I mentioned yesterday that I got 4 Rex Brothers cards #72. Well that was just the tip of the iceberg.
To recap; I bought 2 Jumbo Hobby packs, 2 Retail loose packs, a Retail Rack-Pack, and a Blaster box.
I was not thinking I would come close to a complete Series 1 set, but this is sad. I feel a bit ripped off.
It's more math than I feel like trying to figure out at this point, but my guess is that you aren't more than a single standard deviation away from the norm assuming each card is printed equally. One of the great flaws of card packaging is that we think if we get doubles (or triples) that we somehow had bad luck. In fact, if Topps (or whoever) actually packed the cards with pure randomness, pretty much every blaster (and many packs) would contain doubles. I believe it was Steve Jobs who said about the original iPod "We had to make the shuffle feature less random in order for people to think it was more random." (in response to people complaining that their iPod would play the same song or even the same artist back-to-back.)
ReplyDeleteWell, at least it got you thinking about 3's Company. "Come and knock on our door..." I really shouldn't comment late at night.
ReplyDeleteGreat, now I'm thinking about Suzanne Somers. A young....Suzanne Somers.
ReplyDeleteI was going to comment that I've seen this with other topps products. I opened 5 boxes of chrome this year and was missing many cards but had 4 copies of a ton of them. At least w/ FOR's explanation I feel a bit better.
ReplyDeleteI have about 300 cards I don't need for my set, I'll send you the box sometime in the next few weeks if you want it.
Just email me.
I was going to answer with a mathy answer, but FanOfReds nailed it. Unfortunately it leads to "patterns" of cards where you get the same three-in-a-row because they have are trying to make sure that individual packs/hangers/blasters/boxes don't have doubles within them. It sucks, but it is better than getting 6 of one person in one box and none of another person.
ReplyDeleteIt's Topps way of Bipping you. Blame Stale Gum. (Said with tongue firmly in cheek)
ReplyDeletemy possible suggestion/solution would be to buy a hobby box. i was able to nail a significant number of base cards without a single duplicate. At Target, i picked up simply one hanger box, and i had 5 dupes within that single box! ridiculous. perhaps the problem is related to the retail product?
ReplyDelete