Mar 28, 2013

Mike Schmidt 2012 Topps 1980 World Series Pin Card

I don't understand this type of card, but I like it.  It has metal.  It's an embedded metallic representation of the happiest sports moment of my pre-life.

In all seriousness, though, did you notice that when these first started appearing in Topps sets that these were numbered /736 in series 1?  The numbering faded away, so we were left to guess how many were out there for 2012 series 2 and beyond.

In a related note, I love to calculate production runs.......inaccurately. Let's try 2012 Topps series 1 just for fun.

 There were 50 of these cards on the checklist inserted into 2012 Topps series 1 packs, which means there were 36800 pin cards inserted.  These were inserted either one per hobby case or six per HTA case.  Let's assume that there were an equal number of both HTA and hobby cases, this means there were 5257.14 cases of each, which is 10514.28 cases in total, which makes perfect sense.   Extrapolating this further, there were approximately 100,000 of each base card inserted into the total HTA and  hobby cases.   Multiplying that out, that means there are 33 million base cards in 2012 Topps series 1.  How many rooms would that take to hold them all?

The bottom line is that this pin card gives the owner the power of multiplication.  Pay no attention to the card behind the curtain!  It will divide you among your brand and team loyalties! And then you can't multiply your collection as it should be!

In a related note, I just finished taking a partial inventory of my collection.  It now takes up three cabinets and a bookshelf.  It's overwhelming.  I need a pin that says that "Overwhelmed collector.  World Series Champion of Accumulation: 2013"

1 comment:

Spankee said...

Assuming a 10'x10' room with cards up to 7' high and a card thickness of 0.5mm, you could fit approximately 7 million card. So, you get roughly 1 million cards per foot of height.