1990 Topps Ad inserts in wax packs
 

I just opened a bunch of 1990 Topps and put the ad inserts aside as I went. I just sorted them and came across some interesting results. I got a total of 9 different cards but check out these numbers:

Yellow card, Magazine - 30
Red card, Binder - 27
Yellow card, Glossy cards - 24
Red card, 9-pocket pages - 18
Yellow card, Topps ball cap - 10
Yellow card, Sweatshirt style B - 7
Blue card, Sweatshirt style A - 4
Blue card, T-shirt style F - 3
Green card, T-shirt style G - 1

It sounds bizarre but could there really be rarities among the ad inserts? Does anyone have any that aren't listed here?

Arthur

This is what I got from opening some recently
yellow card, glossy cards - 32
yellow card, magazine - 21
red card, 9 pocket pages - 2
yellow card, topps hat - 2
yellow card, sweatshirt style B - 2
blue card, sweatshirt style A - 1

None are particularly rare for 1990 Topps inserts. Just very poor collation. However, there are rarer card stock types such as vanilla bean (like O-Pee-Chee).

1988 Topps Ad Inserts are another story. Regular, non-blank back ones are very tough to find as they weren't inserted in each pack that year (in lieu of the Glossy All-Stars offer card). Blank backs are common and were inserted in Topps Big but a small run of non-blank backs made it into Topps Big packs as well. Almost always showing ink damage on them too.

I actually have all of these variations in my Cardinals team sets because of (from memory) Jack Clark being featured on the glossy card set, the featured 1988 Topps Ozzie Smith on the pocket pages, and the 1972 Topps Gibson on the binder.

I remember some of the Jack Clark (black arrow) variations being more difficult to find, but I don't know how rare they are.

I opened up some more wax and thought I'd tally up the ad cards. The first number is from the first batch, second number from the second batch, then the total.

Yellow card, Magazine - 30 + 15 = 45
Red card, Binder - 27 + 26 = 53
Yellow card, Glossy cards - 24 + 43 = 67
Red card, 9-pocket pages - 18 + 20 = 38
Yellow card, Topps ball cap - 10 + 16 = 26
Yellow card, Sweatshirt style B - 7 + 2 = 9
Blue card, Sweatshirt style A - 4 + 1 = 5
Blue card, T-shirt style F - 3 + 8 = 11
Green card, T-shirt style G - 1 + 3 = 4

258 total packs

Arthur

Arthur-- are you bringing them all to Phoenix ?

I can't make it. Do you need any of them?

Arthur

Richard Weed.

You have to come up with your own material. You can't just take mine and throw it back at me.

Arthur