps find enough sticker stock to print 2021S2 Vacation, and how much gets printed? The coming months will be fascinating to see how Topps navigates the GPK landscape.

This is Part 1 of a 2 part series on the production of 2022 Series 1 Garbage Pail Kids Book Worms. In Part 2 we will look at production numbers for all parallel and insert sets. Part 2 will be posted soon.