I posted this to the other thread, but am reposting here...
I've always thought the 1977-1980 Burger Kings were interesting issues.
Here's some interesting items about Burger King in general I've found that may fill in the missing holes of this issue.
In 1977 there were 175k of each card produced. (I wonder if more were issued in later years and in different markets?)
So 175k x 22 (of each card) = 3,850,000
So if there's 3 cards in a cello pack, that's 1.285 million packs.
How many Piniella's were included? Were some others removed for the Piniella's? (22 is easier to pack in 3's than 23. I did the math.
)
There's only 2 PSA 10's for the BK issue. There's 25 for the Topps issue. Now the 3 card cello packaging tended to damage the cards, but I have to think that's partly because of the short print.
I checked and the average BK serves 846 people daily
today. Not sure how many stores there were or how many were in NY or the tri-state area?
In 1970 (the closest year I could find), there were 350 BK stores nationwide.
In 1977 BK had financial issues. My guess is this was just a part of promotions to get people in the stores.