I got my box, nothing spectacular, two golds and two blues and the regular 12 refractors. I love the set though, especially the fact that the numbered refractors with the Ludlow backs have the Wacky worthy joke on them "To Ruin, Snap Back", since as we now know, it was better not to "snap" back and peel your original Ludlows but at least when you did that, you had a terrific sticker to affix wherever you liked. To do it with these chrome cards would only bend your card and not even yield a sticker. Nice gag. I wonder who thought of it, and tip o' the cap to anyone who may have mentioned this earlier.
Anyway, I just gotta have more of these, so I just ordered three more hobby boxes. I'll post pulls for all four once I get those.
As for the "Value Pack", I picked up one at Kmart for $11.49, the three sealed packs and the bonus 4 normal cards. They really should be closer to $10, since it's not much of a value if these are $3 packs. You're pretty much paying for those four loose cards, but perhaps there are occasionally insert cards, at least regular refractors, in those once in a while.
What I do like about those Value packs is that they are packed so tightly, I think they'd be hard to pack search. The insert odds on the packs in the Value packs are exactly the same as the odds in the hobby packs, the only exception being that the blue and gold refractors are hobby exclusive. Obviously, if buying retail packs, one should avoid the value packs with the 4 loose regular cards (as opposed to the ones that say specifically they have 4 Atomic Refractors as those are worth it) and especially the single pack with the clear window entirely and, if available to you locally, just buy the twenty dollar 7 pack blasters which come with the 4 exclusive X-fractors as the packs inside those are also unsearchable and likely have the same odds as the other retail packs, again missing just the golds and blues, but with everything else as the same odds as in the hobby. The X-fractor set will take 28 blasters with no duplicates to complete, so imagine what the real number would be. The Atomic Refractors set would take the same minimum of 28 value packs, again with perfect (non-existent) luck.
There will be very few of either of those sets made, I'm sure. These retail only inserts pretty much compensate for the lack of Golds and Blues in the retail packs, making this a rare set indeed where there is essentially equal value in all of the packs, whether the hobby or retail edition.
