After opening my first three boxes of 2020-21 Topps Hockey Stickers, I wondered if I made a mistake — either buying too many or too few boxes. At the rate I was going, it didn’t seem like four boxes was going to get me 400 unique stickers towards the 666-sticker set. On the other hand, maybe I was just wasting my money, and should have stuck with three boxes like I did the previous year.
But what’s done is done. I bought four boxes, so of course I’m going to open all four boxes. Hopefully, my luck would change with the final box.
What I Got in My 4th Box
200 regular stickers; 34 were doubles.
50 foil stickers; 2 were doubles
I got a total of 36 doubles in this box, including 2 foil stickers that were doubles. It always sours me on a product when there are duplicates of the inserts, although the foil stickers are really part of the set. Also, while I have not done an exact count, there appears to be about 158 foil stickers in the entire set, so perhaps a few foil doubles within a box should be expected.
Still, I believe that with 666 stickers in the set and just 250 stickers in a 50-pack box, there shouldn’t be ANY doubles at all. Crazy, right?
Breakdown by 100s
Here is how many stickers that I got within each grouping of 100.
1-99
31 regular stickers (6 doubles)
5 foil stickers
= 36 stickers total / 14.4% of the box
100-199
27 regular stickers (3 doubles)
8 foil stickers
= 35 stickers total / 14% of the box
200-299
34 regular stickers (6 doubles)
6 foil stickers
= 40 stickers total / 16% of the box
300-399
30 regular stickers (5 doubles)
4 foil stickers
= 34 stickers total / 13.6% of the box
400-499
27 regular stickers (4 doubles)
8 foil stickers
= 35 stickers total / 14% of the box
500-599
32 regular stickers (6 doubles)
8 foil stickers (2 doubles)
= 40 stickers total / 16% of the box
600-666
19 regular stickers (4 doubles)
11 foil stickers
= 30 stickers total / 12% of the box
Again, while the collation on 2020-21 Topps Hockey Stickers is questionable, the distribution between the numbers is pretty consistent per box.
So, What Stickers Did I Actually Need?
Believe it or not, this box was very helpful in building my set. I needed 54 of the regular stickers and 33 of the foil stickers; my fourth and final box added 87 stickers to my set…which is around what I expected from each of the boxes, and not just the last one.
After opening, sorting and, ahem, sticking my stickers, I ended up with 406 out of 666 stickers, plus 594 doubles. Honestly, I thought it would be the other way around.
Last year, I purchased three boxes of 2019-20 Topps Hockey Stickers. Out of 750 stickers from those three boxes, I had 533 out of a 630-sticker set, along with 217 doubles. While last year’s set size was smaller (630 vs. 666), I also bought 50 less sticker packs and yet still ended up 84% of a set. This year, despite buying 50 more sticker packs, I only ended up with 61% of a set. I’m disappointed.
The biggest problem was the poor randomization of stickers. Boxes one and two were 90% the same, while box three had about 75% of the same stickers that box one and two did. Thanks to lousy collation, I ended up with 6 Phil Kessel stickers, 6 Evgeni Malkin “retro” stickers and 7 Joe Thornton “Scores 1,500th Point” stickers — which would be great if I actually knew six other people building this set.
Crummy collation is nothing new in the hobby of collecting sports cards, or in this case, sports stickers. But the 2020-21 Topps Hockey Sticker Collection has just that: crummy collation. What makes it even more disappointing is that the set had pretty good collation last year; or at least my three boxes did. Regardless, if you collect stickers and love hockey, the 2020-21 Topps Hockey Sticker Collection is worth collecting; just plan on spending lots of money to complete it.
Follow Sal Barry on Twitter @PuckJunk.
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Thank you for an interesting set of posts regarding the Topps 2020-21 stickers. I always have fun “sticking” the stickers but also have not had much luck in finishing any of my sets for the past 10 years (Panini or Topps, doesn’t matter). I usually stop at 4 boxes and luckily have a friend that tries to build a set with his son – so we can trade. This year, I have only opened 1 box so far. Those retros are neat and I hope to score the Price in a future opening. Thank you so much for offering to help me get some stickers from past sets.
Thanks for your comment, and for reading. I know not all hockey collectors are into stickers, so it is good to hear from someone who is.
Let me know if you want to trade.
Hi Sal,
I started collecting sticker albums back in 1982 and have been doing one every now and again thoughout the years. I decided to get back to it this year thanks to Covid-19 and I’m very disapointed. The way Topps mixes the stickers in the boxes is clearly wrong. I had 223 doubles…in my second box alone!! So now I’ve opened 7 boxes and am still 149 stickers short. What am I suppose to do? Buy even more boxes of almost nothing but doubles?? It’s a ripoff…
Would you like to trade doubles with me? Maybe we can help each other out.
For sure! Send me what you need and I’ll see if I have them!
For sure! Send me numbers of the missing ones and I’ll see if I have them! lepaisible73@gmail.com
I Actually did pretty good this year. I bought 3 boxes and a bunch of packs from Wal-mart, made 1 trade for about 50 stickers and now only need 25 more cards. Still need 19 from last year, but opened way more. All my boxes added quite a few for the set.
Wow, only 25 to go? I still need around 50 or so. Let me know if you’d like to work out a trade.
I have plenty of doubles if you want to trade.
I would love to trade stickers. I have plenty of doubles. Email me if interested.