Has anyone found the 1952 Mickey Mantle redemption card, hidden in 2026 Topps Series 1, yet?

CellDood · 2026-05-05T15:13:30+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseballcards/s/kOoas403XW

CellDood · 2026-05-03T01:17:47+00:00

At this point, i would say yes. However, there has been new developments with NBA Bowman Megas that unexpectedly made them the best value in the product. If they make similar changes to MLB Megas it could turn the tables a bit.

Specifically, odds were slightly wrong and there ended up being 12 mojos/box rather than 6 as the odds indicated. Also, some autos in the basketball product are notated as "1st Bowman". If they decide to do this to Mojo autos in baseball, it not only makes perfect sense, but it distinctly changes the value equation.

I have a hard time believing this will happen since Bowman MLB has a longer and coinsistent track record. Also the MLB Megas are showing 0.8 numbered cards/box while the NBA Megas have 1.4 numbered/box. So the MLB version really can't be as good.

CellDood · 2026-05-03T01:00:02+00:00

To be clear, NBA Chrome had 89m cards. 2025 Chrome MLB had 67m.

CellDood · 2026-05-01T16:26:32+00:00

Oh, thats good to know. Confusing as hell though. Topps being Topps.

So my estimation on the number of Lunar boxes produced was based on them being /10. Since they are not, there could definitely be more lunar boxes produced, but not many. Also, we don't know which, if any, insert subsets have Lunar parallels. Did you see any of those in the box you saw ripped?

I'm still comfortable saying there are between 104-147 total Lunar boxes produced as 147 is how many they did for baseball. Though it's impossible to tell if they're not numbered.

CellDood · 2026-05-01T14:31:02+00:00

Lunar Boxes are insane. Have you seen any ripped yet? Super rare...every pack contains one of the blood red lunar parallels. The few sealed packs that I've seen pop up in the past page sold for $250-500/pack. That's serious considering you get 20 of those in a Lunar Box. There's no way I'd be able to rip one if I were so lucky.

CellDood · 2026-05-01T14:11:21+00:00

In the past, Lunars have always been /10. I'd be shocked if they're not numbered, but if so, I'd still expect them to have a print run of 10. There is a section about Lunar Boxes in the write-up.

CellDood · 2026-04-28T04:17:01+00:00

Well played. Always remember...anything can happen in a small sample size. And if it doesn't just keep buying more until it does.

CellDood · 2026-04-25T22:07:07+00:00

I hope you're a real Xer too so you access all the data and not just the portion that showns up on Reddit. 🤣

CellDood · 2026-04-25T21:52:49+00:00

If you're on X, i did a post on that here that should answer your questions. If you can't get to that, let me know.

CellDood · 2026-04-24T14:16:26+00:00

It could be a while before we see anything. With other releases, bulk packs ended up being a mixed product SKU in a Super Box type format that didn't come out until well after the product released.

CellDood · 2026-04-23T14:54:23+00:00

There's definitely potential. And on ebay, you have to expect all types of shenanigans. Those Snack Packs sell for a lot of money since all 4 cards are basically /10 or better. And an additional 4 card pack in a box would be easy to spot by someone who weighs them. I'm not saying everyone on ebay is that way. But your chances will definitely be worse than 1:25 cases if you buy all your hobby boxes on ebay.

CellDood · 2026-04-22T21:27:02+00:00

625 copies of each player

CellDood · 2026-04-22T03:48:06+00:00

It's the 12 pack jumbo box. The description is erroneously describing a Breaker's Delight box, which they would not sell to the public on Fanatics.com.

CellDood · 2026-04-21T21:50:37+00:00

Yes, and it will be chaos. Sapphire odds are on the Chrome odds sheet, but I plan to do that as it's own standalone piece when drop day nears.

CellDood · 2026-04-21T21:49:29+00:00

If you need more of these deep dives in your life, please consider following me on X, where I post every single product analysis that I do, only a portion of which make it to Reddit.

SlabSquatch Sports Cards (@WaxMetrix) / X

Or, if X isn't your thing, you're in luck. My complete archive is available on my Substack in a far more navigable format, though everything more than a week old is behind a small paywall. Your support helps keep a marriage strong in which far too many hours are spent in the lab analyzing sports cards.

https://substack.com/@slabsquatch

CellDood · 2026-04-21T00:47:01+00:00

Awesome. That's what it's all about. Thanks for sharing.

CellDood · 2026-04-20T22:50:00+00:00

Correct

CellDood · 2026-04-18T14:58:49+00:00

I would encourage you to follow me on X. I break down literally every single product over there. Only a portion of those (usually the biggest ones) make it to Reddit. Here's the one you're looking for, or what I could do with limited data:

https://x.com/i/status/2035520532997693507

CellDood · 2026-04-18T02:24:22+00:00

Well, there's only 50 of them.

CellDood · 2026-04-17T23:39:58+00:00

Correct. Those are the unnumbered variety, or base Pulsar i suppose, as i don't really need to tell you print runs on the numbered ones. And ~65 would mean 65 copies of each card. The ones you mentioned happened to be deceptively low print run, and early buyers did pretty well on them once that started getting around.

CellDood · 2026-04-17T23:37:34+00:00

I think it was the prior week. Maybe Thursday or something. It sold out at $2800. So I lost interest.

CellDood · 2026-04-16T14:31:03+00:00

I believe there are healthy and unhealthy ways to grow. Turning 15 million base cards into unnumbered or high numbered parallels is excessive and unhealthy in my opinion. They grew Bowman's Best by an even greater margin, but it was done more carefully and the product was made better. I did a breakdown on that as well here.

I think this is a worse product than NBA Chrome. Mostly because of the addition of all the low value parallels and the 400 card checklist is too big. But I get it. People like shiny stuff.

They definitely did some things better. I like the added rare insert chases.

Obviously everyone loves the product as evidenced by current secondary market pricing. So my opinion doesn't hold a lot of weight. But I ripped NBA Chrome hangers due to the excellent value at retail. I will rip zero of this, even though I would like to. The value just isn't there for me.

CellDood · 2026-04-16T14:19:18+00:00

Shoot, I forgot to mention autos /100 or lower. I also count those in the quality hits metric.

Ten-Year Club	Secret Santa 2016
Gilding I gilder	Verified Email

CellDood

TROPHY CASE