2019-20 Topps Hockey Stickers Box Break #2

If you want to build a set of 2019-20 Topps Hockey Stickers, you’re going to need to buy many packs. Considering that you get five stickers per pack and there are 630 stickers in the set, you would need to purchase at least 126 packs, or about 2-1/2 boxes. I purchased three boxes — each has 50 packs — and posted the results of the first box last week.

Opening packs of stickers is not for the “hit chasers,” as there are no hits to speak of. Really, a good box is one that has few doubles in its collation; a great box is one that has very few doubles from the previous box. Hopefully, this box is a “hit” by not giving me most of the stickers that I got in my previous box. So, without further ado, here are the results of my second box break of 2019-20 Topps Hockey Stickers:

What I Got in My 2nd Box

200 regular stickers; five were duplicates. 

50 foil stickers; there were zero duplicates. Yay! 

Like my first box, every pack had what it promised: four regular stickers and one foil sticker. Only five stickers total (2%) were doubles within the box. Now the true test will be how many of these stickers I need to fill out my album. But first…

Breakdown by 100s

…because I did that last time and I like being consistent. 

0-99

26 regular stickers
5 foil stickers
= 31 stickers total
(12.4% of the box)

100-199

31 regular stickers
10 foil stickers
= 41 stickers total
(16.4% of the box)

200-299

22 regular stickers
11 foil stickers
= 33 stickers total 
(13.2% of the box)

300-399

37 regular stickers
8 foil stickers
= 45 stickers total
(18% of the box)

400-499

41 regular stickers
9 foil stickers
= 50 stickers total
(20% of the box)

500-599

40 regular stickers
3 foil stickers
= 43 stickers total
(17.2% of the box)

600-630

3 regular stickers
4 foil stickers
= 7 stickers total
(2.8% of the box)

Excluding stickers in the 600s, which accounts for only the last 31 stickers in the set (600-631), I got a pretty even distribution of stickers in each grouping of 100; anywhere from 12.4% to 20%. 

So, What Stickers Did I Need?

My first box gave me 247 stickers towards completing the 630-sticker set, since there were three doubles in that box. That’s really good. Unfortunately, my second box had many redundant stickers that I got in my first box.

Of the 200 regular stickers, I needed 141 of them, while there were 59 duplicates: five which were doubles of stickers found in the second box, while 54 that were repeats of what I got in my first box. Still, that’s pretty great overall. About seven out of 10 regular stickers that I pulled from this box went towards building my set. 

However, I could not say the same of the foil stickers. Not even close. While there were no doubles of the foil stickers in this box, 44 of the foil stickers were repeats of the foil stickers that I got in my first box. So, only six of the 50 foil stickers helped me build my set, while the other 44 became trade fodder. That’s pretty terrible! I could understand some repeats between box one and box two, but considering that there are over 140 foil stickers in this set, having almost an entire box repeat the previous box is very disappointing. 

I rated my first box as a “4”, and this box as a “3” because it had more doubles, but more importantly, because 44 of the 50 foil stickers were repeats of what was in my first box. Look, I get it. Card companies — or in this case sticker companies — don’t have to guarantee any sort of collation that makes sense. (Some of you may even recall how maddening it was to try and complete a 1990s Panini Hockey Sticker set back in the day.) But when the “special” stickers in one box are practically all the same in the next box, that’s a total buzkill. Regardless, I am going to finish this set. 

Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk.

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