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A while ago I decided to buy 20 packs of Topps 206 Star Wars Wave 1 cards. In total 25,102 of them have been produced and they are no longer available for purchase as their sale window only ran from September 13, 2022 until October 04, 2022.
They are still available for purchase on eBay however. You can find them by using this eBay search. At the time of writing they cost about $20-25 per pack.
Opening them up
Let’s start to open them! The first step is to unbox the little boxes they arrived in. The result can be seen in the picture below. It is a little bit of a shame that so much packaging is wasted when you are buying in bulk, Topps really could do better in that department!
Another thing to keep in mind is the size of the cards. Topps states they are 1.4375″ x 2.625″ 18pt Heritage Stock trading cards. So you may want to take note of that when protecting them in soft sleeves. It seems like these kind of Tobacco sleeves on eBay should fit them, but I’ve never tried it myself, so always double-check the dimensions. Or simply put them in regular sleeves, just like I did, and be extra careful with them.
The big pulls
It’s time to talk about the pulls now! Let’s start with the big pulls. We hit an Alternate Character Image Short print and one of the Home world Inserts! While the former has no pull rate data available, the latter has a pull rate of 1:30 packs, so hitting one is nice!
Colored parallels
Next up are the colored parallels. The pull rates and expected number of cards are as follows, with the expected number being the number of cards we can expect in 20 packs.
| Rarity | Pull rate | Expected number |
|---|---|---|
| Orange Star Field | 1:5 packs | 4 cards |
| Green Star Field | 1:10 packs | 2 cards |
| Yellow Star Field | 1:15 packs | 1.33 cards |
| Red Star Field | 1:20 packs | 1 card |
As you can see I hit better than expected on the Orange Star Field and Yellow Star Field cards, but unfortunately missed out on a Red Star Field card, and I got less Green Star Field cards than the average. Most things average out, but I’d really have liked a Red Star Field card. Better luck next time!
Star Wars Logo backs
Now we’re getting to the more common hits, one of them is the Star Wars Logo backs with a pull rate of 1:3 packs. This means we should get between 6 and 7 of those.
Actually they look similar to the regular Base cards on the front side, but their back side is different, as can be seen below. The Base cards have backs that are unique for each card.
Blue Star Field parallels
These parallels are the least rare with them being two in each pack unless one of them is replaced by a rarer parallel or insert. As you can see from the picture below I pulled a total of 25 cards in my 20 packs.
Was it worth it?
And at last, we get to the final section. These 20 packs cost me $275 plus another $15 for shipping, ordered directly from Topps.
That brings the total cost to $290. Below you can find the value of the pulls, obtained from recent eBay sales.
| Character | Rarity | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Sheev Palpatine | Home world Insert | $50 |
| Finn | Alternate Character Image | $45 |
| Zuckuss | Yellow Star Field | $30 |
| Lando Calrissian | Yellow Star Field | $15 |
| DJ | Green Star Field | $10 |
| General Jan Dodonna | Orange Star Field | $10 |
| C-3PO | Orange Star Field | $10 |
| C-3PO | Orange Star Field | $10 |
| C-3PO | Star Wars Logo back | $8 |
| Master Codebreaker | Orange Star Field | $7.50 |
| Bail Organa | Orange Star Field | $5 |
| Wedge Antilles | Star Wars Logo back | $4 |
| Galen Erso | Star Wars Logo back | $4 |
| Lobot | Star Wars Logo back | $4 |
| Captain Colton | Star Wars Logo back | $4 |
| Bazine Netal | Star Wars Logo back | $4 |
Which gives us a total return of $220.50, and that is excluding the Blue Star Field parallels averaging $2 each and a selection of Base cards of the most popular characters having some value as well. Adding those in you get a return of at least $270.50.
So that ultimately gives us a return of 93%! Which is not bad at all, but not spectacular either. Have you bought any of these packs too? Be sure to let me know your pulls on Twitter or Instagram!
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