The Yak Shack Forum

Updated 14 February 2010 (added 9 boxes).

Data from box and case breakdowns span 691 boxes, or 9.21% of the 7500 numbered boxes. Hot Boxes and SDCC Goodie Boxes are not included. I assumed a total count of 20% above the 3750 you'd expect from 7500 boxes to cover replacements and alternative distribution.

The pattern for cases that have five autos but no Daniel, DE1, DE2, nor Quad has become more random, so I concluded that "Chance-for-a-Quad" and "Chance-for-a-Harry" cases could have any choice of five lower autos if they don't have a top card. When one of the four 'primo' cards shows up, the groupings of the other four autos has been constant.

# reported in breakdowns - projected total - card

10   -   110   -   Quad Card (by redemption)
  8   -   110   -   Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter

18   -   250   -   Alex Palmer as a Death Eater DE2
22   -   250   -   Ashley Artus as a Death Eater DE1

25   -   350   -   Frances de la Tour as Madame Maxime
27   -   350   -   Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
28   -   350   -   Clémence Poésy as Fleur Delacour
29   -   350   -   David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr.
30   -   350   -   Katie Leung as Cho Chang

34   -   440   -   Roger Lloyd-Pack as Barty Crouch
36   -   440   -   Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley

45   -   575   -   Afshan Azad as Padma Patil
47   -   575   -   Shefali Chowdhury as Parvati Patil

Notes: There appear to be six main groupings of autographs within cases. Except for the cases that don't have a Daniel or an auto/costume card (from postings I've seen), these six case types always have the same five autos. (Auto/costumes are included in this definition.)  The six clusters of 125 cases each seem to be: Quad-possible, Harry-possible, DE2, DE1+Dumbledore, DE1+Fleur, and Fleur+Maxime. But the DE2 numbers have almost caught up with DE1 from reports that didn't describe full-case compositions, so I think there's another grouping that hasn't been seen because of the partial reports, and the two Death Eater auto/costume cards are equal in numbers.

Chance-for-a-Quad, Radcliffe, and Palmer are members of only one group each; Artus, Dumbledore, and Fleur are in two groups; and the others are in three groups. If the "others" were available in equal numbers in the no-prime-cards cases, they would total about 450 each. But the Parvati sisters show up more often and Madame Maxime less often, so I've split the group to (sort of) match the statistics.

By case type:
( 4 )  DE1 + Dumbledore-Ginny-Junior-Maxime
( 8 )  DE1 + Fleur-Cho-Junior-Senior
( 8 )  DE2 + Dumbledore-Padma-Parvati-Ginny
( 5 )  Fleur + Cho-Parvati-Senior-Maxime
( 2 )  Quad + Padma-Parvati-Senior-Ginny
( 4 )  Dan + Padma-Parvati-Ginny-Maxime
  ( 6 )  Five "Low" Autos - Cho-Padma + 3 others

Other assumptions:
-- Totals add to 4400-4500, including "overage" for damage and replacements.
-- Overage basis: 9000 costumes by adding numbers on cards, in 7500 boxes, =20% overage. Used same ratio for autos.
-- Props were 3110/2250, 38% overage. CFC 3150/2250, 40% overage.

Hi Jeff,

if you check the breakdowns (my breakdowns for 3 cases will follow), you'll see that every case contains a box with 3 inserts and every box with 3 inserts contains a guaranteed Dan, Fleur, DE1 or DE2. Maybe we have to add the Quad. And those didn't appear anywhere else in the boxes.

So we have in 750 cases maybe:

50 Quad
100 Daniel Radcliffe
200 Fleur Delacour
200 DE1
200 DE2

What do you think?  The Fleur is a premium Autograph.

Good point, I'll watch for it. There's three cases like that, but there's another breakdown that didn't identify where the 3-box pack came from, that didn't have one of the big four or a Fleur. I call that a "Ginny" case below.

Not all of the Fleurs were found as a third item, so they might have picked a few of them to fill out the "one per case" rule and put the other half in with the others. Or maybe we're trying to see too much in random happenings and 2% of the print run!

The "clusters" are starting to take some more shape.

All five DE2 cases also held Dumbledore-Padma-Parvati-Ginny.
All three Dan cases also held Padma-Parvati-Ginny-Maxime.

DE1 split into two groups:
Three DE1 cases also held Dumbledore-Junior-Ginny-Maxime.
Three DE1 cases also held Fleur-Cho-Senior-Junior.

Three Fleur cases also held Cho-Parvati-Senior-Maxime.
   (One of these offered an extra DE1, 6 autos total)

The two oddballs have a relationship, too:

Fleur -Cho-Padma-Senior-Junior
Ginny-Cho-Padma-Senior-Junior

The Quad case reported Padma-Senior before the reporter found the Quad and quit opening boxes after five, so perhaps the 'oddballs' were in a packaging cluster for the Quad cards and didn't get lucky.

Not all of the case breakdowns reported the autos box-by-box, but the ones that reported it fit Tom's "lead character" theory. Possibly the three-insert-box groupings were, if you shoot for either 750 boxes or the 900 total-made target:

125-150 Chance-for-a-Quad
125-150 Daniel Radcliffe
125-150 DE1-A
125-150 DE1-B
125-150 DE2
125-150 Fleur (also found in DE1-B)

That would put every signer into three groups (375-450) except for Dumbledore and Fleur in two groups (250-300) and Dan in just one (125-150). That makes sense, so it's probably completely wrong.  ;) It could be we're seeing a pattern in one part of the manufacturing process and there might have been different patterns early or late, but it does explain why we see fewer Dumbledores and more DE1 than DE2.

I guess the Quad is not going to appear.

John, I have a feeling one will appear for you :o=

A face can be assigned to a Quad, because a poster in another forum reported pulling one in box #5 of a case. But excitement took over and we didn't hear about the rest of the case. ... ;D

Jeff, is the one you are counting from the poster in the other forum?  If so, are you counting the one that appeared in the hot box as well, or are we not counting them since there was one of each auto in it.

Jeff says (above) that the hotbox is discounted and is assumed as in the "other" category (the tonne of stuff that doesn't usually go into product).

I'm sure Mr Allender's keeping his eyes on as many forums as poss ;)

I only really know of two forums, and the other one is far behind this one! But that's where I spotted the Quad pull in a half-case. Like Roz said, I put a little note in the thread-starter that I wasn't counting Hot Boxes for the statistics.

For TSS I went out and tried to contact as many people as possible by email to ask for more breakdowns. It turned into a lot of work and I ended up with reports for 14% of the boxes. For GOF, I just watched the forums and still came up with 10%.

C'mon people, give some more reports! I want to test my new "six cluster theory" (6CT) of case composition!!

Any cards in the Hot Boxes would fall in the total count including extras made for replacements, etc. The sum of the xxx's in "#/xxx" for costume cards is 9000 and there were only 7500 numbered boxes. So you could make a lot of Hot Boxes if you have enough "extra" autos.

Notice that Sara posted the hot box breakdown right after I posted my case stats. Gee, I knew I'm sometimes a tough act to follow, but that was overkill!  ;D

I really need to split these into separate messages if I ever hope to become a Yak ...

 :-[  I see that you put the Hot Box note in there.  I am embarrased to say I only skimmed it.  I was too interested to see what autos were pulled to read the rest.  Silly me ::)

Hi
I found your Stats very helpful I am now buying extra cases whilst I can get them I will post my findings ASAP. It was just a shame my cases didnt have a little more variety, but I think it gives a clue to how the sets are collated.
Keep up the good work mate  ;D

Morning All ;) :D ;D

We are thinking of just buying a box or 2 as we have spent a lot of money already this year,I know we might not get much out of them but a few cards is better then none for us as we just buy what we can from each of the sets.

Cheers

Paul

I received my QUAD autograph card yesterday. It was number 20 on the redemption letter. It was send FEDEX Ground on 28 July. (Must have been by turtle express ground.)

Anyway add this to the ones in the grab bags given away at SDCC and maybe we can get an estimate of how many Quads were made.

Anyone with a redemption letter with a higher number?

Yeah, I got number 22 (letter date 31st July)... ;D

I believe there were 8 total Quad Cards given away in the Comic-Con boxes. I saw them seperating the cards into piles on Preview Night and the guy that was distributing them layed down 8, right in front of me. :o It was so amazing all the cards that were in front of me, many of which were fantastic. I saw some nice variants. I actually saw my wand card seperated that day. I still cant believe I pulled it the day after!

After a very very long wait my Quad arrived on saturday and my letter is numbered 25 dated 2nd august

Was it just sent normal airmail or did you have to sign for it Chris?

I sent it international signed for and it came back Global Prioity so no signiture it was just pushed through the door

When we got our Quad card redeemed, it was dated June 14th, and was number 10.

I got my quad card in the mail today.  The letter was numbered 26 and dated August 8, 2006.

Ooh Sharon - get yours sent off pronto and see if we can get on a roll (25, 26 and 27 to Shackers ;) - or more ;))

27 here, dated August 9th.  I also need to add my numbers to the pulls above. I opened 16 cases and got the following numbers

  1  -   Quad Card (by redemption)
  1  -   Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
  8   -   Alex Palmer as a Death Eater DE2

  6-   Ashley Artus as a Death Eater DE1
  8   -   300   -   Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
  7   -   300   -   Clémence Poésy as Fleur Delacour

7   -   450   -   David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr.
3   -   450   -   Frances de la Tour as Madame Maxime
6   -   450   -   Katie Leung as Cho Chang
5   -   450   -   Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley
6   -   450   -   Roger Lloyd-Pack as Barty Crouch
13   -   450   -   Shefali Chowdhury as Parvati Patil
11   -   450   -   Afshan Azad as Padma Patil

Thanks for the stats! That adds significantly to the total. I didn't bug you with emails this time around.

My predictions were heavily influenced by five "clusters" of autos in cases, where just about always you could predict what other autos you would receive in a case that had a Quad, Harry, or Death Eater auto/costume. Another cluster formed around some of the Fleur cases that didn't have one of the big four. But there weren't enough Quad or Harry cards to fill out a full 150-case cluster and "leftover" autos were distributed randomly in the non-Quad and non-Harry cases.

But that doesn't mean that the raw numbers of the non-prime autos were the same. The Parvati sisters seem pretty clearly more common than the others and Maxime less so. That's out of 595 boxes now, which is a decent statistical sample.

The clustering in full-case breakdowns still supports the idea that there was one DE2 cluster and two different ones for DE1, so I still assume there were more of the latter card produced. This ain't true science.
 ;D

I got my quad today  ;D ;D ;D  I didn't get the usual letter with it so I can't tell you what the number was but I got something even better  ;D.  Kay and Mike did me a little Happy Birthday note in with the cards (the quad and my Ron) which I am over the moon with.  Thank you Artbox  ;D

Congratulations Sharon! That's wonderful!  ;D 

Congrats Sharon, that's really lovely. :D

I sent off my redemption card on the 17th August and i still have not heard anything  :( :(

I hope it is ok

You should write to Kay at Artbox to see if she's received it yet.  She's good about responding to e-mails.

Well, my emails to Artbox seem to have fallen into the dark abyss! :(
The first ones I sent were answered pretty quickly, but those afterwards haven't been replied to - all I wanted to know was when my redeemed autos were going to be returned ...  :-\

I've heard that Kay has been out of the office, but will be back soon.

Thanks for the info Cindy, but surely there must someone else besides Kay working in Customer Services & answering emails/queries etc?  :-\
No disrespect to the rest of the staff there, but it seems like everything has ground to a halt because one person is out of the office for a while ...  :-\

Just got 10 more cases in the mail (got a deal I couldn't pass up) and I got hooked into cracking them.  I decided I would crack cases until I didn't get either a quad or a Harry (even if that was only 1 case) well I cracked 7 cases, here were my autograph breakdowns.

4   -   Quad Card (by redemption)
2   -   Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
1   -   Alex Palmer as a Death Eater DE2

0  -   Ashley Artus as a Death Eater DE1
1    -   Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
0   -  Clémence Poésy as Fleur Delacour

0   -   David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr.
2   -  Frances de la Tour as Madame Maxime
0   -  Katie Leung as Cho Chang
7   -  Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley
4   -  Roger Lloyd-Pack as Barty Crouch
7   - Shefali Chowdhury as Parvati Patil
7   - Afshan Azad as Padma Patil

You might have to ask yoursel "Is Zach on cloud 9 right now???"  The answer is YES!!! :)  4 quad autographs!!!  And 2 Radcliffe's!!! WOW!! I nearly wet myself!!! :)

Go ahead, we'll understand. ;D

Not altogether a bad set of surprises, but we're sorry that you ended up spending so much more time opening packs than you had expected!

Ya, my fingers still hurt a little ;)

I'm STILL waiting for a response from Artbox over the cards I sent in to be redeemed at the end of August....  ::) :-\ >:(
Is there anyone else working in their Customer Services department who is (a) capable of switching on a computer, (b) capable of opening the company email program, (c) able to read and (d) capable of stringing a couple of sentences together by way of a reply, d'you think??  ???
Sorry to sound so sour, but for a large company they are appalling at how they respond to requests for information right across the board. :(

Oh and if Mike reads this ... I would just like to know whether you actually received my redemptions and assuming you have, when can I expect to receive them please?

Hehe, i've been having an impossible time reaching Artbox also.  The fact that they have a website that never changes and no customer service bugs me.  If their cards weren't so nice I would have long stopped buying them!  Other companies like rittenhouse and inkworks seem to be much more responsive to the fans

Oh Jules it sounds like I was dead lucky with my redemption's.  Boggy sent them in around the beginning of September and I had them returned on the 20 September.

I'm glad you got yours returned with no fuss Sharon ... considering the cards you sent in to them too ....  :o ::)
I think it's time for me to find out what the heck they're playing at over there ....  ^-^ >:D

I have just had my Quad card back from Artbox. I sent it just before Christmas.

The letter states it is number 54.

Dave.

I received my quad back this morning and I sent it in just after christmas where as my COS redemptions came over a week ago just 3 weeks after I sent them in

I was starting to get very worried it does look like they have been sending out COS cards first and the others later at the moment

and my redemption letter was 59

Minor update posted 14 February 2010 at the top of this thread ... 59 cases, and 691 boxes (9.21% of the packaging run).