2006 Topps Wal-Mart Series 2 exclusive cards going nuts!

In 2006, Topps debuted their Wal-Mart exclusive inserts. Series 1 are incredibly easy to find, they were inserted 3 per $9.99 blaster and 6 per $19.99 blaster. With just a 18 card set, they were not tough to put together. Not to mention everybody and their dog busting these blasters looking for the Alex Gordon SSP (and after the first wave of blasters were gone, Topps cranked up the presses and loaded up every Wal-Mart with a new batch of Gordon-less S1 blasters). The 3rd installment of these Wal-Mart Exclusives were inserted in the Update series blasters at the same rate as Series 1. These were pretty easy to put together at the time but are somewhat hard to find now since they weren't produced at any where close to the same rate as Series 1.
And in the middle of these releases there was Series 2. Wow! These are hard to find. They were not available in blaster boxes but only available in loose 12 card Series 2 packs at Wal-Mart. I seem to recall they were seeded about 1 in 4 packs. Seems plentiful, right? The problem was that most Wal-Mart's got only 1 or 2 of these boxes. Compare that to the Series 1 and Update and you'll see why these are so tough. Almost every Wal-Mart in the country had a big display end of Series 1 blasters (probably 100-200 per store) and I'd guess that every store got at least 25 Update blasters. So each Wal-Mart got at least 300 total Series 1 exclusive inserts (and probably way more than that) and at least 75 total Update exclusive inserts. But with Series 2, each store typically only got 6-12 of these Wal-Mart exclusive inserts total. By the time people that collected Series 1 figured out that the S2 blasters didn't include these inserts, the loose pack boxes were pretty much gone. I remember driving to at least 20 Wal-Mart's about a month after the Series 2 release and a few packs at a time, I found a total of maybe 5 boxes (and it wasn't like this was a hot issue at the time, everybody just kinda wrongly assumed the blasters with the Wal-Mart exclusives would be coming out at some point).
After the Update series came out and people realized they were missing Series 2 , the middle series heated up on eBay (although middle series probably wouldn't be technically correct -- each series contains 18 cards but they are skip numbered so you almost need to use Beckett.com's checklist just to figure out what cards are in each series). Most of the Series 2 commons sold for around $10 each with stars selling for $25-40. This is when I cashed out all of mine. Of course, Beckett has never made note of this at all. In fact, the Update series cards are priced higher than the Series 2 cards (series 2 are priced right in line with the over produced series 1 cards).
I was recently thinking about trying to rebuild my set so I took a look at ebay. Nothing in the active listings, so I looked at the closed listings. Yikes!

Alfonso Soriano ended at auction for $76.01.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0954963977?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item2a21c1a009
Albert Pujols $76.01
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0954964350?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item2a21c1a17e
Livan Hernandez $76.01
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0954964606?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item2a21c1a27e
Johan Santana $71.01
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0747337314?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4605f02e62
Yogi Berra $56.55
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-TOPPS-...0967601334?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4abb28ecb6
Mickey Mantle $26.01 (probably a little bit of a steal by somebody)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0954963667?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item2a21c19ed3
Roy Oswalt $26.51
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0740331817?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4605854929
Derek Jeter $23.38 (another steal even though it only books for $8)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Derek-Jeter...1115227994?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item337b7e9f5a
Alex Rodriguez $9.99 (another steal, even though it books for $5)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0740332221?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4605854abd
Cal Ripken, Jr. $9.99 (huge steal for somebody)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0740332525?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item4605854bed
Derrek Lee $9.99
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Topps-...0740331487?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item46058547df
Jose Reyes $2.50 (buy it now steal for somebody)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-TOPPS-...0812117415?pt=US_Baseball&hash=item20c90e65a7

Series 2 includes the following cards:
WM3 Yogi Berra
WM6 Mickey Mantle
WM7 Alex Rodriguez
WM9 Gary Carter
WM10 Roy Oswalt
WM14 Johan Santana
WM15 Roberto Clemente
WM16 Carl Yastrzemski
WM21 Chipper Jones
WM25 Alfonso Soriano
WM31 Albert Pujols
WM32 Cal Ripken, Jr.
WM36 Jose Reyes
WM38 Derrek Lee
WM39 Miguel Cabrera
WM42 Barry Bonds
WM44 Livan Hernandez
WM45 Derek Jeter

Hopefully a few of you have just discovered that you are a few bucks richer because of this post.

-- Andy

I knew I had some unopened Walmart set packs from 2006 laying around, turns out to be Series 1. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the heads up - I will see what I have, hopefully I have a few of these laying around.

If future, Eric should probably learn to be a bit more subtle in his attempts to shill.

Crap.

I bet I donated a ton or sold them in lots. I ripped blasters like nuts looking for the DoI and Constitution cut cards (don't laugh, I thought I had a legitimate shot).

TBTwinsFan said:

Crap.

I bet I donated a ton or sold them in lots. I ripped blasters like nuts looking for the DoI and Constitution cut cards (don't laugh, I thought I had a legitimate shot).

Click to expand...

Good news! Series 2 weren't in blasters so you probably didn't have any of them.

trauty said:

Good news! Series 2 weren't in blasters so you probably didn't have any of them.

Click to expand...

Oh!

Phew. I bet I read the op wrong.