2024 Upper Deck Fleer Ultra Marvel Wolverine

[Marvel Card]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Sort of unclear what the LCM method is (just taking the least LCM of all the pack odds?), but probably have to take some of that with a huge grain of salt…for example I wouldn’t be surprised if UD rounded those numbers pretty liberally.

Beckett checklist does list epack for inserts available in epack. It just says only hobby for the top secret minis, so I do think it’s a good guess that it is 37,600 boxes of physical alone + whatever is in epack. 47k total sounds too low since it would be unusual for epack to have nearly just 1/5th of total production, sounds low.

What do the blaster yellow /90s fall, are they one per box? Trying to figure out the print run of the blasters. The reason being I’m trying to gauge the jambalaya print run this time around. Old jambalayas ranged from /20ish to /150ish if I recall. This one has to be way up there.

I’ll help you out with this. The good thing is you can see my logic so if you agree, you can take it but if you don’t, I get some feedback on how to do this better.

The LCM is literally just taking the least common multiple of every single pack odd listed. You’re right in saying UD could round up or down, but I don’t think they do so liberally. The most, I’d say, is less than 1 whole number. From here, you can have a starting point of production run of hobby boxes at least. From those production run estimates, you can then take expected hit frequency of numbered parallels and see how closely they line up to anecdotal case breaks, as well as personal case breaks. For example, if you end up a ruby medallion every 9 boxes across 3 cases, from that small sample size you’d say pack odds are 1:108 packs. But what you can do is take all the Ruby medallions in the print (5000) and the determine pack odds based on different production run estimates.


For hobby/epack, I believe the production run for hobby/epack based on LCM is ~47,000 boxes. The next LCM has us at a print run of 94,000 boxes and if that were the case, numbers would suggest people wouldn’t be pulling any inserts at the frequency they are on these posted case breaks. 10-11k boxes may seem low for epack, however the number of digital base FUA (if you tracked base, rainbow, gold rainbow, accounted for sales) was about 4000 per character, which lines up with 10k boxes. I’m guessing the least amount of hobby/epack would be ~47k boxes, but it could be more. Based on pulls of numbered cards, the range I’d be comfortable in projecting is up to 56k boxes.

With regard to blaster, if 1 yellow per box, print run would be 13,500 blaster boxes in this scenario. However, based on LCM with other blaster inserts, yellows will be 1 in every 3.55 blasters for a total blaster production of ~48,000 blaster boxes.

All in all, I personally believe there are roughly 82 jambalayas printed per character, which is far lower than other FU sets. This is because pack odds are double (1:288 as opposed to 1:144).

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by PNWcards

Based on my experience with epack, personally I think it’s safe to assume the they don’t list the Top Secret minis as being available on epack because there’s no reason for them to essentially have a pack within a pack on that platform. Rather then the top secret mini envelope it’s easier just to scan the minis and insert them into packs without going through the extra legwork of doing the envelope as well.

This would actually be a pretty cool idea, although they would never do it. Like you could pull an envelope, but it can remain unknown on epack (unless you choose to ‘open it’ and reveal it, from which point on the item is then designated as the the card). But as long as it remains as an envelope, and remains in system, it can be used in trading, or even sent to COMC to be sold as an envelope (and you know it wouldn’t have been sent home first then resent to comc since they would never accept a sealed envelope as a submission).

As it is…I see some ‘sealed envelopes’ for these minis on eBay for sale, but who knows if they are tamper proof (and even if they are thought to be, I would hardly believe it and lay down that kind of cash). But having them sealed on ePack would allow for a market on those envelopes without worry.

[PNWcards]

Originally Posted by Marvel Card

I’ll help you out with this. The good thing is you can see my logic so if you agree, you can take it but if you don’t, I get some feedback on how to do this better.

The LCM is literally just taking the least common multiple of every single pack odd listed. You’re right in saying UD could round up or down, but I don’t think they do so liberally. The most, I’d say, is less than 1 whole number. From here, you can have a starting point of production run of hobby boxes at least. From those production run estimates, you can then take expected hit frequency of numbered parallels and see how closely they line up to anecdotal case breaks, as well as personal case breaks. For example, if you end up a ruby medallion every 9 boxes across 3 cases, from that small sample size you’d say pack odds are 1:108 packs. But what you can do is take all the Ruby medallions in the print (5000) and the determine pack odds based on different production run estimates.


For hobby/epack, I believe the production run for hobby/epack based on LCM is ~47,000 boxes. The next LCM has us at a print run of 94,000 boxes and if that were the case, numbers would suggest people wouldn’t be pulling any inserts at the frequency they are on these posted case breaks. 10-11k boxes may seem low for epack, however the number of digital base FUA (if you tracked base, rainbow, gold rainbow, accounted for sales) was about 4000 per character, which lines up with 10k boxes. I’m guessing the least amount of hobby/epack would be ~47k boxes, but it could be more. Based on pulls of numbered cards, the range I’d be comfortable in projecting is up to 56k boxes.

With regard to blaster, if 1 yellow per box, print run would be 13,500 blaster boxes in this scenario. However, based on LCM with other blaster inserts, yellows will be 1 in every 3.55 blasters for a total blaster production of ~48,000 blaster boxes.

All in all, I personally believe there are roughly 82 jambalayas printed per character, which is far lower than other FU sets. This is because pack odds are double (1:288 as opposed to 1:144).

The odds aren’t entirely accurate though which makes me believe physical product is less than the odds would make it seem. I don’t have a pack in front of me but they list a series of cards that combined fall 1 per box. I’ve only opened 2 boxes personally so it obviously doesn’t equate to anything but I pulled 2 of those inserts in one box and I’ve seen many boxes online that carried 2 of those inserts as well. Hence, why I think they ended up producing less physical than they originally may have anticipated.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Marvel Card

With regard to blaster, if 1 yellow per box, print run would be 13,500 blaster boxes in this scenario. However, based on LCM with other blaster inserts, yellows will be 1 in every 3.55 blasters for a total blaster production of ~48,000 blaster boxes.

This should be pretty easy to figure out right? How often yellows fall in blasters? Anyone open blasters of this yet?

I could only find one break so far online- he opened two blaster boxes, one had 2 yellows and the other had 1 yellow. So even just from that 1 per 3.55 blasters seems pretty unlikely. Very small sample of course, but that would cast doubt on the LCM method.

Out of the methods, LCM would be one I question more. To take one example, besides odds not being accurate/rounding, if we are talking about hobby and ePack, epack almost always changes things up on odds, and we won’t know for sure what they are until it actually drops. I think the ePack odds being posted currently are likely preliminary.

It is true the longer odds for Jambalayas probably do translate to a lower print run compared to some other FUs, even with the assumed higher overall print run. I guess they could be less than /100.

[jjas311]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

Based on earlier poster saying economic principles of supply and demand don’t apply to trading cards (news to me!), you’d think Upper Deck would capitalize on this by making Wolverine the subject of all 100 base cards… why limit to 4 if supply/demand doesn’t apply? Lol

Well that's a gross exaggeration and a strawman argument. Obviously if you 25x production and decrease rarity by 25x on any collectible or commodity there will be economic effects.

Supply and demand exist in the card world, however even a 2x production on a product focused on more popular characters will hold a premium over an identical product with a 1/2 production run with less popular characters. I am saying that the comparison to FUA is moot because there are far more Wolverine collectors than Avengers collectors. Both of these products will have wax available for a long time, and FUW will justifiably carry a premium over FUA even with a 125% or whatever the anecdotal estimates are in the print run disparity.

FUW will do fine even with a bigger print run and just like MUSM which people said would be a bust because of the outrageous pricing and print run, we'll still buy it and pay a premium for chances to hit big cards we can flip/traded on epack because the smart people are buying/trading for singles, not ripping wax.

Arg, I went through some old threads...of course this turned into another weird theoretical comparison to FUA and attempt to demonstrate why FUA is soooo much better than any other FU products. I should have known.

[PNWcards]

Originally Posted by PNWcards

The odds aren’t entirely accurate though which makes me believe physical product is less than the odds would make it seem. I don’t have a pack in front of me but they list a series of cards that combined fall 1 per box. I’ve only opened 2 boxes personally so it obviously doesn’t equate to anything but I pulled 2 of those inserts in one box and I’ve seen many boxes online that carried 2 of those inserts as well. Hence, why I think they ended up producing less physical than they originally may have anticipated.

Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the likelihood that distributors plus blowout and their competitors would want to take on anywhere near the amount of this product that they did for FUA. They likely wouldn’t have since they got burned on that product.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Marvel Card

m

The LCM is literally just taking the least common multiple of every single pack odd listed. You’re right in saying UD could round up or down, but I don’t think they do so liberally. The most, I’d say, is less than 1 whole number.

Again maybe I’m not understanding the method correctly, but a single whole number off can drastically change the LCM of a list of numbers.

Thinking up some random numbers,

LCM of {144,256,180,90,20,60} is 11,520
LCM of {145,256,180,90,20,60} is 334,080

The only difference between the lists is the first number was changed from 144 to 145.

[Chrominator]

Any knowledge of when this be released via e-pack?

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by Chrominator

Any knowledge of when this be released via e-pack?

Nobody knows yet. The recent Platinum release took just 3 months to reach ePack after hitting hobby, but many other sets (like Funko) took nearly a year to hit ePack after they first appeared. And MM is like a year from hitting hobby and still not on ePack.

[Marvel Card]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Again maybe I’m not understanding the method correctly, but a single whole number off can drastically change the LCM of a list of numbers.

Thinking up some random numbers,

LCM of {144,256,180,90,20,60} is 11,520
LCM of {145,256,180,90,20,60} is 334,080

The only difference between the lists is the first number was changed from 144 to 145.

Right, I used 0.5 in some cases. I’d have to take a look at my algorithm because I used degree variance standard deviation methods so it wasn’t like I just plopped the pack odds of all inserts….i believe there were something like 80 different combinations using degree variance. I never strayed away from 0.5 from the pack odd whole numbers though.

As far as yellows per box, there are 13,500 yellows right? I would think a blaster box print run of 13,500 would be absurdly low.

[Marvel Card]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

This should be pretty easy to figure out right? How often yellows fall in blasters? Anyone open blasters of this yet?

I could only find one break so far online- he opened two blaster boxes, one had 2 yellows and the other had 1 yellow. So even just from that 1 per 3.55 blasters seems pretty unlikely. Very small sample of course, but that would cast doubt on the LCM method.

Out of the methods, LCM would be one I question more. To take one example, besides odds not being accurate/rounding, if we are talking about hobby and ePack, epack almost always changes things up on odds, and we won’t know for sure what they are until it actually drops. I think the ePack odds being posted currently are likely preliminary.

It is true the longer odds for Jambalayas probably do translate to a lower print run compared to some other FUs, even with the assumed higher overall print run. I guess they could be less than /100.

I think the biggest detractor in LCM method could be relying on upper deck to be accurate in the stated odds and also accurate in distribution. Not so confident about that. I didn’t open many Spider-Man metal boxes, but I did open one which had 2 red pmgs in a single box, and I opened another box (completely different case) which had 0 numbered cards. I also opened a box with 1 grandiose, as opposed to the estimated 2 per box. So who knows at that point. That’s why I like taking LCM as a starting point and adjusting as necessary with case breaks.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

A nit pick: I don’t get the point of having essentially 4 regular Wolverines in the base set. The last being Logan #100 but it’s just another regular Wolverine in costume. All it does is weaken the special-ness of getting a Wolverine, in a parallel say, since there’s all those others out there. Make it so there’s one Wolverine, which is the ‘hit’ to get.
I don’t remember back in 2017 FUSM there being like 4 different regular Spider-Man cards in the base set.

I think having multiple base cards of Wolverine allows multiple artists to depict him. It's an original artwork set centered around him, so it makes sense to have a variety of artwork depicting him.

The variety of art allows collectors to pick their favorites. You can't do that if you only have one Wolverine base card.

But like you pointed out, if the goal is to specifically bolster the values of the Wolverine cards, having multiple kinds probably dilutes their values.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Marvel Card

Right, I used 0.5 in some cases. I’d have to take a look at my algorithm because I used degree variance standard deviation methods so it wasn’t like I just plopped the pack odds of all inserts….i believe there were something like 80 different combinations using degree variance. I never strayed away from 0.5 from the pack odd whole numbers though.

As far as yellows per box, there are 13,500 yellows right? I would think a blaster box print run of 13,500 would be absurdly low.

~13k blaster boxes does sound low (although heck they seem to be hard to find anywhere). Guess we’ll have to wait for more concrete data on how often the yellows fall.

I just don’t think the LCM can be relied on, when a difference of even 1 can create that drastic of a difference.

In all this print run talk, the one thing that seems on more sure footing is 37,600 physical boxes. Well if there are no minis in ePack. The rest seems to involve a lot of speculation.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

I think having multiple base cards of Wolverine allows multiple artists to depict him. It's an original artwork set centered around him, so it makes sense to have a variety of artwork depicting him.

The variety of art allows collectors to pick their favorites. You can't do that if you only have one Wolverine base card.

But like you pointed out, if the goal is to specifically bolster the values of the Wolverine cards, having multiple kinds probably dilutes their values.

I agree with this from a pure artistic viewpoint, it makes sense.

The collector/hobbyist in me does prefer there be just one Wolverine, and especially one that lists the name literally as Wolverine. Make it more special to hit a Wolverine. For the same reason I wouldn’t want to see 4 base Mantles in 1963 Topps (not talking about AS, team leaders etc…but literally 4 cards they just say Mickey Mantle, perhaps one of him fielding, batting, throwing, and sliding). It should be one base ‘Mickey Mantle’ card, which doesn’t dilute it, and a run of Topps mantles is simpler with 1 base regular Mantle per set.

From the looks of it, the #1 is probably ‘the’ Wolverine of the set I guess (maybe most valuable in low # parallels), as it looks like prototypical Wolverine and first card. But no question it’s diluted by the others.

[BobCollects]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

This would actually be a pretty cool idea, although they would never do it. Like you could pull an envelope, but it can remain unknown on epack (unless you choose to ‘open it’ and reveal it, from which point on the item is then designated as the the card). But as long as it remains as an envelope, and remains in system, it can be used in trading, or even sent to COMC to be sold as an envelope (and you know it wouldn’t have been sent home first then resent to comc since they would never accept a sealed envelope as a submission).

As it is…I see some ‘sealed envelopes’ for these minis on eBay for sale, but who knows if they are tamper proof (and even if they are thought to be, I would hardly believe it and lay down that kind of cash). But having them sealed on ePack would allow for a market on those envelopes without worry.

Didn’t Thor: Ragnarok on e-Pack have Dyson rip cards? I’m on my phone so I can’t easily check but I seem to remember those being on e-Pack. I don’t think you could “rip” the Dyson card and get the mini card inside on e-Pack, though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BJohns015]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

~13k blaster boxes does sound low (although heck they seem to be hard to find anywhere). Guess we’ll have to wait for more concrete data on how often the yellows fall.

I just don’t think the LCM can be relied on, when a difference of even 1 can create that drastic of a difference.

In all this print run talk, the one thing that seems on more sure footing is 37,600 physical boxes. Well if there are no minis in ePack. The rest seems to involve a lot of speculation.

I looked through Facebook and Discord groups last night and I found a sample size of about ~20 blaster boxes being opened with hits shared. The rate for yellows was 1-2 per box in this sample size.

Unless UD messed up collation and/or front-loaded blasters, I don't see how any math works out that leads us to more than about ~10k blaster boxes.

I've also only seen evidence of blasters being available via the UD website store - no posts showing people getting them at Target/Walmart or any other retail location.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by BJohns015

I looked through Facebook and Discord groups last night and I found a sample size of about ~20 blaster boxes being opened with hits shared. The rate for yellows was 1-2 per box in this sample size.

Unless UD messed up collation and/or front-loaded blasters, I don't see how any math works out that leads us to more than about ~10k blaster boxes.

I've also only seen evidence of blasters being available via the UD website store - no posts showing people getting them at Target/Walmart or any other retail location.

Interesting.

This would explain how there could only be -10k blaster boxes. Because if they were sending these out to most of the Target/Walmart stores there would need to be a heck of a lot more than 10k boxes.

Curious choice of UD to have the yellow retail be just /90. Also you’d think theyd just do just 1 per box like most retail blasters. But sounds like they chose not to, and probably left a lot of $ on the table keeping the blaster print run down.

1-2 /90 cards isnt a terrible deal for $34.99. FUA orange retail parallels were what, /549? That’s a pretty large difference.

[finfangfan]

With all of the delays in Marvel products and the fact that up until the recent Marvel Platinum, I’m guessing most Marvel blasters weren’t selling to well at the big box retailers for UD. So it’s not too surprising that maybe Wolvie blasters were low printed b/c Upper Deck wouldn’t have had the results of Marvel Platinum sales until after production on Wolvie was already set in stone.

I still think $35 is high for a Wolvie blaster based on the pulls. Plus, the exlusive yellow parallel is a bit of a yawner and yellow typically falls to the bottom of people’s favorite color which weighs down on popularity (be it plates or card parallels).

[DynaEtch]

I will say, Marvel Platinum was the best bang for your buck retail blaster by far. What like $20 (I think?) and you had a decent chance at even lower numbered parallels and blue surges were nice.

I actually kind like the yellow, it stands out and pops more than the orange from FUA imo. That’ll be a subjective thing though

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I actually kind like the yellow, it stands out and pops more than the orange from FUA imo. That’ll be a subjective thing though

I like the yellow parallel, too -- I think it's my favorite. It looks gold in appearance, which makes it the de facto gold parallel for the set considering the only gold parallel is the 1/1 gold spectrum. It also fits well with the set because yellow is probably the color Wolverine is most associated with.

[fabiani12333]

What do you guys think of the artwork? I like that UD was able to get some of the names from past FU sets like JP Targete and Tom Fleming.

[HiltonL]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I agree with this from a pure artistic viewpoint, it makes sense.

The collector/hobbyist in me does prefer there be just one Wolverine, and especially one that lists the name literally as Wolverine. Make it more special to hit a Wolverine. For the same reason I wouldn’t want to see 4 base Mantles in 1963 Topps (not talking about AS, team leaders etc…but literally 4 cards they just say Mickey Mantle, perhaps one of him fielding, batting, throwing, and sliding). It should be one base ‘Mickey Mantle’ card, which doesn’t dilute it, and a run of Topps mantles is simpler with 1 base regular Mantle per set.

From the looks of it, the #1 is probably ‘the’ Wolverine of the set I guess (maybe most valuable in low # parallels), as it looks like prototypical Wolverine and first card. But no question it’s diluted by the others.

I'll take the opposite side of this argument. If a product is titled "1963 Mickey Mantle and maybe some other players", a reasonable person would assume that the average package would have Mickey Mantle in it. Unless you were to print 37500 copies of one card and only dozens of each other card, you'd have to have the running/batting/sliding/fielding variants.

Therefore, since this set is not titled "Fleer Ultra Marvel" full stop, a reasonable person would expect frequent picture cards featuring Wolverine, the title character.

Remember the weaselly legalese of "card company does not guarantee any future value" ? Card companies can literally not care less if their cards have zero value, so long as they can sell all they make.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by HiltonL

I'll take the opposite side of this argument. If a product is titled "1963 Mickey Mantle and maybe some other players", a reasonable person would assume that the average package would have Mickey Mantle in it. Unless you were to print 37500 copies of one card and only dozens of each other card, you'd have to have the running/batting/sliding/fielding variants.

Therefore, since this set is not titled "Fleer Ultra Marvel" full stop, a reasonable person would expect frequent picture cards featuring Wolverine, the title character.

Remember the weaselly legalese of "card company does not guarantee any future value" ? Card companies can literally not care less if their cards have zero value, so long as they can sell all they make.

I totally get your (and fabiani’s) perspective on this, that it’s a whole set geared towards Wolverine. Just saying I like to see one true base of a character, even the title character of a set like this. It’s been done before: in 1995 Fleer Ultra Spider-man there was one “Spider-Man” card in that whole 150 card base set, card #1. Sure, some others in that set came close like a Spider-Clone card, and a card that pictured just Spidey but titled “Power and Responsibility” and another one of just Parker “Origin of Spiderman”…but there was only one regular Spider-Man base. There are other ways to have a lot of different versions of the title character in art, you can have various battles/teamup/milestone subset cards etc, and still stick to one regular base. Pretty sure 2017 FUSM had just one regular Spidey base also but would have to check. 1996 FUXM did have multiple Wolverines.

I can see someone wanting multiple regular Wolverine base. I can also see someone pulling a /5 or /10 Wolverine preferring if it wasn’t as diluted. I thought there was a little pushback in Spidey Metal Universe having no less than 4 Spiderman base cards (strict Spider-Man)….meaning 4 versions of red and green PMGs etc. Maybe not and I’m one of the only ones who takes this stance. Which is fine….is a subjective preference. I’d be curious if you’d be ok with like 25 of the 100 being Wolverine base cards…or 50, since it is after all titled Fleer Ultra Wolverine.

Edit: I admit the subject being Wolverine does make it so maybe there aren’t enough extra characters to use as base in his ‘universe’ without making it into just another X-men set. Like besides some of the characters in the Japan stories, and his classic foes, if they start loading it up with all the x-men like Gambit, Jean, Cyclops, Rogue, Storm, Iceman, Prof X etc it kind of becomes another Fleer Ultra X-men set, and I get they are trying to avoid that. In that sense I guess it makes sense for multiple wolverines.

[HiltonL]

Note that I wrote "featuring...the title character". That does take into account any -clone or group images or Cannonball Specials or whatnot. Old Man Logan, costume changes, etc can all co-exist since in this fantasy world, buyers may have preferences.
Upper Deck's choice for the "one true base" image may not be what many buyers prefer, making the one true base strategy highly risky.

Both your desire for a singular Wolverine base card and the reasonable person/buyer can exist at once

[glorbgorb]

I dunno, I see "Spider-Man" as an entire universe and far more than one character. Despite there being numerous Wolverine comic series over the years and a handful of movies, I still see him as a member of the X-Men and not as much of a solo character. It would be like seeing Fleer Ultra Cyclops or Fleer Ultra Nightcrawler.

My argument above was that, to call this Fleer Ultra Wolverine, they should have had a ton of Wolverine images. Make it a 100-card set with 1-50 all being Wolverine. Teams, solo, old, whatever. If he's popular enough to base an entire set on, make it a set based on him.