How many 1980 Topps card #482 were printed? I've been looking for this answer. I saw lots of estimates between 600,000 and 2,000,000. I found three pieces of evidence that give solid anchors for the 1980 Topps print runs.
1983 Topps Baseball "Win a World Series Trip" Contest Game Card
1981 Topps Estimates
Topps has never been open about their print runs. But due to legal disputes over an antitrust claim and shared total prizes and odds of winning, Topps provides enough information to make very reasonable estimates for the 1978, 1981, and 1983 Topps Baseball cards. All giving a solid anchor for the 1980 print run.
Fleer v Topps Antitrust Lawsuit
During an antitrust lawsuit between Fleer and Topps, the court findings included Topps sales information for 1978. We can estimate the 1978 print runs based on the data shared from the lawsuit. Click here to read the trial records from Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 501 F. Supp. 485 (E.D. Pa. 1980). There is a lot of interesting information shared. The following is the relevant information for the 1978 print run estimates:
"In 1978, the standard Topps baseball card package consisted of 14 baseball cards and a slab of gum weighing 4.30 grams. The normal retail price was 20 cents per package."1978 Topps Estimates Based on Sales Information
"In 1978, sales of Topps's baseball cards with gum in the primary twenty cent package accounted for $6.6 million in sales out of Topps's total baseball card sales of $9.2 million. $2.6 million dollars of sales were achieved with products such as "Rack-packs" (a large number of baseball cards sold alone) and 500-card vending packs."
Using the information from the court finds above, I'm going to calculate estimated print runs for the 1978 Topps baseball cards.
There were 726 unique cards in the set. 66 cards were double printed because of the 132 card printing sheets. Printing wise that is like having a 792 card set, common referred to as set equivalent. The following are estimates for the other packs I make an assumption that each card in the non gum packs were sold for about 1 cent, $0.01. That idea and information is not present in the court findings or shared by Topps.
- Gum Packs
- 14 card per packs
- $0.20 per pack
- $6.6 million in sales
- ~ 462,000,000 cards sold
- Cards sold = cards per pack times packs sold (sales divided by price per pack)
- 14*($6,600,000/$0.20) = 462,000,000
- ~ 583,333 cards per single print, ~1,166,666 cards per double print
- Gum packs prints per card = cards sold divided by card equivalent set
- 462,000,000/792 = 583,333.333
- Other Packs
- $2.6 million in sales
- Larger packs without gum
- Assuming sales at $0.01 per card
- ~260,000,000 cards sold
- Cards sold = sales divided by price per card
- $2,600,000/$0.01 = 260,000,000
- ~328,282 cards per single print, ~656,565 per double print
- Other packs prints per card = cards sold divided by card equivalent set
- 260,000,000/792 = 328,282.828
- Estimated Total Cards Sold
- ~722 million cards sold
- Total cards sold = gum packs cards sold plus other pack cards sold
- 462,000,000+260,000,000 = 722,000,000
- ~911,616 cards per single print
- Estimated print run = total cards sold divided by card equivalent set
- 722,000,000/792=911,616.162
1981 Topps "Hit to Win" Contest Game Card
Sports Collectors Digest Article
This is a rabbit hole in itself. Bob Lemke is a former writer, editor, and publisher at multiple collectable publishers and medias. Mr. Lemke, username AUPT, made at least two comments citing a 1983 Sports Collectors Digest (SCD) article, in 2006 here and in 2012 here. Lemke wrote, "Based on some pack insert or other that was included in 1983 Topps BB we (SCD) extrapolated that production of each card in the regular set was about 750,000."
Homerunderby Comments
In a very detailed collection of print runs by Jason Ursaner- post here. The user homerunderby, made the following comment:
"1981 Topps: (Wax Only) 3,012,050 prizes, 1:17 packs x 15 cards-pack/792 cards* 970,000 sets in wax
1982 Topps: No contest
1983 Topps: (Wax/Cello) 285,000 prizes, 1:140 packs x19cards-pack /792 cards 957,196 sets
1984 Topps (Wax/Cello) 20,000 batting gloves, 1:2,700 packs x19cards-pack 1,295,000 sets
1985 Topps (Wax/Cello) 2,000 fielding gloves, 1:25,000 packsx19cards-pack 1,200,000 sets"
Homerunderby is rounding and including estimates in his calculations. For example the 1983 wax packs had 15 cards, not 19. Homerunderby is estimating the average pack size for the cards that included a contest card. We can use the 1978 sales data to check these assumption.
Collectors Experiences
I'm relying on collectors comments from different forums and baseball card groups. Like the 1981 Topps baseball cards only having contest cards in the wax packs and 1983 Topps cards having contesting cards in the wax and cello packs.
(If anyone reading this has the 1983 SCD article, I'd love to read it! Please comment, email, or message me.)
My estimates below are based on the contest rules (see above) and assumptions from the 1978 sales data (see above). I estimate 1,444,787 prints per single print card in the 1981 Topps baseball card set. See details below for my assumptions, estimates, and calculation.
- Wax packs 15 cards per pack, sold for $0.30
- 3,012,050 Total Prizes
- Odds of Winning 1 in 17 packs
- Several other pack types were sold without contest cards. See full distribution data here, from BaseballCardPedia.
- 726-card set with 66 double prints, printing wise 792 cards per sets
Based on the above information, we can get a clear estimate of the wax pack cards printed.
- Prizes*17 packs per prize*15 cards per pack= Total wax pack cards
- 3,012,050*17*15 = 768,072,750 cards
- Total wax pack cards divided by 792 cards= wax pack print run per card
- 768,072,750/792 = 969,788.826 prints per card (single prints)
Assuming the distribution of wax to other packs was similar to the 1978 sales data, $6.6 million wax/gum pack sales of $9.2 million total baseball card sales, 6.6/9.2 = 0.717. That's about 71.7% of baseball card sales for wax packs in 1978.
In 1981, Topps wax packs sold for $0.30 for 15 cards and cello packs 28 cards for $0.49 (49/28=0.0175). That's two cents per card in the wax packs and 1.75 cents per card in the cello packs.
To make the math simple, I'm going to use a 70/30 split of wax to non wax packs revenue. This assumption is based on the 1978 court records. Where almost 70% of sales of baseball cards was from wax packs.
I'm using the 2 cents per card from the ax packs to estimate the wax packs revenue. Then using the 1.75 cents per card from the cello packs to represent all the non wax packs revenue. I'm assuming all the non wax packs have similar enough prices per card.
Using the bulleted information above, I'm taking the total prizes to find the estimated wax packs then multiple those packs by 30 cents to find the wax pack revenue. I will estimate the total revenue from the wax pack revenue. Then estimate the non wax pack revenue from the estimated total revenue. Next, I will divide that estimated non wax pack revenue by 1.75 cents to estimate the total non wax cards printed. Lastly, I will dived the estimated total non wax cards printed by 792 to get the estimated non wax pack print run per card. See math below.
- Total wax pack revenue = wax packs (total prizes*17 packs per prize) times price of wax pack ($0.30) = total wax pack revenue
- 3,012,050*17*$0.30 = $15,361,455.00
- Total estimated revenue = wax pack revenue dived by 70%
- $15,361,455.00/0.7 = $21,944,935.71
- Non wax estimated revenue = total estimated revenue times 30%
- $21,944,935.71*0.3 = $6,583,480.71
- Non wax estimated cards printed = non wax estimated revenue dived by estimated non wax price per card ($0.0175)
- $6,583,480.71/$0.0175 = 376,198,897.714 cards
- Estimated print run per card = estimated non wax prints dived by 792 cards
- 376,198,897.714/792 = 474,998.608 cards
That puts the total print run for 1981 Topps baseball cards at also 1.5 million, 969,788.826 + 474,998.608 = 1,444,787.434.
That's a lot more than other collectors are estimating and assuming. I'm confident that my reasoning is based on more factual evidence than any other estimate I have encountered.
1983 Topps Estimates
- Wax packs 15 cards per pack, sold for $0.30
- Cello packs 28 cards per packs, sold for $0.49
- Contest cards in both wax and cello packs
- 285,102 Total Prizes
- Odds of Winning 1 in 140 packs
- Several other pack types were sold without contest cards. See full distribution data here, from BaseballCardPedia.
- *no way to know the ratio of wax to cello packs*
- 792-card set, no double prints
- Homerunderby estimated 957,196 sets
1983 will be much messier. The following is highly speculative. I have differences with homerurderby which I assume are simply rounding differences in the math. I have not rounded my calculations.
It is unclear how many wax vs cello vs non wax and cello packs were produced or sold. The 70/30 split from 1978 doesn't apply at all for 1983. The main problem is the 1983 packs had contest cards in the cello packs too. This makes estimates extremely speculative on any precise numbers in any step in my process.
Homerunderby used a 19 card per pack estimate to account for not knowing how many wax vs cello cards were produced. I don't see any evidence to support homerunderby's assumption, but I'm going to keep it because I don't have any evidence to make a better or different estimate. Using homerunderby's 19 card per pack average, I'm creating four scenarios of the wax/cello/other packs distribution as a model for thinking about and estimating the 1983 print runs.
I'm assuming all cards have a similar price per card to keep the math simple. The following are estimates if wax/cello distributions were 100%, 90%, 80%, and 70% of all cards produced. We can absolutely exclude 100% because other packs and factory sets were sold. I think we can reasonably exclude 70% too, because there isn't any evidence to suggest a significant change in the distribution of packs between 1978 and 1983. Looking on ebay, wax packs appear to be more prevalent although I did not systematically measure or verify this claim. My gut and common sense say the actual distribution is most likely between 80-90%, another speculative estimate.
- Total wax and cello packs = 285,102 * 140 = 39,914,280 packs
- Total wax and cello cards = 39,914,280 * 19 = 758,371,320 cards
| Wax/cello share | Estimated total cards | Non-wax/cello cards | Set-equivalents per card |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | 758,371,320 | 0 | 957,540 |
| 90% | 842,634,800 | 84,263,480 | 1,063,933 |
| 80% | 947,964,150 | 189,592,830 | 1,196,924 |
| 70% | 1,083,387,600 | 325,016,280 | 1,367,914 |
The table above provides a great range of estimates, with estimates between 1-1.2 million likely very close.
Conclusions
This took way too much of my life and they printed way too many baseball cards!
I'm honestly less sure of the 1980 print run than before I started writing and researching this post. With that said, the 1978, 1981, and 1983 estimated provide good anchors for the 1980 print runs, even if some assumptions are speculative, 1983 being a lot more speculative.
It is logical to assume the 1980 Topps baseball cards print runs falls between the 1978 and 1981/1983 estimates. In 1978 and 1980 Topps had a monopoly on baseball cards and player licensing, which the courts found illegal and late was appealed.
The graph below I had Claude make with rounded data that I gave, 1978-900k, 1981-1.4 million, and 1983- 1.2 million. I asked to keep the graph linear for visualization purposes. The linear graph puts 1980 just above a 1.2 million print run. That is close to what I would have expected before I started this post.
In both 1981 and 1983, Topps had two major competitors (Donruss and Leaf) which would have affected their production and sales. One argument is that Topps may have increased production in the early 1980s to fight off their competitors. They could maintain their dominance by producing more and taking more space on shelves. If that was the case, they may have significantly increased that production in 1980. This creates more uncertainty about the 1980 print runs.
Although my 1981 and 1983 estimates included a lot of assumptions, 1983 estimates being far less reliable than 1981, I conclude that 1983 produced less cards than 1981. This somewhat supports the idea of Topps increasing production to beat out competitors.
So I'm left with another question. Did Topps produce more or less baseball cards in 1980 than 1981. I don't have a good answer or guess right now. It does seem possible that print runs could be closer to the 2 million than I would have originally allowed. I have not seen any well supported estimates of 2 million, but as I mentioned a higher print run seems way more possible after my recent investigations.
With all that said, my gut and common sense says based on the available information, I feel comfortable leaning closer to 1.2 million cards printed, ironically the linear figure. But I do not rule out something closer to 1.5-2 million; whereas I do rule out anything under 900,000.
The next and more important question is how many cards survived? Until that rabbit hole, all I have to say is a lot!
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