I opened a 1981 vending box, which I bought along with another ’82 vending box in an eBay auction. The “500 card box” had 513 cards. Numbers below don’t include the ’81 wax box, this gives a feel for how close the vending box got to completing a set:
24 doubles (no triples / quads)
489 of the 726 card set. (67.4% set completion)
I was again pretty shocked at how good the collation was for a vending box. Between the wax and vending boxes, I think the only key card I didn’t get for this set was the Tim Raines rookie card.
Again, though, the crossover between the wax and vending boxes wasn’t bad, in fact it was terrible this time. I’m 128 cards short out of 726 after opening both boxes. Some of this definitely relates to the wax box having two gum stains per box – I think I’d be under 100 if it wasn’t for that. But that’s still some pretty bad luck with almost 400 doubles.
