Production Estimates / Print Run Archive

[bnorth]

I am not 100% sure they are not still printing 1988 Donruss, 1990 Fleer, and 1991 Topps.

[insidethewrapper]

Jason: It would be great to have as many print runs as we know listed in one spot to refer too. As a past dealer I have many press releases as I'm sure others on here have. I'll start to look for a few. I do have a couple available which I will start posting later.

[insidethewrapper]

Let's get started: I think this is what you were looking for. From a press release from LEaf/Donruss:
1994 Leaf Limited Foil Boxes ( 60,000)
1994 Leaf Limited Rookies Foil Boxes ( 30,000 )
1995 Leaf Limited Series One Foil Boxes ( 45,000)
1995 Leaf Limited Series Two Foil Boxes ( 45,000)

[savedfrommyspokes]

As far as the Topps Tiffany cards, here is an article regarding the print runs...

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/...baseball-cards

For the 1984s, an old article in a 1984 SCD mentioned there were only 5,000 sets....not likely true as I have one set #d "06393". The 1991s have been rumored to have a print run between 3,000 and 5,000.....the highest #d set I have is "3176". Since the 84s have a 5 digit serial number I would go with the 10,000 print run and with the 91s having a 4 digit serial number, a print run of 5k would be a reasonable assumption.


Here is another thread that discusses some 1950s Topps print runs:
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=268386

[JUrsaner]

Amazing stuff! For right now I'm just going to keep editing the initial post as information comes

Re: savedfrommyspokes on the Tiffany sets - I'd always heard it as

1984 - 10k
1985 - cut production to 5k
1986 - 5k
1987 - 25k-30k
1988 - 25k-30k
1989 - 25k (15k Traded?)
1990 - ?
1991 - 5k?

Any idea on the "send-away" All-Star Glossy sets? 1983-1990?

[insidethewrapper]

Here's a few more :
1996 Leaf Limited ( 45,000 foil boxes)
1993 Score Select Rookie & Traded Foil Boxes (1950 #'d cases/24 boxes ea) = 46,800 Foil Boxes
1994 Score Select Series One Foil Boxes( 4950 /24 box cases ) = 118,800 Foil Boxes.
1994 Score Select Series Two Foil Boxes ( 4950 /24 box cases ) = 118,800 Foil Boxes.

[JUrsaner]

Hoping to also move more into the great unknown with estimates of the base years everyone knows/loves.

So going to start adding some loose estimates starting from 1975 Topps. Read somewhere that Sy Berger had remarked in a book/interview (source?) that Topps printed 500m cards in 1975. Might have been figurative... but also seems possible. Would be ~750k/card. Need to assume a certain % was "consumed" by the hobby - used, creased, lost, thrown away... to get to current stockpile

Any thoughts/input on starting to estimate the vintage/junk wax base sets for Topps - much appreciated.
Just threw in 750k/card for modern vintage and 1m/card for junk wax for right now

I'd also love to try to back into production #s for some of the "common" insert sets from the 90s

[West]

I would like to address the years 1989 Upper Deck base and 1990 Topps base. I have done some research into the printing of 1990 Topps. Also, Pete Williams' "Card Sharks" gave readers an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the production of 1989 Upper Deck. According to the book, the initial release of 1989 Upper Deck was for around 125,000 cases. That's 1.4 billion cards. That's around 2 million of each card in the 700 card first series. Now we know they couldn't keep up with demand and continued printing. For argument's sake, let's say they doubled the initial print run and made 4 million of each card (2.8 billion total cards printed). One source inside the industry claimed that 81 billion trading cards were printed by the late '80s and early 90's.

Maybe someone else can estimate the market share of each sport in 1990. But say Topps printed 1/4 of the 81 billion trading cards printed. That's 20 billion trading cards in 1990. Let's then say that the breakdown was 40% baseball cards, 25% football and 25% hockey and 10% non-sports. That's 8 billion baseball cards. Say Topps base was 80% of that. 6.6 billion cards of a 792 card set would be a print run of 8.3 million of each card. Personally I feel that is a conservative estimate and wouldn't be surprised if the print run of each base card of 1990 Topps baseball was 15 million.

Looking at the current unopened market, it does appear to me that 1990 Topps is at least 2-3 times more plentiful than 1989 Upper Deck.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by JUrsaner

I'd also love to try to back into production #s for some of the "common" insert sets from the 90s

If a set has any numbered inserts, and stated odds, you can figure out approximate numbers for everything else.

It does get complicated once the companies started doing different odds for different products and different inserts for different packaging/retail exclusives, but a rough figure is possible.

Other years it may be possible to get a very approximate figure by figuring out what each card wholesaled for and if the annual report includes a breakdown of how much in sales was Baseball cards. But only a very rough estimate, since the per card price was very different between wax/cellos/racks/vending.

[JUrsaner]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

As far as the Topps Tiffany cards, here is an article regarding the print runs...

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/...baseball-cards

For the 1984s, an old article in a 1984 SCD mentioned there were only 5,000 sets....not likely true as I have one set #d "06393". The 1991s have been rumored to have a print run between 3,000 and 5,000.....the highest #d set I have is "3176". Since the 84s have a 5 digit serial number I would go with the 10,000 print run and with the 91s having a 4 digit serial number, a print run of 5k would be a reasonable assumption.


Here is another thread that discusses some 1950s Topps print runs:
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=268386

Going to dig into the production numbers of the Topps vintage sets later this week

-- https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=268386 -- 1950s
-- https://boblemke.blogspot.com/2013/0...vered.html?m=1
-- https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/fi...ges744-855.pdf -- FTC Complaint 1965
-- https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=266800 -- 1960s
-- https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-baseball-card