Sketch Cards

While I still don't understand the inclusion of sketch cards in sports products, they make perfect sense in non-sports card sets. Most people won't ever be able to afford a page of original art from their favorite artist, but a simple sketch or sketch card is the perfect way to own some original art in an affordable manner.

Last month, Wizard World decided they were going to do the comic book convention thing here in Boston. They last tried in 2005, but it was in a bad location and attendance plummeted when the only real big names invited to the con, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, had to cancel due to Clerks 2 post-production. This year's convention was disappointing for me. It was tiny and there wasn't much of interest there other than a bunch of people from the Buffy TV shows. One person that was there was Brian Kong who many card collectors will know from his sketch card work for Topps including the Baseball Highlight sketches in 2009 Allen & Ginter. A couple of his prints caught my eye and while I was at his table, I started flipping through his sketch card binder and came across this beauty. I asked about the price even though I knew that most sketch cards were well out of what I considered to be my price range. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it wasn't even near the upper range of my self imposed price range so I took it home with two prints. I like Brian's work a lot and it's likely that these aren't the last items featuring his artwork to be added to my collection.

I usually don't buy loose packs of non-sports cards. There really aren't any cards of value to pull except for the box hit sketch card, but the other day I made an exception. There were only 3 or 4 new issues that I was buying so I decided to add a couple of Marvel Heroes and Villains packs to my purchase. In the second pack, I pulled this beauty. This is a sketch of Storm and Magneto by Scott Rorie (who is an extremely limited artist to pull). This sketch is obviously of Storm right after her plastic surgery. Either that, or she's using updrafts to give herself a little boost.

This is by far the best sketch card that I've pulled out of any of the Rittenhouse products. It's seems to be from a fairly popular artist and so now I'm wondering what to do with it. If I can sell it for enough to purchase a whole box (which will include another sketch card) then it seems like a no-brainer. If it goes for less than that the decision isn't as obvious. I did only pay four dollars for the pack that the sketch card came in so anything that I get for it is a pretty big return. What do all of you think? Would you hold onto the card or throw it up on eBay with a Buy It Now listing?