[ckrakowski]

I was just thinking about the 1992 upper deck ted williams auto. There are 2500 of them and it occurred to me that not all of them may have been pulled.

Player name followed by how many autos were signed. So how many of the following autos do you think are still in packs just waiting to be discovered.

1990 Upper Deck: Reggie Jackson 2500

1991 Upper Deck: Nolan Ryan and Hank Aaron 2500

Harmon Killebrew and Gaylord Perry and Ferguson Jenkins 3000

1992 Upper Deck: Ted Williams and Johnny Bench / Joe Morgan 2500

Vida Blue and Lou Brock and Rollie Fingers 3000

1994 Upper Deck: Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mickey Mantle 1000

Ken Griffey Jr. 1000

Mickey Mantle 1000


Alex Rodriguez ??????

In 1994 Upper Deck had both Ken Griffey Jr. and Mickey Mantle sign 1000 cards each by themselves and then sign 1000 together for 3000 cards.

Upper Deck never disclosed how many Alex Rodriguez cards were autographed.

In 1993 Upper Deck did not include autographs.

[djohn]

Probably around 20-25% of them for 1990-1992, as there is tons of unopened boxes and cases still out there. The 1994 ones are probably less, simply because there isn't nearly as much unopened boxes (partially due to the Griffey and Mantle autos, as well as people hunting for ARod rookies to grade, plus production runs started dropping in 1993 and 1994 compared to the previous years).

[jack pfiester]

Don't forget about the Donruss Elite autographs and the 1991 and 1992 Score autographs! I've been chasing them as these boxes are selling for pennies on the dollar. Would love to pull the 1991 UD Heroes Nolan Ryan autograph!

[hempick]

I never really thought about this. A lot of those early 1990s boxes are super cheap.

[jonathani]

A lot were likely pulled by kids who put them in their spokes or worse. It was 25 years ago. Not as many people paid attention like today. That's why the markets were flooded: to get people's attention. Why Topps floods us know with more than we can possibly collect? I don't know. (Same picture, different color background, c'mon Topps. Seriously.)

[djohn]

A lot were likely pulled by kids who put them in their spokes or worse. It was 25 years ago. Not as many people paid attention like today. That's why the markets were flooded: to get people's attention. Why Topps floods us know with more than we can possibly collect? I don't know. (Same picture, different color background, c'mon Topps. Seriously.)

That is very unlikely. Back in the early 90s, everyone paid attention to cards, as everyone thought they would be worth big money one day. The Elite and Upper Deck autograph cards were extremely difficult hits, the odds were harder than 1 per case, and more like 1 per 5-10 cases. A lot of that had to do with the fact that the card companies made so many boxes back then.
As much as I would love to pull one from a box myself, I have a feeling that unless you got super lucky you would end up spending more buying the boxes now (even though they are cheap and can be had for around $5-10 each) then simply shelling out for the card you want.

[DrMitchJ]

That is very unlikely. Back in the early 90s, everyone paid attention to cards, as everyone thought they would be worth big money one day. The Elite and Upper Deck autograph cards were extremely difficult hits, the odds were harder than 1 per case, and more like 1 per 5-10 cases. A lot of that had to do with the fact that the card companies made so many boxes back then.
As much as I would love to pull one from a box myself, I have a feeling that unless you got super lucky you would end up spending more buying the boxes now (even though they are cheap and can be had for around $5-10 each) then simply shelling out for the card you want.

Correct on both counts, IMO.

1) Maybe in the early 60's-early 70's many cards suffered an untimely death by spokes, due to kids that had little value attached to cards that were originally a promotion to sell gum. I always put my most hated players of my most hated team 'to the spoke' as almost a ritualistic cleansing / purging. Many were saved by astute classmates with a quick hostage exchange prior to execution. In the 90's EVERYONE knew that baseball cards were going to be worth millions of dollars and put their kids and grandkids through college and allow for their early retirement.

2) Statistically and personally speaking, its always cheaper to just buy the card you want. Rarely do I get what I'm chasing and in hindsight, it usually is much cheaper just buying the card outright.
At $10 a box, you might have to buy 40 boxes to find 1 auto ... and it might not be the one you want. For $400 you could probably find most of the autos slabbed, graded & authenticated.

[jack pfiester]

The Williams auto is worth a lot more than $400!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1992-Upper-Deck...SwAVxZvyt4

[djohn]

2) Statistically and personally speaking, its always cheaper to just buy the card you want. Rarely do I get what I'm chasing and in hindsight, it usually is much cheaper just buying the card outright.
At $10 a box, you might have to buy 40 boxes to find 1 auto ... and it might not be the one you want. For $400 you could probably find most of the autos slabbed, graded & authenticated.

40 boxes actually wouldn't be too bad for some of the early 90s autographs. It's probably closer to 1 in 100+ boxes though.
Consider this...card companies were making millions of each card in the late 80s and early 90s. Now the hard part is that Upper Deck made factory sets as well as boxes, so determining exactly how many boxes were made could be difficult. For simplicity's sake, let's just say that Upper Deck made 1 million of every card and half were in sets and the other half in boxes. That would mean 500,000 or each card was issued in boxes. Since there were 2 series (high and low) and the Reggie was only in the high series, let's again assume that it was a 50/50 split on low series distribution between high and low series packs. That means that 250,000 of each low series card was available in high series boxes. Thus the math comes down to the following:
Total number of low series cards in high series boxes (250,000*600) = 150,000,000
Total number of high series cards in high series boxes (500,000*100) = 50,000,000
For a grand total of 200,000,000 cards in high series boxes. But wait there were the Reggie Jackson inserts and the autographs too. For the sake of simplicity I won't include the inserts. There were 2,500 of the Reggie Jackson autographs though.
With 15 cards per pack and 36 packs per box that means there are 540 cards per box. So the total number of boxes is 200,002,500/540 = 370,375.
Now to figure out the odds. 370,375/2,500 = 148. So from this example, using a few assumptions and approximations, the odds of finding a Reggie Jackson autograph is 1 in 148 boxes.
So buying those 148 boxes, even at $5 a piece would cost you $740. Hopefully you wouldn't have to buy that many, and moreso when you do find the Reggie, hopefully it isn't stuck to the cards next to it. Or you could simply buy the Reggie autograph for around $100.

[jack pfiester]

40 boxes actually wouldn't be too bad for some of the early 90s autographs. It's probably closer to 1 in 100+ boxes though.
Consider this...card companies were making millions of each card in the late 80s and early 90s. Now the hard part is that Upper Deck made factory sets as well as boxes, so determining exactly how many boxes were made could be difficult. For simplicity's sake, let's just say that Upper Deck made 1 million of every card and half were in sets and the other half in boxes. That would mean 500,000 or each card was issued in boxes. Since there were 2 series (high and low) and the Reggie was only in the high series, let's again assume that it was a 50/50 split on low series distribution between high and low series packs. That means that 250,000 of each low series card was available in high series boxes. Thus the math comes down to the following:
Total number of low series cards in high series boxes (250,000*600) = 150,000,000
Total number of high series cards in high series boxes (500,000*100) = 50,000,000
For a grand total of 200,000,000 cards in high series boxes. But wait there were the Reggie Jackson inserts and the autographs too. For the sake of simplicity I won't include the inserts. There were 2,500 of the Reggie Jackson autographs though.
With 15 cards per pack and 36 packs per box that means there are 540 cards per box. So the total number of boxes is 200,002,500/540 = 370,375.
Now to figure out the odds. 370,375/2,500 = 148. So from this example, using a few assumptions and approximations, the odds of finding a Reggie Jackson autograph is 1 in 148 boxes.
So buying those 148 boxes, even at $5 a piece would cost you $740. Hopefully you wouldn't have to buy that many, and moreso when you do find the Reggie, hopefully it isn't stuck to the cards next to it. Or you could simply buy the Reggie autograph for around $100.

Thrill of the hunt!!