Looks like Topps landed on a formula to allow a large percentage of EQL submitters to "win" their draw. 2 box max, price the product 50% too high, and make it the most highly printed Chrome product ever. OK, just guessing on that last one. But I bet it's not far off. I hope to be able to calculate it soon. #2026ToppsChromeNFL

2026 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Halloween Currently waiting on odds for all the good stuff, but these prices just dropped and odds have been out for a minute, so here's a quick breakdown for those interested in ghoulish Halloween kiddos. Drop date Thursday 10/22 at 11am CT via EQL Drop price: $75/box Configuration: 3 packs of 8 cards Keep in mind, this is fully the Garbage Pail Kids universe. There is no sports crossover with this one. Which is probably why the release is extremely limited. EQL seems a bit odd, but maybe because production is tight. Total cards in product: 162,000 Total boxes produced: Hobby- 6,000 (600 cases) Hit Rates (assuming cases are 10 boxes as they were for GPK Valentine's): Autos- 1 per 6 boxes 1/1 Sketches- 1 per 4 boxes Auto + Sketch- 1 per 2.4 boxes (~4.2/case) Parallels- 1.3/box Inserts- 1.35/box Numbered cards- 0.75/box Value metrics: $/card- $3.13 $/parallel- $58.54 $/auto or sketch- $180.00 $/# card- $98.88 $/quality hit- $51.80 I really have no guidance for this one. So hopefully you're able to glean what you need to from the numbers themselves. I did notice GPK Valentine's boxes are currently selling for $125-$150, so maybe there is some upside potential here. Print Runs: Base card production: ~2,875 ea Unnumbered parallels: Wrapper Rainbow Foil (25 card CL)- ~65 ea Artwork Variations (10 card CL)- ~150 ea Unnumbered Inserts: C Names (25 card CL)- ~240 ea Scream Queens (10 card CL)- ~200 ea Final Artwork Redemption- no data on this subset, but there are only ~25 total cards in the product so I'm assuming a 25 card checklist of 1/1s Autos/Sketches: Artist Autos (10 card CL)- ~100 ea Sketch Cards (53 card CL)- all 1/1, but looks like ~28 from each artist, 1500 total sketches throughout the product #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026GarbagePailKidsHalloween

Quite a week this week. Here's what stands out to me: 1) Pro Debut @ $140. +$30 over last year. Bummer but not unexpected. Still a buy for me. 2) Topps Chrome NFL $440/Hobby 🤢 3) Heritage NFL $140/Hobby. For NFL folks that came over with Topps licensing, if you want to give this one a shot, you'll want to make sure to get in early. This will likely shoot up to $200+ and in no way will it be worth it. This is dryer than Flagship. Less autos, less numbered cards. 4) Disney Vault $1200 for 2 cards. Marvel Vault was $680 for 2 cards (1 auto), which was wild but upon close inspection was not as terrible as it sounded. Disney said "Hold my beer". 5) Garbage Pail Kids Halloween is EQL. Sounds wild, but there are only 6,000 boxes produced. So maybe I get it? 6) For fun rips, it's hard to beat the Holiday issues at $30/mega. In the past, the other formats were not good, so you'll probably want to stick to Megas unless you have a little one doing the Advent Calendar thing the way it's supposed to be done. Don't expect huge value from Holiday in general. But it's hard to find a better $30 rip. And you will be able to get them. They make a lot of it. 7) If you're into WWE, Stadium Club will be a fun rip with not terrible value. And Megas are actually solid for this release. Since we've had odds for a while, I broke that down here: xitter.cf/WaxMetrix/status/21086…

Condensed Clean-Up Analysis: 2026 Triumphant Tennis 2026 Royalty Premier League 2025/26 Definitive NBA I'm not going to go into much depth on these. Small releases where nearly everything is numbered just don't require much in the way of analysis. But they're clogging up my desktop. And in the spirit of breaking down every release for which Topps drops odds, I'm going to do a rapid-fire breakdown for anyone interested. First, 2026 Triumphant Tennis. Product went up for pre-order on September 18th in preparation for a November 17th drop. Not sure if there was some sort of delay, but we've seen a few of these 2 month lags lately between pre-orders and drop. Not sure if I care for that trend. Hobby is the only format and pre-sales were priced at $170/box. Interestingly, last year's Triumphant Tennis dropped at $225/box. You can still find them for that price, and even less if you go the ebay route. For this reason, I wouldn't expect prices to spike on 2026 Triumphant. Although the market is weird lately, so who knows. Boxes contain 1 pack of 5 cards with every card being numbered /99 or less. Therefore, no print run data will be necessary. Topps states 3 autos/box. It appears that the other two cards will be one base /99 and one parallel /50 or less. The entire product consists of numbered base parallels and Autos. No inserts possible. Total cards in the product: 29,500 Total boxes produced: 5,900 (590 cases) Value Metrics based on pre-order price of $170/box: $/card- $34.00 $/Auto- $56.67 $/Parallel- $170.00 $/Quality Hit- $47.84 Takeaways: With the prices of major sports spiralling out of control, Tennis releases have been sneaky values as of late, and it feels like more folks are migrating toward them. At $170/box for 3 autos and nothing numbered over 99, this seems like a solid deal. I haven't scoured the checklist, but it seems the Tennis checklists don't vary greatly. Quality Hits at $47.84 ea is pretty great, but also what you would expect from a Tennis release. This does not have the upside potential of Royalty Tennis, which I recently covered, but there is less of this produced. And the price point for Royalty is 3.5x that of Triumphant- for only 2x the Autos. This should be a worthwhile alternative if you don't care to spend $580+ on a box of Tennis product. 2026 Royalty Premier League Drop date: September 24th Hobby format only with drop price of $1,000/box. Current market price- ~$3,600/box. Boxes contain 1 packs of 10 cards with the following dynamics: 6 Autos 2 Relics 1 Numbered Parallel 1 Base card /60 Total cards in the product: 53,000 Total boxes produced: 5,300 (1,325 cases) Value Metrics based on current market of $3,600/box $/card- $360 $/parallel- $3600 $/auto- $600 $/relic- $1800 $/quality hit- $360 Of note, by definition, every card in the product is a "Quality Hit". All base are /60 and there are no autos numbered greater than /99. There is a Rare Inserts chase in Royalty, the ultra elusive Liquid Silver & Liquid Gold. If you've never seen one in hand, they look amazing. At current market pricing the $/Rare Insert works out to $191,483.87. The Liquid Silvers are the only card in the product that aren't numbered. Though their print run is a paltry ~19 copies ea. Takeaways: I am a fan of Royalty, which is the closest thing Topps has to Panini's National Treasures. I hope we see Royalty baseball soon. For Premier League, I love it at drop pricing, and obviously the market agreed. Of course, I can't get on board at secondary market pricing. There will be some huge high-end hits in here. but it may be tricky to recoup the $3600 it takes to procure a box. 2025/26 Definitive NBA Drop date: September 17th Hobby & First Day Issue formats only: Hobby drop price- $8,000 FDI Dutch Auction closed at $14,750. Hobby Box Current Market Price- $14,750. Boxes consist of 1 pack of 8 cards with the following dynamics: 6 Autos 2 Non-Auto Relics Of the 6 autos, it appears there will be 2-3 Relic Autos per box, with FDI having 1 extra. Every card in the product is either an Auto, Relic Auto, or Non-Auto Relic. There are no base, base parallels, or inserts in Definitive. Every card is also numbered, so there will be no print run data necessary. Total cards in the product: 49,872 Total boxes produced: Hobby- 6,030 (3,015 2-box cases) FDI- 204 boxes (102 cases) Value metrics based on current market of $14,750/Hobby box. $/card- $1,475.00 $/auto- $2,458.33 $/relic auto- $6,220.57 $/quality hit- $1,779.68 Takeaways: As expected, Definitive breaks all value metrics. This is the highest-end of Topps high-end basketball products. If you're buying and ripping this, you laugh at value metrics. Those are for plebs. Soon, I'm expecting some odds for some huge upcoming releases (Flagship NBA, Heritage NFL, Holiday MLB & NFL). With those, I should be able to offer a little more from a substantive data perspective. Happy Hobbying. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026TriumphantTennis #2026RoyaltyPremierLeague #2025DefinitiveBasketball

If you're selling on ebay and shipping like this, you might want to re-think your strategies. Raw-dogging in an envelope ain't the way. And charging $5 while paying $.53 to ship isn't going to be racking you up many positive feedbacks.

2026 Topps Chrome Formula 1 Deep Dive I think I’ve had more requests for this one than any release in recent memory. I have been tied up with Japanese Samurai today, but even without that, odds dropped just a bit before the product went live. So proper analysis wasn’t coming before drop either way. Though I feel wholly unqualified to gauge actual value of an F1 product, I’m very aware that, even at $1K/Hobby Box, 2026 F1 Chrome is still far behind 2025 F1 Chrome pricing, which currently sits at ~$1450/box if you can find it. And that’s with an auto every two boxes. The F1 market is wild, man. So I guess the relevant question is...is any of this worth it? Is it worth snagging a Hobby from eBay since it’s only at $750-$800 and Big Bully Resellers are already at $1k? What about retail? It’s also hard to get, but doable. Is it worth paying $35 for a Value Box or $70 for a Mega? I think I can help answer those questions. Maybe even a few more. So let’s ride. Welcome to 2026 Topps Chrome Formula 1. Part 1: The Rundown The formats I will focus on are Hobby, Value Boxes, and the new to F1 Chrome, Megas. Hobby boxes have 20 packs of 4 cards- drop price $480/box Value boxes have 7 packs of 4 cards- retail price $35/box Megas have 6 packs of 7 cards- retail price $70/box There are some additional formats: •a First Day Issue SKU which ended at $1600 via Dutch Auction. But the value metrics of that won’t be in the same area code. •an upcoming Sapphire release which will be exorbitantly expensive •a Logofractor Edition, which if it’s anything like last year will only be available at the Fanatics flagship store in London •an Asian market exclusive Hongbao Box which will likely feature 8 cards and zero overlap with American formats Part 2: Production Numbers Total cards in product: 14,765,680 2025 Topps Chrome F1- 11,845,868 YOY- +24.6% Total Production by Format: Hobby- 54,504 boxes (4,542 cases) -----> -23% YOY First Day Issue- 1,050 boxes (88 cases) Value- 194,440 boxes (4,861 cases) ----> -15.5% YOY New Format: Mega- 116,120 boxes (5,806 cases) Part 3: Heat Map Hit Rates per Box: Hobby: Autos- 1 Parallels- 13.25 Inserts- 12 Numbered Cards- 3 Value: Autos- 1 per 77.5 boxes (1 per 1.94 cases) Parallels- 5.8 Inserts- 5.1 Numbered Cards- 1 per 1.4 boxes Mega: Autos- 1 per 19.4 boxes (1 per case) Parallels- 9.2 Inserts- 6.3 Numbered Cards- 1.5 % of Numbered Autos by Format: Mega- 100% Value- 82.23% Hobby- 81.95% Rare Inserts: Rare Inserts in this product include- Abu Dhabi At Night (Hobby only) Art Du Grand Prix (Value & Mega only) Anime Futuro Genesis Helix Helmet Collection Image Variations The Grail The Grid (Hobby only) I do want to mention the Retail exclusive Art Du Grand Prix: though technically a rare insert by definition as they fall 1 per case of Value & Mega boxes, the short checklist keeps the Print Runs over 2,000 copies ea, more than most people want to see from a “Rare Insert”. Rare Insert Hit Rates by Format: Hobby- 1 per 7.21 boxes (1.66/case) Value- 1 per 26.28 boxes (1.52/case) Mega- 1 per 13.28 boxes (1.51/case) It’s important to note, if you filter out the ubiquitous 1-per-case Art Du Grand Prix from the retail numbers and focus instead on the more desirable examples, you are left with a Rare Insert pull rate of 0.52 from Value & 0.51 from Megas...essentially 1 every other case. Part 4: Value Map Based on drop price of $480/Hobby and Retail price of $35/Value & $70/Mega. Just for fun, I’ll go ahead and add another entry for Hobby at current market of $785/box to see where it lands. Just be wary of buying any boxes from ebay. Overall, I suspect your chances of pulling one of the coveted Rare Inserts will be a little less from ebay boxes in general. $/Card: 1) Value- $1.25 2) Mega- $1.67 3) Hobby (drop)- $6.00 4) Hobby (market)- $9.81 $/Parallel: 1) Value- $6.07 2) Mega- $7.62 3) Hobby (drop)- $36.28 4) Hobby (market)- $59.33 $/Auto: 1) Hobby (drop)- $466.02 2) Hobby (market)- $762.14 3) Mega- $1,359.40 4) Value- $2,711.80 $/# Card: 1) Mega- $46.67 2) Value- $50.40 3) Hobby (drop)- $160.00 4) Hobby (market)- $261.67 $/Rare Insert: 1) Value- $919.80 2) Mega- $929.60 3) Hobby (drop)- $3,460.80 4) Hobby (market)- $5,659.85 $/Quality Hit: 1) Value- $113.75 2) Mega-$122.50 3) Hobby (drop)- $302.40 4) Hobby (market)- $494.55 Part 5: Experiment Time I like to do this from time to time, and I think this product is ripe for it. Let’s compare some rips at fairly equal spend. We did this for F1 Chrome last year and the results were rather eye-opening. Let’s say you’re trying to decide between an entire case of either Value or Mega boxes to rip, (assuming you can even find case quantity at retail). Or a similar expenditure on Hobby Boxes. I understand it may be a little lofty to expect to find even Values or Megas at retail anywhere near case quantity. But no one ever claimed this game is easy. Hobby- 2 boxes- $785 ea ($1570 total) Value- 1 case- $35 ea ($1400 total) Mega- 1 case- $70 ea ($1400 total) Expected Results: Hobby (2 boxes): Autos- 2 Parallels- 26.5 Inserts- 24 Numbered Cards- 6 Chance of a Rare Insert- 27.7% Value (40 boxes): Autos- 51.6% chance at 1 Parallels- 230.8 Inserts- 204.8 Numbered Cards- 27.8 Rare Inserts- 1.52 (1 Art Du Grand Prix, 52% chance at another) Mega (20 boxes): Autos- 1 Parallels- 183.8 Inserts- 125.4 Numbered Cards- 30 Rare Inserts- 1.51 (1 Art Du Grand Prix, 51% chance at another) Part 6: What Would the Squatch Do? I’m not trying to turn anyone away from Hobby boxes. They actually seem legit. And an auto per box this year should do wonders for value since the pull rate was half of that last year. Autos are the strongest case for Hobby with this release. On a side note, does 100 auto subjects seem a bit excessive for an F1 release? I didn’t realize there were that many folks in all of F1. I understand there’s also F2, F3, etc. etc. There were only 66 signers in the main auto subset last year. So I’m guessing there are a fair amount of filler names included. There is no denying Hobby boxes have mountains of upside- much more so than the retail formats. One lucky person will be pulling the only Debut Patch in the entire product from Hobby...and I hear Arvid Lindblad is decent. However, if you’re not trying to spend $800-$1k on a Hobby box, either Value Boxes or Megas should do just fine. There is plenty to like about them. Just because they don’t have the absolute highest nuclear upside with no Rookie Debut Patch potential, there are still plenty of monsters in retail. Value boxes have their own Raywave Rainbow. Megas have a “Checker Flag” Rainbow, which I suspect are just Chrome X-fractors pulling double duty. Strangely, there is almost no overlap in Autos in the three formats. Aside from a small number of Base Autos in Value Boxes, both Values and Megas have their own numbered auto parallels, most of which are /25 or less. Every single Auto pulled from Megas should be numbered. Some of the biggest Rare Inserts in the product are also pullable from retail formats. This includes Anime, Helix, Genesis, and The Grail. Not only are they in there, but retail SKUs are the cheapest way to pull all of them. Don’t sleep on retail with this F1 release. Those $ Per Quality Hit numbers of $113.75/Value & $122.50/Mega are JUICY. And miles better than Hobby boxes even at drop price. For all these reasons, I’ll be trying my best to find some Value or Mega boxes at retail price. I’d love to snag a case or two. I’m fine with either as the numbers are basically interchangeable. Honestly, I probably prefer Megas for the better Auto & Numbered Card pull rates. Funny story, last year F1 Chrome Value Boxes were pretty solid too. I gave them the Squatch seal of approval and was actually able to acquire a full case of them from one of my honey holes. I sat on them for a while, eventually deciding to sell, and didn’t do terribly. Pretty sure I unloaded them at something like $60/ea. Any idea what a case goes for now? Oh...only about $10k, or ~$250/box. Of course, that checklist had a rookie by the name of Kimi Antonelli who I hear is not bad. But the auto pull rate from Value Boxes last year was abysmal at 1 in 105 boxes. From a dynamics perspective, 2026 is better. Though from a checklist perspective maybe not. If you see these in public, they’re a buy. Especially retail SKUs. I don’t think Hobby is worth $800/box...but what do I know? I’m just a Neanderthal who writes about cards from his basement. If you're still reading this, I have a feeling you'd like the content over on my Substack. I have a metric ton of these product breakdowns of all Topps products imaginable. You should check it out: slabsquatch.substack.com/p/2… Part 7: Print Runs By the way...I have a question I’m hoping one of you F1 folks can answer for me: What is the significance of the number “22” when it comes to F1? A ton of the insert sets have 22 card checklists and there’s an odd “Grid Refractor” numbered /22. Please enlighten me if you know. It would be much appreciated. Base Card Production: ~46,915 ea Unnumbered Parallels: Refractors- ~4,715 ea Ray Wave (Value only)- ~3,405 ea Prism (Hobby only)- ~1,110 ea Checker Flag (Mega only)- ~3,485 ea Unnumbered Inserts: Austin to Mexico City (22 card CL)- ~16,460 ea Dancing in the Rain (22 card CL)- ~16,460 ea Helmet Collection (22 card CL)- ~16,460 ea Home Straight (25 card CL, Value & Mega only)- ~12,420 ea Speed Wheels (22 card CL)- ~16,460 ea Suit Up (25 card CL, Value & Mega only)- ~12,420 ea Women of the Paddock (11 card CL)- ~18,600 ea Rare Inserts: Abu Dhabi at Night (22 card CL, Hobby & FDI only)- ~26 ea Art Du Grand Prix (5 card CL, Value & Mega only)- ~2,135 ea Anime (9 card CL)- ~195 ea Futuro (4 card CL)- ~845 ea Genesis (10 card CL)- ~340 ea Helix (22 card CL)- ~100 ea Helmet Collection Image Variations (10 card CL)- ~100 ea The Grail G-1 (Lando Norris)- ~35 ea The Grail G-4 (Max Verstappen)- ~50 ea The Grail G-7 (Oscar Piastri)- ~60 ea The Grid (19 card CL, Hobby & FDI only)- ~25 ea Unnumbered Autos: Base Chrome Autos (100 card CL)- ~105 ea #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsChromeF1

2026 Topps Team Samurai Japan OK, here we go. I've wrestled with this tiny odds sheet more than would ever be necessary if Topps didn't have such a problem with execution. It's baffling. They can take monumental tasks, like Debut Patches, and make them work fairly smoothly. But when it comes to producing a tidy little Japanese money grab, they fumble the rock 3 or 4 times on the way to the end zone. I have the numbers figured out...basically. But I still have a problem. Or actually, Topps still has a problem. I just don't know if anyone would know about it without a good and proper deep dive into the numbers they provide. Welcome to 2026 Topps Team Samurai Japan. Round 2. Part 1: What's Going On? If you've been on hobby Twitter today, you've probably seen an email Topps sent to everyone who ordered this product. They admitted the odds they dropped were wrong. 🙋 Called that one. Although it wasn't at all tough to see. They are now giving buyers a window in which to request a refund due to their odds being butchered. It's not going to surprise a single soul when I say you probably don't want to do this. Or if you do, just sell your boxes to me and I'll give you 10% more than you paid.😁 However, this doesn't mean things are kosher. And I'm pretty sure I know why they're offering to let people out of their purchase. Let's just say...things may not be as they claimed. If the odds turned out better than what was stated, does anyone think they'd go out of their way to offer any refunds? Possibly, I suppose. Anyone backing out of paying pre-order pricing for the product gives Topps more boxes to sell at market pricing when that time comes. We all know that will not be anywhere near the original $150/box. But I think Topps is giving that option because the odds are worse than they stated. And noticeably so. Let's back up a bit. Part 2: The Rundown Boxes and packs originally dropped for pre-order almost 2 full months ago, on August 26th. Collector's Boxes contain 4 packs of 7 cards and were priced at $150. Packs also contain 7 cards and were priced at $40 each. One pivotal part of this fiasco is the Hit Rates claimed by Topps at the time of pre-orders: Boxes will produce 1 auto every 10 boxes. Packs will produce 1 auto every 100 packs. Now put that in your back pocket. We'll come back to it. Keep in mind there are some massive Autos in this, including a 1/1 Dual with Ohtani and Sadaharu Oh. I addressed all the ways in which Round 1 of odds was wrong in my original write-up, which is quoted. So I won't get into that here. There's plenty going on with Round 2, so that's what I'll focus on. Part 3: Production Numbers Total cards in the product: 973,000 That much, at least, I'm very confident in. Here's where it starts to get a little weird. Based on the odds Topps provided, production by format should look like this: Collector's Boxes- 54,000 packs (13,500 boxes) Loose Packs- 85,000 Total Pack count- 139,000 Total pack count is solid either way. But I sure would have assumed Topps would have put a majority of this product in the Collector's Boxes. That's just not what the numbers say. Which leads me to my first "What if...". It's possible Topps Spreadsheet guy labeled the formats wrong. And there are two reasons why this could be the case. 1) It's just weird to have more Loose Pack production than Collector's Boxes. But definitely possible. 2) Odds are very similar across the board. But there is just enough difference to allow me to calculate the pack production for each with confidence. However, there are 27 different odds that have some variance. Of those, 15 are showing better in favor of Loose Packs. Which is also weird. Any Topps connoisseur might assume that, if anything, Collector's Boxes should offer slightly better odds than loose-ass packs. But that is also conjecture. That said, these don't make a huge difference in the product itself. They either produced more loose packs than boxes, or they didn't. It doesn't really matter that much. But I'm pretty confident that one format has 54k packs and the other has 85k packs produced. But let me tell you what DOES make a difference... Part 4: Heat Map Remember how Topps stated 1 auto per 10 boxes & 1 auto per 100 packs? About that...their odds absolutely do not agree. If we're taking them at face value, here's what the odds say about Hit Rates: Collector's Box: 1 Auto per 15.67 boxes 3 Parallels/box (I'm including Short Prints as Parallels, not inserts) 1 Insert/box 2 Numbered Cards/box Loose Packs: 1 Auto per 62.5 packs 0.73 Parallels/pack 0.27 Inserts/pack 0.5 Numbered cards/pack Most of this matches up with everything Topps has said about the product. According to Topps, Packs should produce 1 SP, Parallel, or Insert. The odds agree. Basically, half the packs should produce a numbered parallel, 1/4th should produce an unnumbered parallel, and 1/4th should produce an insert. We're good there. Topps also said Collector's boxes should produce 2 numbered cards. To take that further, of the 4 packs in a Collector's box, 3 should produce a parallel (2 of them numbered), and the other should contain an insert. Very logical. We're good there. Rare Inserts: Rare Inserts in this product include Tokyo Neon Nights & Samurai Spirit. I have to say, both look pretty sweet. Though I would love to have seen Sensational Samurai as a Rare Insert, which I believe are the best looking insert in the product. Rare Insert Hit Rates: Collector's Box- 1 in 37.2 packs (1 in 9.3 boxes) Loose Packs- 1 in 37.2 packs Part 5: But what is up with these autos? 1 per almost 16 Collector's Boxes is significantly worse than the 1:10 that Topps stated. And weirdly, 1 per 62.5 Loose packs is quite a bit better than they stated. A quick glance at the odds will clearly tell you that huge Auto pull rate discrepancy that Topps stated (1:40 packs in boxes vs. 1:100 loose packs) just does not exist. The Auto odds are very nearly identical. Meaning, regardless of the format you buy, your odds to pull an auto are very close to 1 in 62.5 packs. Realistically, this is a huge win for those who procured individual packs on pre-order, and a pretty significant loss for those who secured boxes. Even though the rates are technically very similar, just not what we were told. Part 6: What If... #2 One more thing I have to point out, because I'm weird like that and I like to try and figure where exactly "Topps guy" went astray. Now, I don't know exactly where the mistake was made during this fiasco. Obviously there were several. I mean, we basically received Round 1 of odds on a product that didn't exist. But whatever. At least there are attempts being made to correct that. However, I find it uncanny that if you look at the total number of Autos seeded into 85k loose packs, you'll see there are ~1,360 of them. Hm. Weird. Remember how many Collector's Boxes we're showing as being produced? 13,500. So if someone mathed the wrong column and divided those out....literally 1 in 10 boxes. Except that's the loose packs column. Not boxes. Furthermore, based on the odds, the total number of Autos contained in 13,500 Collector's Boxes comes out to ~860. Remember how many Loose Packs we're showing as being produced? 85,000. If said someone also divided those out to...I don't know...post a stated hit rate or something...1 in 98.8 packs. Which is pretty damn close to 1 in 100. Except that's the Collector's Boxes column. Not loose packs. OK, we're deep in the weeds here. Let me rein this back in and finish up. Basically, all this to say, I don't know if Topps guy transposed a couple cells on a spreadsheet, or something more involved. But their odds and numbers agree on pretty much everything except the Auto Hit Rate, which coincidentally fit nicely when transposed. Part 7: Value Map Pricing based on Pre-order pricing of $150/Collector's Box & $40/Loose Pack. $/Card: 1) Collector's Box- $5.36 2) Packs- $5.71 $/Parallel: 1) Coll Box- $50.00 2) Packs- $54.95 $/Auto: 1) Coll Box- $2,350.50 2) Packs- $2,500.00 $/# Card: 1) Coll Box- $75.00 2) Packs- $78.43 $/Rare Insert: 1) Coll Box- $1,395.38 2) Packs- $1,489.20 $/Quality Hit: 1) Coll Box- $217.35 2) Packs- $231.76 Part 8: What Would the Squatch Do? If you were lucky enough to actually order boxes, don't freak out. You're fine. Collector's Boxes are still the best by a slim margin. But only because boxes are $37.50/pack vs $40 for loose packs. Either way, both of these formats are nearly identical and both will spike significantly in price. Should you cancel your order? LOL. Did anyone really even entertain that? But if you are annoyed by yet another instance of Topps shenanigans or incompetence (not quite sure which one applies here), feel free to hit me up. If you want to make an easy 10% ROI on your purchase, I got chu fam. Such a long write-up for such a short release. My bad...we had a lot to unpack here. Part 9: Print Runs Base card production: ~11,260 ea I also have Print Runs for all unnumbered parallels and inserts. But they're going on the Substack. This thing is long enough already. Here's a link: slabsquatch.substack.com/p/2… #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsTeamSamuraiJapan

It warms my heart to see all the messages and tags I got about Topps pushing back shipment on Team Samurai boxes. This seems like an appropriate re-post of what I had to say initially about it. Currently working on updated numbers. Just wanted to throw it out there that I kinda called this fiasco.

I knew some of these would slip through the cracks. And no, I wasn't quick enough to buy it.

2026 Topps Neon Marvel Analysis I understand this will be zero help to anyone considering drop already happened earlier today and it was a hot mess. But odds showed up ~45 min prior to launch, so it just wasn't happening in time. If you have any awareness of this release, it should have been an easy buy. You already know Hobby was already selling close to $400/box on the secondary market, even before the Topps launch went live. So you don't need any analysis to tell you that $110 was a stellar price that you should have grabbed if possible. No surprise there. So the question at this point: is it worth paying almost $400/box for Hobby? Or will one of the retail formats provide a worthy alternative if you'd rather not participate in that nonsense? With that, I think I can help. Welcome to 2026 Topps Neon Marvel. Part 1: The Rundown 4 Formats: Hobby- 5 cards/pack, 20 packs/box, 12 boxes/case Value Boxes- 5 cards/pack, 7 packs/box, 40 boxes/case Megas- 5 cards/pack, 10 packs/box, 20 boxes/case Super Boxes- 5 cards/pack, 12 packs + 3 bonus packs/box Pricing: Hobby preorder- $100/box, drop day pricing- $110/box Value- $25 Mega- $50 Super- $40 Part 2: Production Numbers Total cards in product: 35,370,110 Since this is the first year of Neon Marvel, I don't have a set from last year to compare that to. But here are a couple relevant comps: 2026 Disney Neon- 21,297,200 total cards 2026 Topps Chrome Marvel Comics- 20,800,576 total cards As you can see, Neon represents a significant jump over both Disney Neon and the next biggest Marvel release from this year, Topps Chrome Marvel Comics. Total Production by Format: Hobby- 62,500 boxes (5,208 cases) Value- 488,889 boxes (12,222 cases) Mega- 155,680 boxes (7,784 cases) Super- 56,333 boxes (4,694 cases) Part 3: Heat Map Expected Hit Rates Per Box: Hobby: Autos + Sketches- 1 per 6 boxes (2 per case) Parallels- 20.1 Inserts- 4.1 Numbered Cards- 2.1 Value: Autos + Sketches- 1 per 156.6 boxes (~4 cases) Parallels- 3.9 Inserts- 1.4 Numbered Cards- 1 per 3.9 boxes Mega: Autos + Sketches- 1 per 39.5 boxes (~2 cases) Parallels- 8.5 Inserts- 2.1 Numbered Cards- 1 Super Box: Autos + Sketches- 1 per 59.9 boxes (~5 cases) Parallels- 25.9 (this includes the ~15 "Base Cards Super Box Designs" found in the bonus packs.) Inserts- 6.5 Numbered Cards- 0.9 Rare Inserts: For this release, here is what I'm counting as rare inserts- 1-Up, Marquee Motion, Marvel Murals, Neon Heroines, Neon Tarots, & Neon Villains. Rare Insert Hit Rate by Format: Hobby- 1 per 11.7 boxes (~1 per case) Value- 1 per 38.6 boxes (~1 per case) Mega- 1 per 18.5 boxes (~1.1 per case) Super- 1 per 43.8 boxes (1 per 3.65 cases) Part 4: Value Map Based on release pricing of $110/box for Hobby and MSRP for all retail formats. $/Card: 1) Super- 67¢ 2) Value- 71¢ 3) Mega- $1.00 4) Hobby- $1.10 $/Parallel: 1) Super- $1.54 (Low rate due to the ~15 "Base Card Super Box Designs" in the Bonus Packs, which I've counted as parallels. Excluding those, Super Boxes still come in best at $/Parallel at $3.67.) 2) Hobby- $5.48 3) Mega- $5.88 4) Value- $6.38 $/Auto + Sketch: 1) Hobby- $660.00 2) Mega- $1,973.50 3) Super- $2,394.00 4) Value- $3,916.00 $/Numbered Card: 1) Super- $43.01 2) Mega- $48.08 3) Hobby- $52.38 4) Value- $96.25 $/Rare Insert: 1) Mega- $925.50 2) Value- $964.25 3) Hobby- $1,288.10 4) Super- $1,752.80 $/Quality Hit: Defined as any Base or Insert Parallel /75 or less, any unnumbered inserts 1/case or rarer, any Auto or Relic /100 or less. 1) Hobby- $82.61 2) Super- $103.96 3) Mega- $130.35 4) Value- $244.93 At $400/box, the math on Hobby boxes changes a bit: $/Card- $4.00 $/Parallel- $19.91 $/Auto + Sketch- $2,400.00 $/Numbered Card- $190.48 $/Rare Insert- $4,684.00 $/Quality Hit- $300.40 Part 5: Best Formats Obviously, at or near drop price of $110/box, Hobby is the best overall format. Congrats if you got in at that price. You should be pleased. But hold up. Even at drop pricing, Hobby is not the most cost effective way to pull Parallels or Inserts. Those go to Super Boxes & Megas respectively. Once we bump that up to current market pricing of $400/box, Hobby is actually the worst format for everything, including autos and sketches. Once Hobby price reaches about $330/box, Megas then become the best way to pull Autos/Sketches. I'm really struggling to see what warrants the 4x spike we're seeing in Hobby boxes. I'm just not seeing the value. If you're looking for Chromes, Hobby has the only Chromes I see on the odds sheet, the "Chrome Neon Etch". So that's a bit of a bummer. Those Chromes and a Sparkle Foil Rainbow are the only things exclusive to Hobby. If you care to buy Neon Marvel and you were unable to get in at drop pricing, like pretty much the rest of the world...I implore you to not pay market price for Hobby. Mega Boxes and Super Boxes are a far better buy. Sure, if you're looking to stash something for future sealed ROI, Hobby was the play. But that ship has sailed. Megas or Supers will not 4x in price. But they are far better value rips at current prices. Megas & Super Boxes share similar metrics and are both equally solid plays. The difference is from a $ Per Parallel perspective, Super Boxes are considerably better as they will have many more unnumbered parallels. But if that's not your jam and you'd rather go for the upside of Rare Inserts, Megas are Superior. It is worth noting that based on $ Per Quality Hit, Super Boxes offer the better overall value of the two. I wouldn't even worry about Value Boxes. As usual, the value they provide is almost non-existent. Part 6: Print Runs Base Card Production: ~138,930 ea Unnumbered Parallels: Base Rainbow Foil- ~14,410 ea Diamante Foil- ~4,680 ea Base Super Box Design- ~33,800 ea Red & Blue Foil (Super Box Bonus Packs)- ~25 ea Sparkle Foil- ~1,565 ea Chrome Neon Etch Base- ~625 ea Marvel Rivals Base Image Variation (20 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Unnumbered Inserts: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (20 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Glow Up (20 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Manga Madness (10 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Marvel Snap (20 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Marvel Snap XL (Super Box only, 16 card CL)- ~14,085 ea Pet Avengers Assemble (10 card CL)- ~16,855 ea Rare Inserts: 1-Up (20 card CL)- ~315 ea Marquee Motion (11 card CL)- ~200 ea Marvel Murals (6 card CL)- ~900 ea Neon Heroines (12 card CL)- ~730 ea Neon Tarots (12 card CL)- ~180 ea Neon Villains (10 card CL)- ~100 ea Unnumbered Autos: Giant-Sized Booklet Autos (10 card CL)- ~210 ea Manga Madness Autos (10 card CL)- ~220 ea Neighborhood Spider-Man Autos (13 card CL)- ~395 ea #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsNeonMarvel

2026 Topps Royalty Tennis Quick Breakdown Royalty Tennis drops for preorder in a few minutes, and we were just graced with odds a little bit ago. This won't be a super intensive breakdown, nor will one be required. But I wanted to get a little info out for those of you interested in a $580 tennis release. So here we go. Tennis. Premium. This should be interesting. Or futile. Definitely one of the two. The Basics: This release is scheduled for an EQL drop beginning at 11:00 AM CT today, 10/13. It is currently 10:57 AM, so let's see if I can knock this out within a few minutes. Appreciate the heads-up Topps. I suppose I can't complain since we do have odds before a pre-order, which is definitely not the norm. Boxes contain 1 pack of 10 cards. A 10 card box should essentially have the following dynamics: 6 Autos, 2 Relics, 2 Base or Parallels. Every card should be numbered aside from one, the super rare and quite awesome Liquid Silver Inserts. On Royalty releases, Topps typically claims 6 autos/box. The numbers show slightly higher, but having seen very little in the way of Royalty rips, I'm not sure if there will ever be more than 6 autos, or if it's just due to rounding or something. The Numbers: Total cards in the product: ~115,000 Total Boxes Produced: ~11,500 Hit Rates per Box: Autos- 6.6 Parallels- 1.33 Relics- 2.1 If we assume boxes are standard, then these numbers appear a bit wonky, even though they add up to almost precisely 10 cards. But it's definitely possible there is some variability in the boxes. If the numbers are accurate, and they usually are, then a considerable number of boxes should contain 7 autos instead of 6. And an occasional box could contain 3 Relics instead of 2. Also, 1 base card does not appear to be standard. Some boxes could contain 2 parallels as opposed 1 Base & 1 Parallel. In other Royalty releases, even the Base cards are numbered, though I'm not certain if that's the case here. I'm showing Base to have a print run of ~115 copies ea, so I'm assuming they won't be numbered. But it also wouldn't surprise me if they're numbered /99 or something. Being very precise, even in a short release such as this, seems to be an issue for Topps. So a 15 print run discrepancy on base would be par for the course with their odds sheet. Rare Inserts: As is becoming typical with a Royalty release, the only Insert is Liquid Silver/Liquid Gold. Which are both fantastic and super scarce. There are only about 100 of these combined within the entire product. Strangely, based on the odds, only 2 of the 5 Liquid Gold 1/1s are accounted for. Print Run on the Liquid Silvers is ~20 copies ea. These will deservedly be exorbitantly expensive. They are some of the finest looking cards in the hobby. These rare inserts should combine to fall ~1 per 120 boxes (30 4-box cases). Value Map: $/Auto- $88.01 $/Parallel- $434.88 $/# Card- $290.00 (This is deceptive because it does not include Autos or Relics) $/Relic- $273.16 $/Rare Insert- $69,285.83 $/Quality Hit- $62.10 The Verdict: At first glance a premium tennis product at $580 for 10 cards seems a bit ludicrous. But you have to look a bit deeper than that. Royalty is essentially Topps' version of National Treasures. The cards look great and there are a ton of chases and super premium cards buried in here. I don't have time to get into all of them as I'm in a time crunch to get this out but Racket Knobs, Booklets, Duals, Triples, and Shoe Relics all caught my eye. OK, so...it's tennis. Which is tough for resale. But if you are a tennis collector, I think this has all the names you would want. So there is definite high end upside here, both with premium cards and premium names. This is not the first Royalty Tennis release. A quick look at comps for 2024 Royalty Tennis show a whopping 21 sales over $10,000. Yes, you read that right. Now, that was Carlos Alcaraz' rookie season. For 2026, Joao Fonseca is a Rookie, which I know is also a big name. There will absolutely be a plethora of monster cards coming from this release. And at ~$60.00 per Quality Hit, buying this to rip or hold is not crazy talk. Nearly every single card qualifies as a Quality Hit. Just a couple weeks ago we had Topps Chrome Tennis hit the market, and it promptly doubled in price. There is substance here. The market for "loaded boxes" of alternate sports is catching fire. People are sick of the exorbitant pricing of major MLB, NFL, and NBA releases and the ROI that comes with them. Collectors are starved for quality product, so here we are, going after things like Tennis, WWE & Women's Soccer, since they boast some of the few remaining "Values" in the hobby. If you enter this EQL and are lucky enough to land some boxes, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I can't believe I just said that about a $580 10-card Tennis product. But it is what it is... No Print Runs Needed. You have 20 mintutes before EQL is complete. Good luck. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsRoyaltyTennis

2026 Topps Update Full Deep Dive is live. I spent an unreasonable amount of time figuring out which formats are actually worth buying so you don’t have to. Unfortunately, the video is nearly an hour long, so you'll have to spend an unreasonable amount of time watching it. Life hack: 2x speed. Sorry in advance. youtu.be/8Vz5lje0QNI

2026 Stadium Club WWE Deep Dive Stadium Club doing Stadium Club things. Cool photography. A mountain of parallels. And some sneaky nasty pulls. Welcome to 2026 Stadium Club WWE. Part 1: The Basics Product drops October 23. Pre-order pricing had Hobby boxes at $130. There are also Megas @ $50 & Value Boxes @ $25. Part 2: Production Numbers Total Cards in the Product: 16,898,970 I don't have odds for last year, so I can't compare YOY numbers. But, as we would expect, production is very similar to 2026 Stadium Club UFC, which came in at ~14.2m total cards. Total Production by Format: Hobby- 50,028 boxes (4,169 cases) Value- 189,265 boxes (4,732 cases) Mega- 80,292 boxes (4,015 cases) Part 3: Heat Map Expected Hit Rate by Format: Hobby: Autos- 2.16/box (Topps states 2, so we should see an extra auto in a fair amount of boxes) Parallels- 40.55 (Includes 16 Base Red & 16 Base Chrome per box) Inserts- 8.5 Numbered cards- 2.25 Value: Autos- 1 per 6.9 boxes Parallels- 8.1/box (Includes 3 Base Lime Green & 3 Base Chrome) Inserts- 1.9/box Numbered cards- 1 per 5.7 boxes Mega: Autos- 1 per 1.75 boxes (0.57 autos/box, ~11.4/case) Parallels- ~16/box (Includes 6 Base Light Blue & 6 Base Chrome) Inserts- 8.2/box Numbered cards- 0.9/box % of Numbered Autos across the product is only about 25%, which is one of the lowest numbers we see from any product. Rare Inserts: The only rare insert in Stadium Club WWE is Beam Team. Here's how those fall: Hobby- 1 per 12 boxes (1/case) Mega- 1 per 80 boxes (1 per 4 cases) Value- Beam Teams are not pullable from Value boxes. As is typically the case with Stadium Club, it inundates you with unnumbered parallels. From a $ Per Parallel perspective, Stadium Club is one of the cheapest of any product to obtain a parallel. You can generally expect 2 unnumbered parallels per pack in Hobby & Mega formats. Due to this, it's easy to think that unnumbered parallels will be plentiful and therefore pretty worthless. For most of them, you would be correct. However, Stadium Club also offers some of the shortest printed unnumbered parallels of any product. Parallels like Members only @ ~27 copies ea, Photographer's Proofs @ ~11 copies ea, Gold Minted @ ~40 copies ea, Chrome Red, White & Blue @ 3 copies ea, and Chrome Tie-Dye @ 3 copies ea, provide some sneaky chases if you are aware of how short printed they are. And not everyone is hip to this, making it possible to find some sneaky good deals on ebay listings. Part 4: Value Map $/card: 1) Value/Mega- 83¢ 2) Hobby- $1.02 $/Parallel: 1) Value- $3.10 2) Mega- $3.13 3) Hobby- $3.21 $/Auto: 1) Hobby- $60.19 2) Mega- $88.00 3) Value- $172.50 $/Numbered Card: 1) Mega- $56.18 2) Hobby- $58.04 3) Value- $142.50 $/Rare Insert: 1) Hobby- $1,560.00 2) Mega- $4,000.00 $/Quality Hit: 1) Hobby- $84.50 2) Mega- $99.50 3) Value- $256.00 Part 5: Best Format Overall, the best format is Hobby. It offers the cheapest way to obtain Numbered and Rare Base Parallels, Beam Teams, and all Autos. However, Megas are no slouch here. They are a very valid format, best for obtaining nearly all Chrome Parallels as well as nearly all Inserts, aside from Beam Teams and Triumvirates. Weirdly, odds on Inserts and Chrome Parallels are far better in Megas than in Hobby boxes. So much so that the odds don't even look correct. But all the Print Runs reconcile nicely, so we know they are correct. Part 6: What Would the Squatch Do? I really like Stadium Club. I also really like the fact that all the Stadium Club releases not called baseball are sticking to their roots and offering all the goodies that Stadium Club is known for. But don't get me started on the "Great Mistake of 2025", better known as 2025 Stadium Club MLB. With that, shenanigans abounded. I just hope to see it back in form for 2026. Gold Minted, super rare unnumbered parallels, a nice tight rainbow of Chrome Parallels, and some of the best looking Autos in any product will make this rip feel like a good value. Singles, in general, won't light the world on fire. But you can't have it all. There will still be plenty of nukes. I'd have no problem ripping Hobby at or near drop pricing or Megas at retail price. Value boxes, though? Don't even bother. Just remove those from the equation. They are dead last in everything except for Base Chrome Refractors and the Ultra-Rare Base Tie Dyes with a print run of 3 copies ea. This probably isn’t the release to stack in the closet and pray for a giant ROI. WWE wax is generally not built for that, nor is Stadium Club in general. Could it appreciate? Absolutely. But I wouldn't expect a windfall here. Stadium Club is for ripping. And for WWE fans, it seems like a decent one. You're getting exactly what Stadium Club is supposed to give you. WWE fans...y'all getting spoiled. Part 7: Print Runs Base Production: ~52,200 ea If you want the entire Print Run list of all unnumbered parallels, inserts, and autos, I have them posted on my Substack. And there are some juicy ones here- some unnumbered stuff with crazy low print runs. slabsquatch.substack.com/p/2… #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026StadiumClubWWE

2026 Topps Street Fighter Quickest analysis ever on one of the weirdest products ever. Up for EQL as we speak. Topps has decided packs only @ $25 ea on this one. But you can buy up to 50 if you're selected. 5 cards/pack including 4 base & 1 parallel. ~8,000 total packs produced. Paper product, no Chrome. Strangely, no autos or chases look to be possible other than simply parallels. Rainbow- ~235 copies ea Gold /50 Orange /25 Black /10 Red /5 Foilfractor 1/1 My job here is done. You're on your own with this one. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsStreetFighter

2026 Topps Chrome MLS Sapphire launching shortly via EQL. I won't be able to get any actual analysis out, but here are my thoughts in response to a question I had about it.

2026 Topps Update Deep Dive Update is looming. And for once, “mass-produced Flagship” might not be the insult it usually is. There are over 250 million cards in this thing, so no, Topps did not suddenly discover restraint. But buried beneath it all are some surprisingly solid numbers, some retail formats that have no business being this good, and a couple of the best value propositions we’ve seen in baseball this year. We’ve got new Rare Inserts, some returning favorites, a couple sneaky format plays, and wait...were gonna be talking about Fat Packs?! Just trust me, it won't suck as much as it sounds like it will. Welcome to 2026 Topps Update. Part 1: The Basics Update is set to launch on Wednesday, October 14th with no time specified yet by Topps. Luckily, we have odds in plenty of time before the product releases. However, that also means we aren't privy to the weekly Monday morning Topps tweet that details pricing. That won't happen until next week. We do know Pre-order pricing: Hobby- $110 Jumbo- $210 Dare I say they seem reasonable? I suspect these will be slightly higher on release day. Then it will sell out and the market will do it's thing and squeeze all the juice out of the sealed product. Just guessing. Regarding configurations, the only notable change from last year is Value Boxes coming in at 1 less pack- 6 packs of 12 as opposed to 7. Part 2: Production Numbers Total Cards in Product: 252,310,040 2025 Topps Update- 228,258,400 YOY: +10.5% Compare this to the other Flagship releases this year: 2026 Topps Series 1- 558,065,504 2026 Topps Series 2- 398,173,696 2026 Flagship NFL- 581,000,973 2025-26 Flagship NBA- 429,697,744 Total Production by Format: Hobby- 102,900 boxes (8,575 cases) --->+47% YOY Jumbo- 48,650 boxes (8,108 cases) --->+24% YOY Value- 616,650 boxes (15,416 cases) ---> -1.3% YOY Fat Pack- 1,620,000 packs (15,000 cases) --> +24.6% YOY Hangers- 693,000 (10,828 cases) -->+0.5% YOY Fanatics Value- 50,160 boxes (1,254 cases)-->+0.2% YOY Super- 78,672 boxes (6,556 cases) ---> -34.9% YOY Club Super (Costco)- 201,600 boxes (16,800 cases) ---> N/A YOY Japan Exclusive- 61,875 boxes (5,156 cases)---> +503% YOY Notably, there are no Display boxes or Bulk Packs shown on the odds sheet this year. Part 3: Heat Map Expected Hit Rates by Format: Hobby: 0.35 Autos/0.66 Relics (35% of boxes should contain an Auto, 66% a relic, and a very small number could contain more than one hit) Parallels- 4.4 Inserts- ~17 Numbered Cards- 2.3 Jumbo: 1 Auto/1.55 Relics (Contrary to Hobby boxes, a significant number of Jumbos look to contain extra hits, most likely Relics. Topps states 2 hits. The math says 2.55 per box. This is not counting Silver Packs, which will add more hits but are not on the odds sheet.) Parallels- 10.8 Inserts- 30.3 Numbered cards- 3.9 Value Boxes: 1 Auto per 36.1 boxes (~1.1/case) 1 Relic per 18.5 boxes (~2.2/case) Parallels- 4.9 Inserts- ~11 Numbered cards- 0.33 (1 per 3 boxes) Fat Packs: 1 Auto per 92.9 packs (~1.2/case) 1 Relic per 47.5 packs (~2.3/case) Parallels- 0.6 Inserts- 2.35 Numbered cards- 1 per 7 packs Hangers: 1 Auto per 61.2 boxes (~1.05/case) 1 Relic per 22.3 boxes (~2.9/case) Parallels- 3.2 Inserts- 3.35 Numbered cards- 0.33 (1 per 3 boxes) Fanatics Value Boxes: 1 Auto per 16.1 boxes (~2.5/case) 1 Relic per 17.5 boxes (~2.3/case) Parallels- 6.5 Inserts- 14.75 Numbered cards- 0.5 (1 per 2 boxes) Japan Exclusive: 1 Auto per 5.85 boxes (~2/case) 1 Relic per 3 boxes (~4 per case) Parallels- 5.7 Inserts- 41.9 Numbered Cards- 2 Super Boxes: 1 Auto per 18 boxes (1 per 1.5 cases) 1 Relic per 7.7 boxes (1.6/case) Parallels- 8.2 (Including 5 Crackle Foil) Inserts- 20.4 Numbered Cards- 0.6 A word about Costco Super Boxes: I will enter the data as the odds show. However, the main reason for buying the Costco Super Boxes, the bonus packs, are not reflected on the odds sheet. Those 3 packs include Flagship Collection base, Chromes, Inserts, and an occasional Auto. So keep in mind these numbers are solely reflecting the "base packs" within the Costco Super boxes, making these particular Super Boxes markedly better than the numbers say. Club Super Boxes: 1 Auto per 19.9 Boxes (1 per 1.7 cases) 1 Relic per 3 boxes (~4/case) Parallels- 3.9 (not counting Flagship collection packs) Inserts- 23.1 Numbered Cards- 0.7 Rare Inserts: For 2026 Update, Rare Inserts will include: Heavy Lumber Home Field All Aces All Kings Matt Szczur Art Cards Cover Athletes Cards And one more bit of exciting news...Mystical is a Rare Insert this year! These have always looked fantastic and should have always been more scarce to give them the desirability they deserve. Though it doesn't always turn out the greatest when a more common insert suddenly turns into a Rare Insert, sometimes it can be a sneaky value play. They may start off too cheap until it catches on. Then eventually, like the Home Field Advantage arc of past releases, even the more common copies of the past could gain some traction as people realize how scarce the new ones are. Other than that, pretty standard list here, featuring some very popular inserts...and it's really nice to see some new names on the All Aces/Kings checklists. Though I haven't seen renderings, the Matt Szczur Art Cards seem like the Keegan Hall Art Cards from last year's Update, which were very popular, not particulary rare, and held good value. The Matt Szczur cards are quite a bit more scarce than those were, so I would expect more of the same, despite the excessive number of consonants in my man's name. Rare Insert Hit Rate by Format: Hobby- 1 per 23.05 boxes (1 per 1.92 cases) Jumbo- 1 per 11.25 boxes (1 per 1.9 cases) Value- 1 per 124.85 boxes (1 per 3.12 cases) Fat Packs- 1 per 252 packs (1 per 2.33 cases) Hangers- 1 per 152.75 boxes (1 per 2.39 cases) Fanatics Values- 1 per 80.14 boxes (1 per 2 cases) Super boxes- 1 per 64.24 boxes (1 per 5.35 cases) Club Super boxes- 1 per 54.5 boxes (1 per 4.54 cases) Japan Exclusive- 1 per 38.95 boxes (1 per 3.25 cases) Part 4: Value Map Prices are based on pre-order pricing of $110/Hobby & $210/Jumbo, and standard retail pricing for all other formats. Those will likely increase slightly on release day, but this is a good foundation. I'll try to make an editable spreadsheet available on my Substack if you would like to keep up with these values as market prices fluctuate. $/Card: 1) Fat Pack- 19¢ 2) Club Super box- 22¢ 3) Hanger- 25¢ 4) Super box- 27¢ 5) Fanatics Value- 31¢ $/Parallel: 1) Fanatics Value- $4.63 2) Hangers- $4.67 3) Super Box- $4.88 4) Value Box- $5.09 5) Club Super box- $10.23 (does not include bonus packs) $/Auto: 1) Jumbo- $207.92 2) Hobby- $314.29 3) Fanatics Value- $483.30 4) Fat Packs- $650.37 5) Super Box- $718.40 $/# Card: 1) Hangers- $45.45 2) Hobby- $48.03 3) Fat packs- $49.21 4) Jumbo- $54.26 5) Club Super boxes- $56.34 $/Rare Insert: 1) Fat Packs- $1,764.00 2) Club Super Boxes- $2,180.00 3) Hangers- $2.291.25 4) Jumbo- $2,362.50 5) Fanatics Value- $2,404.20 $/Quality Hit: 1) Jumbo- $102.90 2) Hangers- $134.10 3) Hobby- $151.80 4) Fat packs- $177.52 5) Fanatics Value- $188.10 Part 5: Best Formats For discerning buyers who want the best format regardless of price point, Jumbo is going to be the best format in the product. This is due to the fact that Jumbos outpace all other formats when it comes to all Autos & Relics. For anywhere near drop pricing, I would stick to Jumbos as much as possible. Hobby is more cost-effective than Jumbo for numbered foil parallels, but Jumbos are the better format in almost every other way. However, this is only part of the story. In keeping with the trend of the last couple years, Fat Packs are sneaky good. For almost every Parallel contained in them, Fat Packs have the lowest acquisition cost of all formats. They just lag behind on high end upside because they can't compete with Jumbo or Hobby from an Auto perspective. Additionally, when I single out the most desirable stuff that is not autoed- like All Aces, All Kings, Golden Mirrors, Legend Golden Mirrors, Cover Athletes, 1952 Rookie Variations, etc...Fat Packs are the most cost-effective to pull every single one of those. When it comes to Rare Inserts in general (commonly misconstrued as "Case Hits"), Fat Packs are 20% better than the #2 format, Costco Super Boxes. I KNOW this annoys a whole segment of collectors. Fat Packs are not ideal. They slosh around in the case and have no rigidity, causing dings to the cards inside. Every socks & Hoka Sandal wearing beer belly with a postage scale at Target thinks they can search the Fat Packs. And they sure try. Honestly, the $7 Fat Packs have no business being a decent format. They should be for the kids. But the numbers say they belong. Want another sneaky good format? Costco Super Boxes. Specifically, the "Flagship Collection" version, not the Funko version. Problem is, they're so sneaky I can't even put actual numbers on them. Based on their bulk packs alone, they're solid. But when you factor in the wild card of the 3 Flagship Collection packs, for which we have no odds, they have to be near the top of Retail formats for value. Any Chromes, Parallels, and Autos that come from these are a bonus. I wish they were a little more manly to open. I feel like a big-ass 8-yr-old when I bust into Super Boxes. Not to mention the ridiculous footprint with a gigantic 12 box case and a tiny little $480 price tag. Not the most masculine feeling in sports cards. But who am I kidding? We collect shiny cardboard with dudes on them. I'm not here to impress you. Nor are you here to impress me. The other format I have to mention is the old standby Hanger Boxes. If you know me, you know my favorite metric. "$ Per Quality Hit" is where I hang out. When I buy, this is the first column I look at. Jumbos at $102.90/Quality Hit seem like a ridiculous deal. That is an extremely solid value for a baseball release. But guess what's right behind it? Hangers at $134.10. At these rates, both of these would be in the top 5 formats of any MLB release of the year. Jumbo will certainly spike and work its way off that list. Hangers, being a retail specialty, will stay a sneaky good deal until they dry up. For retail buyers, you can't go wrong with Fat Packs, Costco Super Boxes, or Hangers. I mean, it's Flagship. We all know it will still FEEL wrong a majority of the time. Don't expect miracles here. But these numbers are better than Series 1 or Series 2 offered, even at launch pricing. Part 6: What Would the Squatch Do? Well, I pre-ordered what I could, which turned out to be not much. The Queue Gremlins weren't overly generous. But there will be a few boxes headed my way. I'm guessing launch pricing will look something like $125/Hobby & $240/Jumbo. Even then, I would grab what you are able to. Somehow, we live in an alternate universe where even mass-produced Flagship releases are tough to get at launch. It will disappear quickly. Stupid Blowout has assured us of that having already priced it at $200/Hobby & $375/Jumbo. Part 7: Print Runs Base Card Production: ~620,550 ea The rest of this list is pretty extensive, and this post is long enough. So if you'd like to check out Print Runs on all Unnumbered Parallels, Inserts, Autos, & Relics, you'll find I've already posted it on my Substack. slabsquatch.substack.com/p/2… #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsUpdate

2026 Topps Allen & Ginter: We Need to Talk Y'all, 2026 Allen & Ginter drops shortly. And I just want to make this clear. I don't love the numbers. Topps clearly has some shenanigans, whether intentional or not, going on with this release. First, as you've seen me report, multiple outlets had packs per box at 18. It turns out, this was wrong. It's 24. OK, great. So the numbers are better. More packs per box equals more hits per box. Right? Not so fast. Topps advertises 2 "hits" per box. Hits, with this product, meaning Autos, Relics, Plates, & Rip Cards. Down from 3 a couple years ago, but whatever. That's not my concern right this second. Here's the problem: When calculated at 18 packs/box, the Hits add up to almost precisely 2 per box. Just as Topps states. When adjusted to 24 packs/box, this should bump up to 2.72 hits per box. Meaning pretty consistently, like ~72% of the time, you should see an extra hit per box. The other facet of this is: At 24 packs per box, the odds say there are almost exactly the same number of autos in Hobby boxes as there are Hobby boxes produced. To simplify, if Topps odds are actually based on 24 packs per box, we should see 1 auto per box, EXTREMELY CONSISTENTLY. Not a guarantee, but an average. If some don't have an auto, others should have two. Last year, Autos showed up in about 60% of boxes. If this is true, it's not terrible. A&G needs all the value it can get since it's now priced higher than it has any business being. The problem is, I'm not seeing it. Now maybe some of you can educate me. I don't have time to sit and watch dozens of Ginter case rips. So at this point, I don't have faith in my own numbers that each box should produce 2.72 hits on average. Keep in mind, my numbers are based directly off Topps published odds. But something about this product stinks. And it matters. There's a big difference in 2 hits per box and almost 3 consistently. Usually, when Topps flubs some numbers, I'm able to figure out why. Someone fat-fingered or transposed some cells, they based odds on the wrong checklist size, etc. But I can't, for the life of me, figure out why this would be wrong, if it is as I think. Pack odds are based on the entirety of packs in a format. They have nothing to do with how many packs are in a box. That is a simple byproduct of the pack odds. This means "odds guy" would have to have an entire column of odds slightly wrong. Which makes zero sense whatsoever. In a nutshell, I don't know what's going on with this product. There are definitely more Autos and Relics than last year. There are definitely less Inserts, Parallels, Chromes & Minis than last year. And weirdly, there is a TON more base. But I can't guarantee the hit rates are any better, as much as I'd like to confirm that they are. I think Hobby boxes are going to feel dryer than in the past. And I don't love it. Fat packs & Value Boxes are not affected by this. They actually should produce hits at a rate almost twice as good as last year. Definitely not good. But better. Just be careful with A&G on the secondary market. I wouldn't. If you're a fan and you can get it at drop, I get it. But $160/Hobby is a little rough. $225+ is lunacy. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026ToppsAllenGinter

2026 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Analysis The odds for Bowman Chrome Sapphire dropped alongside regular Bowman Chrome, so I’ve had the numbers for a while. I just never really gave Sapphire any attention with all the other things going on. Drop is now less than an hour away, so this isn’t going to be a 12-part dissertation. But we do have enough to answer the important stuff for you Sapphire fans out there. So, with that, let's do a quick run-through of what we know. The Drop: Bowman Chrome Sapphire drops at 11am CT today, October 7. Drop Price- $600/box This will be an EQL release so you don't have to be online instantly and hammer your keyboard while you battle the Queue Gremlins. As long as you enter sometime within the hour, you will be able to take your L much more peacefully. The Product: Standard Sapphire configuration of 8 packs of 4 cards per box. However, production run is not standard. They made more of this one. Last year's Bowman Chrome Sapphire had a more prototypical production run of 10,488 boxes. For 2026, they bumped that up by 20.5% to 12,638 boxes (1,264 cases). The Hit Rates: Expected Hit Rates: Autos- 1/box (More precisely, the math says 1.06/box. It would not surprise me to see an extra auto in a small percentage of boxes.) Parallels- 3/box Inserts- 0.44/box Inserts consist of Image Variations and Hidden Gems. The odds don't show any Sapphire Selections, although there are Sapphire Selections autos. Let's split these up for a little more precise data points: An Image Variation or Parallel of one should fall 1 per 2.4 boxes (~4.2/case). Hidden Gems, in my mind one of the most glorious and undervalued Inserts in all of sports, should fall 1 per 40.6 boxes (~1 per 4 cases). Numbered cards- 3.4/box (This is slightly higher than Parallels due to numbered inserts, which I do not include in Parallels.) There are 2 different Auto Subsets- Bowman Chrome Sapphire Prospect Autos & Sapphire Selections Autos. I believe the only unnumbered Autos will be the base Sapphire Selections Autos, which means 95.2% of all Sapphire autos will be numbered. The Values: At a drop price of $600 (sure to spike immediately after we all fail in landing any), the Value Map is as follows: $/Card- $18.75 $/Parallel- $198.68 $/Insert- $1,363.64 $/Numbered Card- $174.42 $/Rare Insert- $24,366.00 $/Quality Hit- $160.80 The Verdict: No surprise here. Bowman Chrome Sapphire, just like any other major sport Sapphire release, will do what it do...we'll all strike out trying to EQL 2 boxes, breakers will have pallets full, price will spike to $1200/box, we'll let it rot on Blowout for all eternity and move on. But what if you get lucky and are able to get a box or two at $600? Is it worth it? Well, yes. As much as I hate it. First, it's a safe stash. You'll be guaranteed to be able to cash out for more if you desire. But honestly, it's not a terrible rip at $600. Quality Hits are ~$161 ea. That's surprisingly good. All Parallels are Yellow /75 or better. So every single Parallel is considered a Quality Hit. And you're getting basically 3.5-4 per box. Autos are 1/box, as they need to be with Sapphire. And the short 34-card Auto Subject list is pretty much the best of the best. Now, there are "Base" Autos /199 and Green Autos /99 which I don't love. I wish they would make more Auto Subsets like they do with NBA, WWE, & UFC Sapphire so no Autos are worse than Gold /50. They're short-changing the MLB fans by not doing so. There is definitely plenty of room to make MLB Sapphire products better. In short, the added production doesn't really hurt the product. It's still limited and the Hit Ratios are as good as they always have been. If you like to chase Sapphire, this is a safe one to go after. Of course it would be much nicer if the price point were not absurd and more like WWE or UFC. But the simple fact is, MLB Sapphire singles are worth a lot more. Which makes the price point far less outlandish. Not justifying it. Just being realistic. Good luck out there. The Print Runs: Sapphire Base- ~3,475 ea Sapphire Selections Base Autos (11 card CL)- ~60 ea Hidden Gems Emerald (5 card CL)- ~50 ea Everything else should be numbered. #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026BowmanChromeSapphire

Well, that was fun. I'm grateful that I got a case of 2026 Mars Attacks. And greatly enjoyed opening it with my son. Here are the highlights: 63 Numbered cards (~3 per box) /350- 13 /299- 13 /250- 9 /199- 8 /150- 6 /99- 7 /75- 3 /50- 2 /25- 1 /10- 1 Relics-4 (Expected 5) Martian Suit, Polar Princess Train, Elf's Hat, Wrapping Paper Boxtopper Rip Cards- 3 Mars Invasion Chrome Inserts (Print Run ~85, Odds 1 per case)- 2 2 Awesome 1/1 Sketches (Odds ~1 per Case) 2 Chrome Caught in the Crossfire Autos (Expected 2): Chris Parnell Unnumbered AND Mike Tyson Nucleus Refractor Auto /99. But most importantly: 17 Abominable Snowmen including 3 Red 16 Bigfoot including 3 Red 4 Yetis 2 Bigfoot Cryptid Alliance 3 Abominable Snowman Cryptid Alliance including 1 /25