How many base set boxes are left?

[mossdeep]

10

[pfm]

@zorloth

@pfm

Emphasis on insane. What’s the evidence?

There’s no conclusive evidence. But I’d argue it’s prima facie. The burden of evidence should be on the person saying it’s under 10k. I think it’s more speculative to claim that there are fewer than 10k boxes than to claim that there are more than 10k.

No. The burden of proof is on the one with the positive and demonstrable claim. You can show evidence of a lower bound, just drop the names of people who are sitting on hundreds and hundreds of boxes. I can’t prove an upper bound because you’re asking me to show the lack of existence of something.

So I ask again, what’s the evidence that there is a minimum of 10,000 boxes left?

[fourthstartcg]

Attempting to put an exact number on boxes still “out there” is just pointless. Same with saying “exactly how many boxes of Steam Siege were printed?” We don’t even have any original print run numbers to go off of.

The best you can get in Pokemon is to make some basic relational comparisons. How much sealed Base Set is out there? Probably more than EX Deoxys and Neo Destiny. Probably less than Evolutions and Cosmic Eclipse.

[zorloth]

@pfm

@zorloth

There’s no conclusive evidence. But I’d argue it’s prima facie. The burden of evidence should be on the person saying it’s under 10k. I think it’s more speculative to claim that there are fewer than 10k boxes than to claim that there are more than 10k.

No. The burden of evidence is on the one with the positive and demonstrable claim. You can show evidence of a lower bound, just drop the names of people who are sitting on hundreds and hundreds of boxes. I can’t prove an upper bound because you’re asking me to show the lack of existence of something.

So I ask again, what’s the evidence that there is a minimum of 10,000 boxes left?

My claim is that it’s reasonable to assume that there are 10k+ boxes left – not that there are necessarily 10k+ boxes left.

Why do I think this is a reasonable assumption? For one, it’s because there were tens of millions of boxes produced. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there were 10 million boxes produced (which should be a conservative, uncontroversial estimate given the fact that multiple billions of Base Unlimited cards were produced, a large portion of which were distributed in booster boxes). 10k boxes is 1/10th of 1% of the total print run. That means that for every 1000 boxes produced, at least one box was kept sealed. Common sense leads me to believe that at least 1/1000 boxes produced remain sealed.

I think that this is common sense given the fact that the market for Base Unlimited boxes was saturated for over a decade after release. Even in 2010, you could purchase Base boxes for $100. This, to me, indicates that a significant amount of product was kept sealed. In order for a box to remain at MSRP for over a decade after release, the product must have been overproduced relative to demand.

This is an inductive argument. So I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I’m just establishing why I think it’s likely that there are >10k boxes left.

[EnlightenedBulbasaur]

16,848.

[sherbert13]

@fourthstartcg

Attempting to put an exact number on boxes still “out there” is just pointless. Same with saying “exactly how many boxes of Steam Siege were printed?” We don’t even have any original print run numbers to go off of.

The best you can get in Pokemon is to make some basic relational comparisons. How much sealed Base Set is out there? Probably more than EX Deoxys and Neo Destiny. Probably less than Evolutions and Cosmic Eclipse.

Who’s asking for exact numbers? Nothing wrong with a fun topic discussing guesstimates imo. Has Been interesting to read someone thinks 1-2k, and someone else wouldn’t be surprised if there were 100k. Quite the bandwidth. Based on my experience seeing how many are sold and how many collector’s I know own one, I guesstimate somewhere between 5-10k

[mosstastic]

@EnlightenedBulbasaur

16,848.

16,849

[kingboo64]

42,069

[slippingjimmy]

Since zorloth is sitting on 10k, I’d say around 15k left.

[null_user]

theres only 5 boxes on ebay. the theory there are 10k out there doesn’t add up to me

[Pbali]

@zorloth

Why do I think this is a reasonable assumption? For one, it’s because there were tens of millions of boxes produced. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there were 10 million boxes produced (which should be a conservative, uncontroversial estimate given the fact that multiple billions of Base Unlimited cards were produced, a large portion of which were distributed in booster boxes). 10k boxes is 1/10th of 1% of the total print run. That means that for every 1000 boxes produced, at least one box was kept sealed. Common sense leads me to believe that at least 1/1000 boxes produced remain sealed.

I think that this is common sense given the fact that the market for Base Unlimited boxes was saturated for over a decade after release. Even in 2010, you could purchase Base boxes for $100. This, to me, indicates that a significant amount of product was kept sealed. In order for a box to remain at MSRP for over a decade after release, the product must have been overproduced relative to demand.

This is an inductive argument. So I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I’m just establishing why I think it’s likely that there are >10k boxes left.

I wouldn’t say 10 million is conservative at all. If we go by this thread: www.elitefourum.com/t/an-elaborate-attempt-at-print-run-estimation-wip-5-8-18/20273/1. Then we can assume 12 billion cards produced by 2001. If we take your 10 million box number then 1/3 of all cards produced were base set unlimited boxes up to that point (11 cards per pack x 36 packs per box x 10mil = 3.96 bil). Given just how many other products were produced it doesn’t seem likely to be the case.

[shadowless]

While we already established that no one can ever know for sure, it´s still fun to guess. My guess would be around 5k, pure speculation.

[kinggr]

My uncle worked for WOTC. He said there’s 2,736 Base Boxes left, on the dot.

[gottaketchumall]

I will award a sealed base unlimited booster box to anyone who can undeniably prove they had the closest guess.

My own guess when asked this question a while ago on sets like fossil and jungle was in the 5-15k range. After giving it some more thought I think that number would be more appropriate for base set including all languages and editions. I think Jungle unl+1st and Fossil unl+1st would each be somewhere more in the 1-10k realm just to get an order of magnitude estimation.

One bit of data we do get fed is the total number of cards printed updated on a semi annual basis. Last couple check-ins have shown we are currently having about 3.2B cards printed per year. With 4-5 sets printed each year that averages out to about 800M cards per set and if the only product released was booster boxes would be about 2.2M booster boxes for each set.

It’s a fun thing to think about and it is interesting to read all the guesses. It becomes crazy to think about when you multiple them by current market value to come up with an estimated market cap and when you run a little thought experiment on how many will be opened over the next 1, 10, 50, 100 years and what will happen to the pops.

It is also crazy to think about how many boxes are sealed out there in landfills, in attics, in storage that have been or will be lost to time never to enter the market nor be opened. Do we count those in our estimates? What percent do those comprise? The whole story of 1952 Topps being dumped in an ocean is a fun google if you’ve never heard of it, and I’m not saying Pokemon saw anything like that but in the ~10 year span of the early 2000’s and more and more every day I’m sure most would be shocked how many mint collections and sealed boxes still get trashed with people having no idea of their worth or that they still have them after all these years.

[willyboy]

@zorloth

@pfm

No. The burden of evidence is on the one with the positive and demonstrable claim. You can show evidence of a lower bound, just drop the names of people who are sitting on hundreds and hundreds of boxes. I can’t prove an upper bound because you’re asking me to show the lack of existence of something.

So I ask again, what’s the evidence that there is a minimum of 10,000 boxes left?

My claim is that it’s reasonable to assume that there are 10k+ boxes left – not that there are necessarily 10k+ boxes left.

Why do I think this is a reasonable assumption? For one, it’s because there were tens of millions of boxes produced. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there were 10 million boxes produced (which should be a conservative, uncontroversial estimate given the fact that multiple billions of Base Unlimited cards were produced, a large portion of which were distributed in booster boxes). 10k boxes is 1/10th of 1% of the total print run. That means that for every 1000 boxes produced, at least one box was kept sealed. Common sense leads me to believe that at least 1/1000 boxes produced remain sealed.

I think that this is common sense given the fact that the market for Base Unlimited boxes was saturated for over a decade after release. Even in 2010, you could purchase Base boxes for $100. This, to me, indicates that a significant amount of product was kept sealed. In order for a box to remain at MSRP for over a decade after release, the product must have been overproduced.

This is an inductive argument. So I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I’m just establishing why I think it’s likely that there are >10k boxes left.

What if we use the PSA pop report for the Unlimited Charizard to make a very rough estimate here? It’ll require a few numerical asspulls, but I think that you’re overestimating supply. Of course this is all fun speculation and it’s impossible to say what the print run actually was with any accuracy.

There are a total of 16,922 Unlimited Charizards currently graded with PSA, the most commonly graded card out of Base Set. That number is slightly inflated because of people cracking+regrading, but let’s assume that it’s accurate because doing so supports your side of the argument.
Let’s pretend that 5% of all Unlimited Charizards pulled from packs have been graded with PSA, yes I’m pulling that number out of my ass, but I don’t think it’s an entirely outrageous estimate. That would mean that there were a total of 338,440 ((1/.05) x 16,922) Base Set Charizards pulled from packs, representing 1/16th of all Base set holos.
It follows that there are a total of 5,415,040 (338,440 x 16) Unlimited Base Set holos that have been pulled from packs. We can also pretend, for the sake of your argument, that blister packs don’t exist and that the estimated quantity of holos came ENTIRELY from booster boxes.
With 12 holos in every booster box, 5,415,040 holos would mean a total of 451,253 (5,415,040 / 12) Base Set unlimited boxes that have been opened. So if we imagine that 1% of boxes remain sealed, another asspull, but much higher than your 0.1% estimate, we are left with 4,558 ((1/0.99) x 451,253 x 0.01) sealed boxes left in existence.
That estimate is high if we account for regrading and the existence of blister packs, if the PSA population represents >5% of the total population, or if the quantity of sealed product remaining is <1% of the print run. That estimate would also be low if the PSA population represents <5% of the total Charizard population, or if >1% of the print run remains sealed. Let me know if I made any mistakes with the math, or if you think my two estimations are vastly incorrect. Again, this is all speculation and there’s no way to accurately deduce the print run, but it’s fun to try!

[zorloth]

@Pbali

@zorloth

Why do I think this is a reasonable assumption? For one, it’s because there were tens of millions of boxes produced. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there were 10 million boxes produced (which should be a conservative, uncontroversial estimate given the fact that multiple billions of Base Unlimited cards were produced, a large portion of which were distributed in booster boxes). 10k boxes is 1/10th of 1% of the total print run. That means that for every 1000 boxes produced, at least one box was kept sealed. Common sense leads me to believe that at least 1/1000 boxes produced remain sealed.

I think that this is common sense given the fact that the market for Base Unlimited boxes was saturated for over a decade after release. Even in 2010, you could purchase Base boxes for $100. This, to me, indicates that a significant amount of product was kept sealed. In order for a box to remain at MSRP for over a decade after release, the product must have been overproduced relative to demand.

This is an inductive argument. So I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I’m just establishing why I think it’s likely that there are >10k boxes left.

I wouldn’t say 10 million is conservative at all. If we go by this thread: www.elitefourum.com/t/an-elaborate-attempt-at-print-run-estimation-wip-5-8-18/20273/1. Then we can assume 12 billion cards produced by 2001. If we take your 10 million box number then 1/3 of all cards produced were base set unlimited boxes up to that point (11 cards per pack x 36 packs per box x 10mil = 3.96 bil). Given just how many other products were produced it doesn’t seem likely to be the case.

On the second page of the thread, the OP estimated Base Unlimited to be close to 3 billion. So you’re right that 10 million may not have been a conservative estimate. I think a conservative estimate, then, may be closer to 4 million. My mistake.

Regardless, that doesn’t change my reasoning. All it does is adjust one of the premises to “at least 1/400 boxes produced remain sealed.” And I also happen to think this is a very safe assumption based on how saturated the market was for over a decade after it was released. In order for the market for Base boxes to have been saturated (which it was), a large number of boxes would have to have been kept sealed. To me, 1/400 boxes produced having been kept sealed seems incredibly conservative.

Ultimately, it’s all speculation. But I think that it’s less speculative to assume that there are >10k boxes than to assume that there are <10k boxes.

[zorloth]

@willyboy

@zorloth

My claim is that it’s reasonable to assume that there are 10k+ boxes left – not that there are necessarily 10k+ boxes left.

Why do I think this is a reasonable assumption? For one, it’s because there were tens of millions of boxes produced. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there were 10 million boxes produced (which should be a conservative, uncontroversial estimate given the fact that multiple billions of Base Unlimited cards were produced, a large portion of which were distributed in booster boxes). 10k boxes is 1/10th of 1% of the total print run. That means that for every 1000 boxes produced, at least one box was kept sealed. Common sense leads me to believe that at least 1/1000 boxes produced remain sealed.

I think that this is common sense given the fact that the market for Base Unlimited boxes was saturated for over a decade after release. Even in 2010, you could purchase Base boxes for $100. This, to me, indicates that a significant amount of product was kept sealed. In order for a box to remain at MSRP for over a decade after release, the product must have been overproduced.

This is an inductive argument. So I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I’m just establishing why I think it’s likely that there are >10k boxes left.

What if we use the PSA pop report for the Unlimited Charizard to make a very rough estimate here? It’ll require a few numerical asspulls, but I think that you’re overestimating supply. Of course this is all fun speculation and it’s impossible to say what the print run actually was with any accuracy.

There are a total of 16,922 Unlimited Charizards currently graded with PSA, the most commonly graded card out of Base Set. That number is slightly inflated because of people cracking+regrading, but let’s assume that it’s accurate because doing so supports your side of the argument.
Let’s pretend that 5% of all Unlimited Charizards pulled from packs have been graded with PSA, yes I’m pulling that number out of my ass, but I don’t think it’s an entirely outrageous estimate. That would mean that there were a total of 338,440 ((1/.05) x 16,922) Base Set Charizards pulled from packs, representing 1/16th of all Base set holos.
It follows that there are a total of 5,415,040 (338,440 x 16) Unlimited Base Set holos that have been pulled from packs. We can also pretend, for the sake of your argument, that blister packs don’t exist and that the estimated quantity of holos came ENTIRELY from booster boxes.
With 12 holos in every booster box, 5,415,040 holos would mean a total of 451,253 (5,415,040 / 12) Base Set unlimited boxes that have been opened. So if we imagine that 1% of boxes remain sealed, another asspull, but much higher than your 0.1% estimate, we are left with 4,558 ((1/0.99) x 451,253 x 0.01) sealed boxes left in existence.
That estimate is high if we account for regrading and the existence of blister packs, if the PSA population represents >5% of the total population, or if the quantity of sealed product remaining is <1% of the print run. That estimate would also be low if the PSA population represents <5% of the total Charizard population, or if >1% of the print run remains sealed. Let me know if I made any mistakes with the math, or if you think my two estimations are vastly incorrect. Again, this is all speculation and there’s no way to accurately deduce the print run, but it’s fun to try!

Where you go wrong is assuming that 5% of all Base Unlimited Charizards printed have already been graded. I think that’s much too high of an estimate. Look at the pop reports of comparable cards and you’ll see why 5% doesn’t make any sense.

But I definitely agree that this is an interesting topic . Some people seem to get pretty bothered by this type of speculation, but it’s just for fun. All of us know that none of us know.

[zorloth]

@slabsniper

theres only 5 boxes on ebay. the theory there are 10k out there doesn’t add up to me

I mean, there are only 11 English Gold Star Torchics on eBay. But I don’t think anyone would deny that more than 20k exist lol. It’s called scarcity. Base boxes are scarce right now.

[shadowless]

@slabsniper

theres only 5 boxes on ebay. the theory there are 10k out there doesn’t add up to me

The exact number is impossible to determine but it´s like a random low cap stock - there´s maybe 20.000 shares available for sale on the open market, 2000 trade hands a day but there´s 10.000.000 shares out there in portfolios.

[thymeee]

When base set booster boxes were going for 10k, there were 2 boxes that were put on the local auction site for 2k each. He just found them when he was cleaning his attic and did not want more for them as he thought 2k was a good enough price (they were real and not resealed). Of course this is just an anecdote, but I would think that there are way more cases like this one. Especially since this was in The Netherlands where the initial base set hype was smaller than in the USA.

So yea since there is no way anyone can be sure and everyone is just guessing, this will be my guess: 18750. I am with Zorloth here that I would guess there is bigger chance that there are more than 10k boxes left than less then 10k.