The 2023 GPKNews.com Best of GPK Awards, Vote Now!!!

Welcome to the 7th annual GPKNews 2023 Best of GPK Awards. This year saw Topps get back on schedule post pandemic, a good number of retail and online sets, and another round of GPK merchandise. What were your favorite things GPK in 2023? It’s your turn to help choose the Reader’s Choice awards!

Click here to vote now in the 2023 GPKNews.com Best of GPK Awards!

Read on for an explanation about how the categories and nominees were chosen, along with the fine print of voting.

Here are the categories to be voted on this year:

  • 2023 Retail Set of the Year – With Chrome 5 coming out after last year’s awards, there are four retail sets to choose from in 2023!
  • 2023 Online Set of the Year – Another full year of online offers! Everything from expansion sets, MLB, packed out sets, and sets with sketches! What was your favorite online release of the year?
  • 2023 Non-Traditional Set of the Year – Second year for this award! Do you like sets from stores, sets from cons, or maybe you’re a Fanatics executive? Which one was your favorite?
  • 2023 Licensee of the Year – Always a hotly contested category. Which company represented GPK best this year?
  • 2023 GPK Rookie Sketch Artist of the Year – The rookie sketch artist award is back! A whopping 17 first time GPK artists in 2023 to choose from!
  • 2023 GPK Sketch Artist of the Year – To be eligible an artist must have had official Topps GPK sketch cards appear in a set in 2023. Two retail and two online sets featured sketches this year! Over xx sketch artists in 2023. Who was your favorite?
  • 2023 GPK Artist of the Year – To be eligible an artist must have painted an official Topps GPK final published card in 2023. Retail, Online, Convention, and Licensed sets are eligible. Don’t see your favorite on the list? Feel free to choose the write-in option and vote for them!
  • 2023 GPK Card of the Year – All GPKs published in 2023 are eligible. Retail, Online, Convention, and Licensed cards are eligible. For nomination purposes if a/b versions are available, only the “a” card is listed. There are hundreds to pick from! Don’t see your favorite on the list? Feel free to choose the write-in option and vote for them!

Categories and nominees were chosen by the Editor of GPKNews.com. Any GPK releases after 12/17 will be eligible in next year’s (2024) awards. Categories such as best artist, sketch artist, and best card also contain a write-in option. Write-in votes will only be counted for a valid artist/card. Voting will be live from Sunday 12/17 through Sunday 12/24 @ 8:00 PM(PST). Voting will only be done through Facebook. Participants can only vote once. Vote totals or individual votes cast will not be made public. Winners will be revealed in a future article that will appear on GPKNews.com right around the 1st of January.

Topps Launches 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Was the Worst Cards #9-#11

We’ve reached the final day of launches for the set that shows the worst in pop culture this year. Today Topps launched Garbage Pail Kids 2023 Was the Worst cards #9-#11. Today’s cards ends the week long launches to finish the set at 11 card. Collectors who purchase have a 1:5 chance at receiving a Sad Face parallel card. Each card can be purchased for $9.99, in a lot of 5 for $29.99, or a lot of 10 for $49.99. Shipping is free when choosing the Economy option. The cards are available for 24 hours on Topps.com. Topps will reveal the print run at the end of the sale. Here are pictures of today’s cards.

Topps Launches 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Was the Worst Cards #7 & #8

Topps continues on with the set celebrating the worst of pop culture in 2023. Today Topps launched Garbage Pail Kids 2023 Was the Worst cards #7 & #8. This is the second to last day of launches for the set. Collectors who purchase have a 1:5 chance of receiving a Sad Face parallel. Each card can be purchased for $9.99, in a lot of 5 for $29.99, or a lot of 10 for $49.99. Shipping is free when choosing the Economy option. The cards are available to purchase for 24 hours from Topps website. Topps will reveal the print run at the end of the sale. Here are pictures of today’s cards.

Topps Launches 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Was the Worst Cards #5 & #6

Day three of GPKs celebrating the worst of pop culture is upon us. Today Topps launched Garbage Pail Kids 2023 Was the Worst cards #5 & #6. Collectors who purchase have a 1:5 chance at receiving a Sad Face parallel card. Each card can be purchased for $9.99, in about of 5 for $29.99, or a lot of 10 for $49.99. Shipping is free when choosing the economy option. The cards will be available for 24 hours on Topps.com. Topps will reveal the print run at the end of the sale. Here are pictures of today’s cards.

Topps Launches 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Was the Worst Cards #3 & #4

It’s day two of the week long launches for the cards celebrating the worst in pop culture in 2023! Today Topps launched 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Was the Worst Cards #3 & #4. Collectors have an 1:5 chance to receive a sad face parallel card. Each card can be purchased for $9.99, in a lot of 5 for $29.99, or a lot of 10 for $49.99. Shipping is free when choosing the Economy option. The cards are available for 24 hours on Topps.com. Topps will reveal the print runs at the end of the sale. Here are pictures of today’s cards.

Topps Launches 2023 GPK Was the Worst Cards #1 & #2

The worst of GPK is back! Once again Topps is ending the year with 2023 GPK Was the Worst. Today Topps launched cards #1 & #2 in the set. There will be a total of 11 cards, sold two per day this week, with three on Friday. The cards are being sold individually, like last year. Collectors can find Sad Face parallels inserted 1:5. Each card can be purchased for $9.99, in about of 5 for $29.99, or a lot of 10 for $49.99. Shipping is free when choosing the Economy option. The cards are only available for 24 hours on Topps website. Topps will reveal the front run at the end of the sale. Here are pictures of today’s cards.

Topps Reveals Print Run for 2023 GPK Oh the Horror-ible Week 6

After ending last Thursday, Topps revealed the print run for 2023 Garbage Pail Kids Oh the Horror-ible Expansion Set Week 6. Sales for the final set of the series ended at 1,220. Sales were down about 100 from the previous week. This week’s sales were also the lowest of the series. Launching over the Thanksgiving holiday most likely hurt initial sales of the set. This marks the final expansion set of 2023. Online sets aren’t finished for the year however, the worst is still to come.

Topps Announces 2024 Garbage Pail Kids: Kids At Play Retail Sell Sheet

We may just be coming off of a retail release, but Topps is gearing up for another one in just two months. Today Topps announced 2024 Garbage Pail Kids: Kids At Play. The new set features all new art and gags focused on children’s play time and activities. Perhaps the biggest news is the return of Retail products. After the previous release 2023S2 InterGoolatic Mayhem only had Hobby products, it appears Retail packs types will be returning to your local Target and Walmart stores. In fact, the Retail Sell Sheet is the first one out this time, the Hobby sell sheet should be out soon. The set will once again feature 200 base cards, 100 new pieces with a/b versions. All artwork for the set was done by David Gross, Joe Simko, Brent Engstrom, and Joe McWilliams.

The usual suspects for parallels are set to return to retail packs. Booger Green can be found 1 per retail pack, Yellows can be found 1:5 in Value Box (Blaster), Blues /99 can be found in Retail Display boxes, while Gray /199, Gold /50, and Printing Plates 1/1 can be found in all pack types. Artist autographs will once again be in the set. In addition the two autos types that debuted in the last set, Gold Auto /50, and Foilfractor Auto 1/1, will return. There will also be two insert sets exclusive to retail packs. Let’s Get Physical is the Tom Bunk insert set that can only be found in Retail Display boxes. Ill-Infulences, an insert with gags on popular toys, gaming, and sports will be exclusive to Blaster boxes. Finally, of course there will be sketch cards. Regular sketch cards can be found in all retail pack types. Loaded Puzzle and Panoramic sketches will be exclusive to Blasters.

You can view the sell sheets below or the PDF can be found here. 2024 Garbage Pail Kids: Kids At Play is set to release, 1/24/24.

GetAGrip Launching Three Discraft Buzzz’s

GetAGrip is more than just skateboards. The company announced today on their social channels that they would be launching three new Discraft Buzzz’s tomorrow. Collectors can choose from frosbee golf discs featuring Nasty Nick, Dead Ted, or Grim Jim. The company previously launched two other Discraft discs earlier this year. Pricing has not yet been revealed. The discs will go on sale tomorrow, 12/1/24, at 1:00 PM EST on their website.

How Many 2023S2 GPK InterGoolatic Mayhem Were Produced? Part 2

This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2023S2 GPK InterGoolatic Mayhem. 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 2023S2 Garbage Pail Kids InterGoolatic Mayhem. Here’s a review of what we came up with.

  • Total Production – 900,600 Total Packs
  • Collector – 465,000 Collector Packs or about 19,375 Collector Boxes or about 2,422 Collector Cases
  • Hobby – 435,600 Hobby Packs or about 18,150 Hobby Boxes or about 2,268 Hobby Cases

I’ll be using these numbers to try to come up with an idea of 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? Since there are only two pack types and the supplied odds by Topps seem to be correct, figuring out production on everything should be easy! 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, Artist Autos /75 /50 1/1, and Patches /199 /99 /75 /50 1/1. We now need to figure out all the unnumbered parallels and inserts.

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

  • Black Borders – 465,000 Collector packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 465,000 total Black borders / 200 cards in set = 2,325 per card.
  • Green Borders – 435,600 Retail packs / 1 Odds (doh) = 435,600 total Green borders / 200 cards in set = 2,177 per card.

Figuring out production for the unnumbered parallels ends up being very easy. Collectors are used to seeing Black border production much less than Green border. This is the first set where Green borders are actually rarer than Black borders! On Black borders, this is the also highest number of Black borders per card ever produced, even more than Book Worms! Green borders marks the lowest number produced since the We Hate the 90’s set in 2019. Much different experience for collectors on the unnumbered parallels.

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

  • Wacky Packages – 465,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 19,375 total Wacky Package / 8 cards in set = 2,421 per Wacky
  • Kosmic Krashers – 465,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 19,375 total Krashers / 5 cards in set = 3,875 per Krashers
  • 3D Morph – 465,000 Collector packs / 24 odds = 19,375 total Morph / 4 cards in set = 4,843 per Morph
  • Time Warp – 900,600 Total packs / 3 odds = 300,200 total TW / 20 in set = 15,010 per Time Warp
  •  Space Farce– 900,600 Total Packs / 3 odds = 300,200 total SF / 10 cards in set = 30,020 per card

Given what we learned about the number of each box type, these numbers make sense. Time Warp and Space Farce are in line with recent retail only insert sets. The Collector exclusive insert sets meanwhile all have higher than usual print runs.

That covers all the various card types in the set. As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, very easy to figure out numbers this time. One final thing I wanted to point out was the huge discrepancy in where the “big hits” are in each box type. Most of the bigger hits in the product can be found in both box types. However, as the odds show, Hobby boxes have very few of each type. Let’s take a look at the numbers for each one.

  • Plates (Collector) 465,000 Collector packs / 1,220 odds = 381 plates in Collector Packs
  • Plates (Hobby) 435,600 Hobby packs / 26,577 odds = 16 plates in Hobby
  • Autos (Collector) 465,000 Collector packs / 65 odds = 7,153 autos in Collector Packs
  • Autos (Hobby) 435,600 Hobby packs / 1,377 odds = 316 autos in Hobby
  • Gold Autos (Collector) 465,000 Collector packs / 98 odds = 4,744 Gold Autos in Collector Packs
  • Gold Autos (Hobby) 435,600 Hobby packs / 2,065 odds = 210 Gold Autos in Hobby
  • Foilfractors (Collector) 465,000 Collector packs / 5,016 odds = 92 Foilfractors in Collector Packs
  • Foilfractors (Hobby) 435,600 Hobby packs / 106,308 odds = 4 Foilfractors in Hobby
  • Pano Sketches (Collector) 464,000 Collector packs / 1,422 odds = 327 Panos in Collector Packs
  • Pano Sketches (Hobby) 435,600 Hobby packs / 30,374 odds = 14 Panos in Hobby

Just 16 Plates in Hobby! 14 Pano sketches! 4 Foilfractors! While Hobby boxes do have the big hits in them, the odds are heavily skewed towards Collector boxes. Collectors should keep this in mind when choosing which boxes they want to buy.

InterGoolatic Mayhem marks unfamiliar territory for collectors. By not producing retail packs, it brings a whole new mindset to odds and production numbers. The big question is will this continue for the GPK brand? Will the 2024 sets also be Hobby only? Is this just the new Fanatics distribution model, or is there a marked decline in GPK popularity? 2024 will answer a lot questions on the direction Topps is taking the GPK brand.

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! Both Collector and Hobby pack types seem to have 6 base cards. The number of inserts, parallels, and hits being the average down for this series. So we are going to go with 6 base cards in each pack type.

Base Cards – 900,600 total packs * 6 base cards per pack = 5,403,600 total base cards / 200 cards in set = 27,018 per base card

At just over 27k sets, it’s the lowest number of base sets since the Late to School set. Also, less than half of the base cards compared to the recent Vacation release. Still, there are plenty of sets for everyone that wants one! Go get one now!

This is Part 2 of a two part series on the production of 2023S2 GPK InterGoolatic Mayhem. If you missed Part 1 you can go here to catch up.