Another day, another box break of 2020-21 Topps Hockey Stickers. Before opening my third box, I had 263 stickers (198 regular stickers and 65 foil stickers) out of 666 total stickers needed to complete the set. Hopefully, this box helps more than the measly 24 stickers that the last box provided me.
For those who don’t normally collect stickers, just a few quick facts. 2020-21 Topps Hockey Sticker packs cost $1.00 in the U.S. and $1.39 in Canada. You can buy full boxes for $50/box directly from Topps, or cheaper from other places. (I bought four boxes for about $36 each on eBay.) Each pack contains four regular stickers and one foil sticker, and there are 666 stickers to complete the set.
Anyway, onto my break of Box #3.
What I Got in My 3rd Box
200 regular stickers; 26 were doubles.
5o foil stickers; 0 were doubles.
This box had 26 doubles, which was more than my first box of 2020-21 Topps Hockey Stickers (12) but less than my second box (40).
Breakdown by 100s
Because enquiring minds want to know…
1-99
24 regular stickers (3 doubles)
8 foil stickers
= 32 stickers total / 12.8% of the box
100-199
26 regular stickers (2 doubles)
4 foil stickers
= 30 stickers total / 12% of the box
200-199
39 regular stickers (6 doubles)
6 foil stickers
= 45 stickers total / 18% of the box
300-399
31 regular stickers (3 doubles)
7 foil stickers
= 38 stickers total / 15.2% of the box
400-499
23 regular stickers (2 doubles)
9 foil stickers
= 32 stickers total / 12.8% of the box
500-599
33 regular stickers (5 doubles)
8 foil stickers
= 41 stickers total / 16.4% of the box
600-666
24 regular stickers (5 doubles)
5 foil stickers
= 29 stickers total / 11.6% of the box
Just as my prior two boxes, this box had a pretty even distribution of stickers in each grouping of 100. In years’ past, I’ve opened boxes of Panini hockey stickers that would have a glut of stickers in, say, the 200s, and then almost no stickers in the 100s. While I will still grumble about getting 26 doubles, at least those doubles are spread around a bit.
So, What Stickers Did I Actually Need?
This box was almost no help in regards to the regular stickers, but lots of help with the foil stickers, so…yay? Of the 174 regular stickers that were not doubles, 165 were repeats of stickers that I got in either my first or second box, so I only needed 9 out of the 200 regular stickers from this box.
On the other hand, I did need 47 of the 50 foil stickers, so I guess that’s the silver lion, er, silver lining of this break (puns intended).
I understand that the more boxes of stickers I open, the more likely I am to get doubles, but after three boxes I still have less than half of the set (319/666). Box #3 wasn’t as abysmal as the last box, as this one yielded me 56 sticker that I needed. Still, before opening this, I needed more than 400 stickers, so you think this box would have been a little more help.
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I am guessing you could complete the set in about 9-10 boxes. But $400 is expensive to complete a sticker set.