We’ve tracked the first 147 boxes of the 2021 Garbage Pail Kids Sapphire set that have been opened on YouTube, Facebook, and eBay (sellers who listed 32 cards at one time). This has revealed some interesting insight that can help inform your decisions around buying, selling, trading, grading, and collecting this set.

Number of Parallels per Box

Across the first 111 boxes opened the number of parallel “hits” in each box were:

0 hits: 0
1 hit: 0
2 hits: 84 (75.5%)
3 hits: 27 (24.5%)
4 hits: 0

These are preliminary numbers that may change as more boxes are opened and shared. There is a theory that boxes are being weighed by some purchasers to determine how many hits are inside, the ones that weigh more are kept and opened, and the ones that weigh less are resold. If this practice is widespread it could increase the proportion of opened boxes that have 2 hits or fewer as more of the lighter boxes make their way out into the market. How widespread that practice is, is unclear.

Additionally a few people have shared that they opened a box and received one hit. We have yet to add those to the tracker but will as we continue to track. There may be some 0 or 1 hit boxes.

Still, the main point is “S2” boxes have a much higher probability of hits than the 2020 Garbage Pail Kids Sapphire (“S1”) set. The community effort to track S1 break hits has now recorded 4,648 boxes. And the hit ratio from those are:

0 hits: 90 (1.9%)
1 hit: 659 (14.2%)
2 hits: 3,136 (67.5%)
3 hits: 678 (14.6%)
4 hits: 85 (1.8%)

Distribution of Parallels in Box

The parallel odds per pack are printed on the box:

With 8 packs per box you would expect to pull the following after 147 boxes:

Aqua /99: 107 (34.3%)
Fuscia /75: 84 (27.0%)
Green /50: 56 (18.0%)
Orange /25: 29 (9.2%)
Gold /15: 17 (5.6%)
Purple /10: 12 (3.7%)
Red /5: 6 (1.9%)
Padparadscha /1: 1 (0.4%)
TOTAL: 311

In reality, the first 147 boxes we tracked match quite closely:

Aqua /99: 112 (33.9%)
Fuscia /75: 93 (28.2%)
Green /50: 57 (17.3%)
Orange /25: 31 (9.4%)
Gold /15: 21 (6.4%)
Purple /10: 11 (3.3%)
Red /5: 5 (1.5%)
Padparadscha /1: 0 (0.0%) (Have no fear Padpa fans, there have been at least two pulled. They were listed without the other cards in those boxes. That’s why they are not included yet.)
TOTAL: 330

Initial Analysis of S2 by the Numbers

Using the checklist, and print run of each parallel level we can determine there are 47,600 total parallels printed for this set. That’s a 49% increase vs. S1 driven primarily by the addition of the new fuschia /75 level.

You can then simply use the odds per pack to determine how many of each parallel will be in each box and see there should be 2.12 parallels per box. Indeed the box top says in big bold font “2 Parallels Inside”.

Assuming all 47,600 parallels are distributed in the boxes you get 47,600 / 2.12 = 22,471 boxes. (That’s a 41% increase vs, S1 which had 15,936 boxes produced.)

But here’s the open question.

Our tracking data points to an average of 2.25 per box. That would equate to 21,156 boxes.

So for now our estimate is there were between 21,156 and 22,471 boxes produced.

Single Print and Double Print Base Characters

For some collectors who shun parallels, it’s “all about that base”, and the question arises, how many base cards of each character were printed? - an important question as you attempt to complete the set.

S1 had 166 cards in the checklist. 34 of them were “Double Prints” (DP) with a print run (PR) of 5,000 base cards. 132 were Single Prints (SP) with a PR of 2,500. You can see how that was discovered here.

S2 has a checklist of 170 cards. Our tracking data appears to show that there are 30 DPs and 140 SPs. Through the first 147 boxes we now know the first 26:

84a JOE Blow
90a Stoned SEAN
91b Hippie SKIPPY
95a Grim JIM
95b Beth DEATH
97a Punchy PERRY (NEWLY DETERMINED TO BE A DP ON OCT. 9TH)
98a CHARLOTTE Web
102a Mugged MARCUS
104a Silent SANDY
107b TATUM Pole
110a Snooty SAM
112b Undead JED
115a Warmin’ NORMAN (NEWLY DETERMINED TO BE A DP ON OCT. 9TH)
118b Glandular ANGELA
121a Apple CORY
124a HUGH Mungous
125a HOLLY Wood
128a Sloshed JOSH
130b HANK E. Panky
132a Bony TONY
134b WALT Witless (NEWLY DETERMINED TO BE A DP ON OCT. 9TH)
135b MARTY Gras
138a Alien IAN
140b Tooth LES
142a BRUCE Moose
143b HY Rye (NEWLY DETERMINED TO BE A DP ON OCT. 9TH)
146a Baked JAKE
149a REESE Pieces
151b Dyin' DINAH
156b BRETT Vet

Interestingly the main difference here vs. S1 is that there are a number of characters where the “a name” is a DP and “b name” is not, or vice versa. 98a CHARLOTTE Web, but not 98b DIDI T. for example. 140b TOOTH Les, but not 140a Mouth PHIL In fact, the only a/b DP pair is 95a Grim JIM / 95b Beth DEATH. (All S1 DPs were in 17x a/b pairs.).

Base Print Run

So we know there are a max of 22,471 boxes produced - each with 32 cards inside. And we know there is a minimum of 2.118 parallels per box. That leaves 29.882 base per box on average. More specifically it looks like roughly 671,485 total base are in the boxes.
Let’s assume for now that the 140 SPs and 30 DPs are split up into two printing sheets of 100 each (this was the size of the S1 sheets).

Sheet A has 70 SPs and 30 DPs.

Sheet B has the other 70 SPs and 30 DPs.

There are 200 cards printed per “batch” of Sheet A and Sheet B.

If you divide the 671,485 base by 200 you get 3,357 batches.

So, approximately, we have a PR of 3,350 for each SP and 6,700 for each DP. Interestingly, this is exactly a 34% increase for both the SP and DP PRs vs. S1.

Takeaways

We will refine these numbers in the coming weeks but for now there are a few key takeaways to inform your buying, selling, and collecting.

There are roughly 40% more boxes of S2 produced vs. S1, full of about 50% more parallels and 35% more base.
If you open a box there is a very high probability it will have two or more parallels.
It will be comparatively easy to complete an S2 base set vs. an S1 base set.

2021 Garbage Pail Kids Sapphire by the Numbers