Junk Era Shiny Crap: Doing the Math

[Exhibitman]

I love a couple of the junk wax era shiny inserts. Like 1996 Summit Above and Beyond. I did the math the other night and thought the results for a set building exercise were interesting.

The set has 200 cards.

The cards were seeded 1:4 in hobby boxes.

Each hobby box had 18 packs and sold for $2.99 MSRP

So, what would it cost to put together a set by busting packs in 1996? Well, each box had 4.5 cards on average and retailed for $53.82 plus tax. Call it $55 with tax and assuming a bit of a discount for a box purchase. So the least the set could cost would be, in round terms:

44 boxes x $55 per box = $2,420.00

Divide that by $200 and the set would run $12.10 per card assembled.

Today nearly all of the cards cost under $2 but the Jeter runs $40 and the Bonds, Griffey and a few others will sell for several bucks too.

Interesting what this stuff cost new...