Hanx For The Memories

I’m not quite sure what to think of these Razor cards. I finally found this Tom Hanks wardrobe card for a decent price over on CheckOutMyCards.com and so I decided to take the plunge.

These cards couldn’t be more non-descript. “This card includes an actual piece of clothing worn by Tom Hanks.” While I’d love a piece of the eye-catching suit that Hanks wore in Big, this certainly isn’t a piece of that. It’s blue and corduroy and…well, that’s about it. I can’t think of any specific movie that Mr. Hanks wore this kind of blue corduroy in, but he’s been in a ton of movies at this point. That being said, I doubt that this card is from any movie wardrobe. I know that celebrities often will donate old clothes to be auctioned off for charity and I’m thinking that something like that is more likely the source of this clothing swatch. I’ve been a Tom Hanks fan for most of my life. Heck, I was a fan of his before I even knew who he was. (I loved Bosom Buddies as a kid.) He’s an amazing actor and a class act, which seems to be rare amongst celebrities in this day and age. Tom’s former cords are a quirky addition to my collection.

This Post is Sketchy

A while back, I ordered a bunch of boxes from BlowoutCards that contained sketch cards. Sketch cards can be hit or miss. You can luck out and pull something by Katie Cook who both is an amazing artist and has cards that sell for a ton of money or you can pull cards that just aren’t your cup of tea. This post runs the gamut.

The first card comes from Rittenhouse’s Heroes and Villains release. I’m not sure if the card actually pictures a hero and villain though. The second Ant-Man, Scott Lang, is the father of Stature, Cassie Lang, also pictured on the card. Scott Lang started as a villain and actually stole the Ant-Man suit from Hank Pym to save his daughter’s life. After that first appearance, he spent the rest of his life as a hero.

To be fair, these boxes only state that it contains a dual character sketch card and this card is exactly that. Nit-picking aside, this is a great card. I’m a fan of Young Avengers so it’s nice seeing Stature on a sketch card. I’m also a fan of the style of art here. This sketch card will definitely be staying in my collection.

Next up is a Black Panther sketch card from Rittenhouse’s Marvel Dangerous Divas set. This is T’Challa’s sister Shuri pictured on the card. Shuri currently has the title of Black Panther and the inherent abilities that come with it. T’Challa has new mythical abilities and was spending some time in Hell’s Kitchen while Daredevil was away.

I’m a big fan of this sketch as well, but it does have on soft corner. I contacted Rittenhouse about a replacement and they were very helpful. They didn’t have any other sketch cards from this artist to use as a replacement so I decided to hold onto it. If I’m not looking to sell it then condition isn’t as big of a concern. There’s some amazing art on this card though.

The Shrek card came from a cheap box and it’s a decent enough sketch. The last sketch makes me happy that Inkworks is out of business though. I feel like I’m the butt of a joke. Inkworks made the mistake of inserting individual pieces of a sketch puzzle into different packs. I guess I should be happy that I didn’t get the boring card featuring the feet. Rittenhouse does things the right way by putting complete sketch puzzles into one pack creating “hot boxes.” That’s the right way to do things.

Thanks for indulging me this brief foray into the non-sports world. We now return you to your (ir)regularly (un)scheduled sports content.

Locke & Key Ghost Key

Over the past few months, I’ve really gotten the comic book Locke & Key by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill. The story is phenomenal and the art is just beautiful. If you like comic books and love a great story then you need to check this out.

Skeleton Crew Studio has produced replicas of some of the keys found in the books. I had my eye on this Ghost Key ay my local comic shop for weeks and when I had a little bit of extra cash, I picked it up. This thing is incredibly cool and beautifully detailed. This is going to look very cool hanging up somewhere in the man cave. I hope to pick up another two or three keys to display with this one. The Head Key is extremely cool looking as is the Shadow Key. Also, who knows what new keys will be introduced in future issues of the comic book.

A Little Out, A Little In

While I was listing all of the cards from my Topps Chrome case on eBay, I took some time to list some other cards that I had been meaning to sell for a while now. Four of those cards were sketch cards from various non-sports boxes that I had opened over the past couple of years. In their place, I picked up a couple of cards on eBay:

I opened a box of CBLDF Liberty myself, but instead of the two autographs per box that were coming out of every other box, I only got one autograph and it was of Jimmy Palmiotti. That would have been huge back when Marvel Knights first launched and he was working with Kevin Smith on Daredevil, but I couldn’t tell you what comic he’s working on these days.

So, I took it upon myself to pick up a couple of the cards that I really wanted from this set. The fact that I was able to get them both form the same seller was even better. Combined shipping is always a good thing.

The Neil Gaiman is arguably one of the top cards to be pulled and I was surprised at how low it was selling. Then again, Gaiman’s autograph is not a tough one to obtain. He does a good number of appearances and you can buy autographed books online. I went to a reading Gaiman did when he was promoting Anansi Boys and was able to get a couple of things autographed afterwards. I still thought it would be cool to add an autographed trading card to my collection.

Erik Larsen has a smaller, but extremely dedicated following. Larsen first garnered attention when he followed Todd McFarlane on the adjectiveless Spider-Man comic. He would leave Marvel to become one of the founders of Image Comics and has been both writing and drawing Savage Dragon ever since. I’ve met Mr. Larsen is person as well. 6 years ago, my wife and I made a trip to the Baltimore ComicCon where I got a book autographed by Erik and was able to get a Savage Dragon sketch as well. Back when Image first started, I got an autograph from the Savage Dragon creator through the mail so I’ve got all kinds of Larsen items in my collection.

For those of you who enjoy non-sports releases, this set is a great deal even with just one auto per box. Many other non-sports boxes go for $60 and just have a single sketch card. These boxes have an autographed card and a sketch card and many boxes are producing two autographed cards. There’s some cool artwork on the cards, which tell the history of the CBLDF, and buying these cards helps to support a good cause.

There’s a Snake In My Boots

It’s always a great thing when two of my interests collide. Collecting Pixar trading cards is a no-brainer. I had already purchased a box of each of the earlier Upper Deck Disney releases, but I didn’t go as all out on any of them as I did this one.

The coolest part of these sets were the Reel Piece of History cards. These cards contained frames from copies of the film that were used in theaters. You can see the soundtrack and sprockets right there on the film strip. Most cards contained two frames from the film, but there were rarer versions that contained four frames.

I have a daily search set up for these things on eBay. Most of the time when they get listed, it’s for too much and they don’t sell. This card was listed for and sold for .99¢ plus $2.00 shipping. That’s a bargain that’s tough to beat.

I tried scanning this with the scanner open so that some light could get through the film, but it wasn’t quite bright enough. If you look closely, you can see the scene that is depicted though. These frames are from the scene where Woody first meets Buzz and Buzz responds by trying to shoot Woody with his laser. Can’t complain about a card with both Buzz and Woody pictured.

 

Technorati Tags: Upper Deck,Disney/Pixar Treasures,Toy Story,Reel Piece of History

Hero Up!

When I placed my last order of wax boxes from Dave and Adam’s, I also added a box of Upper Deck’s Super Hero Squad trading cards. I watch the show with my daughter and thought it would be fun to open the packs with her. The packs have been a lot of fun to open. The cards are thick with rounded corners which are perfect for kids. You can find tattoos in every pack as well as randomly inserted stickers, foil die cut cards and pop-up cards. Forget all of those cards though, this card from the sports subset beats everything else. I think that the Villains might have the advantage if they’ve got Bullseye playing QB. Anyone want to see a picture of Iron Man posterizing Dr. Doom?

 

Technorati Tags: Super Hero Squad

Box Break: 2011 Upper Deck Marvel Beginning

I couldn’t have planned the arrival of these boxes better. I came home from the hospital after my kidney stone surgery and about an hour later, the doorbell rang and the box from Dave & Adam’s Card World was delivered. I opened the boxes right away, but it’s taken a while to get the breaks posted due to the recovery process. I haven’t spent a heck of a lot of time at my computer. The majority of my Internet surfing was done on my wife’s iPad.

It’s been a while since Upper Deck release a Marvel set so they went all out with this release. The base cards have a simple design with a modern image of the character with an inset photo of the character as they appeared in their first comic. For someone such as the Invisible Woman you can see a big difference, but for someone such as the Red Hulk there really isn’t a point. The back of the card has some information about the character as well as information about their first comic appearance. The only information that is lacking is who the artist is for the newer image on the front of the card. That’s a pretty big omission in my book for a set such as this.

It’s great seeing some of the newer Marvel characters included in this set. You’ll find some of the Young Avengers and Runaways in the set. If these were the old Impel/Skybox sets then they’d definitely have rookie designations on them. You’ll also find some obscure and lesser known characters. While this makes for a thorough set, it also makes for a huge set. I don’t know if there’s ever been a 180 card set of comic book characters prior to this one. In some ways, I’m hoping it will be the last.

The main problem is that this is a large set with boxes that only contain 24 packs with 7 cards per pack (and two of those being inserts). When you’re trying to put together a 180 card set, 5*24 (120 cards minus one for the box hit) isn’t going to cut it. Honestly, I could have done without three different insert sets, but what are you going to do.

The one-per-pack insert is the Breakthrough Issue set. This 45 card set covers everything from first appearances of iconic characters such as Spider-Man and The Hulk to gimmicks such as hologram and chromium covers. This is a cool set, but I could have done without the gimmick milestones.

These cards are called Micromotion which really is a misnomer. Sure, the reflection from the etched foil moves as you tilt the card, but the name makes you think these would be a stereogram/Sportflix type of card or something of that sort. The card backs have a short blurb about the character.

Unfortunately, the top edge of every single card from this insert set was damaged in this box. I have already contacted Upper Deck and will be sending them in for replacement. This is one of the reasons why I’m always hesitant to buy Upper Deck products. When it’s not full of redemption cards, it’s full of cards with bad edges or soft corners. It’s a yearly occurrence.

This insert set is extremely cool. I’m not even a big X-Men fan, but I will be collecting this set.You can’t really tell from the scans, but the white sections in the X-Men logo are actually die cut holes. I scanned fronts and backs so that you could see that there are older images of the characters on the front (check out Cannonball) and never images on the back. Again, this is really cool for characters such as Cannonball and Angel, but it’s pointless for a character such as X-23.

I’m not completely sold on the three types of box hits that are available in this product. There’s no way that the holograms should have been a box hit. The old Impel/Skybox sets used to have 4 holograms per box so I don’t see what the big deal is. These cards from Upper Deck are regular artwork in front of a hologram background that’s the same for every single card. Boring. These should have been 1-2 per box and not counted as a box hit.

The other box hit is kind of questionable as well. While autographs of athletes are in high demand because of the difficulty in obtaining them, autographs of comic book artists and writers are a lot easier to obtain. Find a convention that they’ll be at, travel to it, wait in line (costume optional) and you’ve got an autograph. Now, I’d be absolutely thrilled to pull a Stan Lee autograph and some of the triple signed cards are amazing, but other than that, I’m not sure about these cards. The autographs are restricted to the creators on the issues in the Breakthrough insert set so that is a positive, but the majority of the autographed cards sell for $20 or less.

The main reason that people purchase boxes of non-sports cards are for the sketch cards that you can possibly pull. Pull a sketch card of someone such as Katie Cook and you’ve paid for your box and then some. You never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes it will be something that you like and sometimes it will be something you can’t believe got approved for the set.

I think that I did pretty well this time around with this sketch of Beast by Gilbert Monsanto. While I do like the card, I think that I will most likely have to throw it up on eBay so that I can grab another box of this so that I can try and finish off my sets. Non-sports singles can be impossible to find and I’m of the mindset that you should always get a full set out of a box. Even though that’s not the case here, I’ll make an exception and bust another box with the hopes that I pull either a Stan Lee autograph or Katie Cook sketch card.

In case anyone out there does have any extras that they are looking to trade away, here are my want lists:

 

Technorati Tags: Upper Deck,Marvel Beginning,box break,non-sports cards

Box Breaks: 2010 Rittenhouse Justice League of America Archives

I’m behind on box breaks so I’m going to do the new few a little more quickly than I normally would.  I didn’t pull anything significant or I would have rushed it right to the site.

I got a box of Justice League of America Archives when there was a big sale on them.  Wow, these base cards are terrible.  The front is an image from a Justice League comic.  All that’s on the back is the cover from that issue and the issue’s number and date of publication.  That’s it.  Nothing about the story or a character or anything of that sort.  Nowhere near as good as the Marvel sets that Rittenhouse has produced.

 

 

 

 

The insert sets are a lot of fun though.  If only you got more of them in a box.  I got three of the Super Friends insert cards including the pictured Apache Chief along with The Flash and Batman.  I have two of the Other Earths cards: the pictures Owlman and Johnny Quick.  You only get one JLA membership card and I got the Big Blue Boy Scout.

These days, non-sports sets are all about sketch cards.  I pulled a Green Arrow sketch card drawn by Dezi Sienty.  It’s an interesting sketch of a character that was brought to new heights of popularity when Kevin Smith took over writing his title for a year.  Smith is extremely popular, but Sienty… not so much.  That’s the chance you take when you buy these boxes just like any other boxes.  I just wish that I had seen the base cards before buying this box because I may have passed on this set.  It really seems like DC mailed it in on this one.

 

Technorati Tags: box break,Justice League of America,sketch card,Green Arrow,DC Comics,Rittenhouse,Dezi Sienty

What Did I Pull?

Ok, here's a chance to get a bit of a spoiler for an upcoming box break.

Wrestling fans, take a look at the 2010 Topps WWE Checklist.  Excluding parallels and super rare pulls such as printing plates, I feel like I pulled the best card possible in the product.  Take a look at the checklist and guess which card you think that may be.

Family Fun: Panini Toy Story 3 Stickers

As my daughter has gotten older, I’ve looked for any opportunity possible to get her into collecting.  It hasn’t been that difficult since kids always look to do the same things that adults are doing.  When I’m searching the card aisle at Target, my daughter is also looking for something she might want to open such as Spongebob cards or Bella Sera figures.

My whole family shares a love of Pixar movies.  We went to see Toy Story 3 opening weekend and loved it.  While out shopping the other day with my daughter, we picked up the Toy Story 3 sticker album and a handful of packs.  I expected something along the lines of sticker albums that I had purchased as a kid, but what we got was something a lot more cool.

I don’t know how the collation runs on these things, but there is something close to chase stickers in this set.  In every 8 sticker pack you seem to get two stickers that are either the shiny prisms or the very cool, reflective fabric stickers.

The prismatic stickers look very cool and scan well also.  Here are a couple of shiny Slinky Dog stickers.  You can’t tell from the scan, but the Little Green Army Man sticker is printed on a reflective fabric.  These stickers are very nice and I’m hoping for a few duplicates of these to keep after completing the set.


Here’s what a completed page looks like.  The stickers are die cut to different shapes which makes for a great looking page when done, but this is not something that a little kid can do with good results.  When I was putting stickers into the album with my daughter, she took care of all of the rectangle stickers which I did all of the weird shapes.  Even I couldn’t line things up properly.  Check out the pipe to the left of Slink.  Oops.  There are three stickers on this page.  The first is of Hamm, Rex and Jesse, the second is of Woody and Buzz while the final one has Mr. Potato Head and Slinky Dog on it.

There are 180 stickers in the set which is pretty large.  I plan on buying a box of stickers to open a little at a time with my daughter and hopefully we can at least get close enough so that an order of singles from Panini will finish off the set.  This has been a fun way to share my collecting hobby with my daughter and I know that I’ll end up reading her the story in the book (Oh yes, the sticker book also doubles as a story book) many times before all is said and done.  Thanks Panini for a great set!

Technorati Tags: Toy Story 3,Panini,stickers

Trading Block: Non-sports Trade Bait

I’m not quite sure why I decided to touch this stuff, but I did.  There are some decent cards to pull, but it seems like there’s a lot more junk than quality stuff.  Stupid, spur-of-the-moment decisions.  If anyone is interested in any of these uncirculated autos, drop me a line and we’ll work something out.

Pictured is Peter Wingfield as Methos from Highlander, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb from Firefly, Patrick Flueger as Shaun Farrell from The 4400 and Dan Butler as Rev. Sorenson from Supernatural.

Box Break: 2010 Rittenhouse Lost Seasons 1 Thru 5

Rittenhouse is the second company to have the Lost license with the first being Inkworks.  I wasn’t a big fan of the Inkworks products as the boxes seemed too expensive to me for what you got.  Rittenhouse took over the license and they seem to have gotten things right.  For just about the same price per box, you get three autographs instead of just one and there aren’t any redemption cards.

Rittenhouse as a company puzzles the heck out of me.  They don’t take advantage of new media at all.  They barely have a website.  You won’t find Rittenhouse Archives or Scifihobby.com on Twitter or Facebook.  You won’t find any sponsored breaks to check out before you buy.  The company does have a rewards program, but the amount of points needed to get any of the rewards are ridiculous.  You have to buy 6 boxes and some loose packs just to qualify for one rewards.  They may as well not even have the program since it’ll really only benefit dealers and case breakers.  Just put that money towards some nice box toppers and you’re all set.  That’ll save the postage on mailing in the wrappers and reward normal collectors.

Rittenhouse makes some high quality cards.  They aren’t glossy, but once you’ve held them in your hands and looked at them, you won’t mind at all.  The pictures look great on the sturdy, bright white card stock.  The fact that there’s no gloss makes them perfect for autographs.  I wish that I had the Hurley card pictured above when I sent my autograph request to Jorge Garcia because I would love to have this card signed and in my collection.

The set consists of 108 cards (kudos Rittenhouse for that little detail) with one card for every episode of the first 5 seasons.  Header cards for each season that double as checklists fill out the rest of the set.  This set makes me wish that Rittenhouse had this license from the beginning and had done 108-card sets of each season as they aired.  Those sets would have been beautiful.

There are insert card for another ABC show to be found in packs.  While I am watching FlashForward, I wouldn’t be extremely upset if it were to be cancelled.  It has taken what could be a very interesting concept and gone almost nowhere with it.  It started off well, but the hiatus killed it and it hasn’t regained the momentum since coming back.  I would have much rather seen promo cards for another show that J.J. Abrams helped create and that’s Fringe.  That’s quickly become one of my favorite shows and I look forward to seeing what ridiculousness Walter Bishop is going to do and see each week.

There are some fun inserts to be found in these packs.  There’s a six card set of the Oceanic Six printed on acetate with clear sections.  It looks like there’s a picture of the character off of the island in color with a picture of them on the island ghosted in the background.

The other two cards pictured here are lenticular cards.  They really don’t scan well, but they look good in person.

The middle card pictured here is of the Smoke Monster.  This season, the Smoke Monster aka The Man in Black is spending most of his time in the form of John Locke.  Popular theory says that in the past the Smoke Monster took on various forms such as Christian Sheppard, Dave and possibly even a black horse.  Hopefully they’ll explain why it could do that then, but is unable to now.

The bottom card shows Hurley’s Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack restaurant as it is struck by a meteor and destroyed.  The explosion killed reporter Tricia Tanaka who was covering the grand opening.  This was just another example of the terrible luck that followed Hurley around off of the island after winning the lottery with the cursed numbers muttered repeatedly by another patient in the mental hospital Hurley spent time in.

Rittenhouse jumps aboard the painted card bandwagon with their own insert set.  These cards would definitely appeal to fans of Topps Gallery, Turkey Red or Upper Deck Masterpieces.

You won’t find any gloss on these cards either and these would be beautiful cards to get signed.  This is a set that I could definitely see myself tracking down if some of them show up online at a decent price.

The theme for my box seemed to be deceased characters as three of the four characters are no longer on the show.  Shannon was shot by Ana Lucia.  Boone died after being crushed by a plane while tagging along with Locke.  Juliet died due to injuries suffered while detonating a hydrogen bomb back in the 70s.

Enough about these cards though.  The main reason that people buy these boxes is for the autographs.  Who did I pull?  Let’s find out…

My first autograph card is of Patrick Fischler as Phil.  Phil was a member of the Dharma Initiative back in the 70s.  I can’t say that I was too impressed with this autograph, but these autograph cards are great.

All of the autographs are on-card and there’s a nice, big, white area for the actors and actresses to sign in.  The front of the cards are not glossy, but the backs of the cards are.  I like this decision because it prevents things like eBay idiots adding a “1/1” notation to a card and then trying to find a sucker to buy it.

Before I go any further, I have to warn you not to buy these Lost cards by the pack.  These packs are extremely searchable.  In my box, packs without an insert contained 6 cards and packs with an insert only contained 5.  You might not be able to tell the difference by holding them or looking at them, but anyone with a caliper could easily tell the difference.

My next autograph was of Andrea Roth as Harper Stanhope in “The Other Woman.”  They had to include the episode title for this autograph card because otherwise no one would have any clue who this character was.  She appeared in one episode as Juliet’s therapist

It’s nice to see that crappy autographs aren’t confined to athletes.  Actors and actresses can have terrible autographs as well.  Seriously, what the heck is that supposed to be?  Was she drawing a picture?  Getting an autograph of a minor character is even more disappointing when the autograph looks like this.

So, I had pulled two out of my three autographs and wasn’t feeling all that great about the box.  The autograph cards are easy to pick out when you open a pick due to the borderless design.  So, when I saw the next borderless card I slid the card above it aside slowly.  I saw a cursive T and then a printed T and then a familiar bald head.

Terry O’Quinn autograph!  My second favorite character on the show behind Hurley.  This card totally saved the box in my opinion as I think this is the best autograph there is to pull out of the box.

This set has a great design and the insert sets give you a little bit of variety as you open the packs.  I got a complete set out of my box which should always be the case with a non-sports box.

You can’t beat the value since you get a handful of inserts, a complete set and three autographs per box.  Even if you get three of the lesser autographs the box is worth it.  If you pull one of the bigger stars, they go for close to the cost of a box.  This Terry O’Quinn has sold on eBay from anywhere between $35 and $50, but this one won’t be making it’s way to eBay as it will find a permanent spot in my collection.

I would give this set an A- just because the autograph checklist is a little weak and you could very possibly get three clunkers who have each only been in one episode of the show.  The set itself is beautiful and the inserts add a lot of fun.  I have no choice but to give my box an A+ for a grade.  The only way that it could have been better was if I had pulled O’Quinn, Michael Emerson and Nestor Carbonell in the same box.

Technorati Tags: Lost,Rittenhouse Archives,Terry O'Quinn

TNA 2010: The New Era

TRISTAR will be releasing their next TNA set on April 28th and it looks like they’ve got a big winner here.  They were already doing a good job with the TNA sets and it looks like the quality continues to improve while the TNA roster gets better by leaps and bounds.  In fact, this past weekend I ordered my very first TNA Pay Per View and was very happy with what I saw.  The Ultimate X match featuring the Motor City Machine Guns and Generation ME was easily the match of the year so far in any federation.

One of the big selling points for this set is that there are over 30 different Hulk Hogan cards available.  This includes the base cards, relic cards, autograph cards, autographed relic cards and an Obak insert.  This set definitely has Hulkamania.

The base cards look great with excellent photography.  I count 11 cards in the base set with Hulk Hogan’s name on them so if you are a fan of the Hulkster then this is the set for you.  There’s a lot more than that though.  This set has content as recent as TNA’s big move to Monday night which included the return to wrestling of “Mr. Monday Night,” Rob Van Dam.  That’s a huge coup for TNA as the WWE had been trying to lure RVD back for a while now.  He did rejoin them for one night, but that would be it.  Jeff Hardy’s first TNA card is in this set as well with a picture from the Monday Night Special where he made a brief appearance.  Some other notable new additions are Scott Hall and Syxx-Pac, Shannon Moore, Mr. Anderson, Generation Me, The Pope, Desmond Wolfe and THE Brian Kendrick.

The two per box Obak cards should be very popular.  I loved the Obak set and can’t wait for these cards.  Hopefully they don’t prove to be too popular since this is a set that I’ll want to chase.

Each box contains one memorabilia card numbered to 1, 25, 50 or 199.  There aren’t any bums in the relic set.  The single relic set includes Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Sting, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Mr. Anderson and Syxx-Pac.  There’s a dual relic card of Beer Money Inc.  Triple relic cards feature three Hogan swatches; Hogan, Flair and Sting (pictured) or the members of The Beautiful People.

Who wouldn’t love pulling a Hulk Hogan autograph out of one of these boxes?  Autographed cards are numbered to 1, 5, 25 or 50.  There are single signed cards of just about every member of the TNA roster.  Some of the highlights are Hogan, Sting, Angle, Kevin Nash, AJ Styles, RVD, Samoa Joe, Velvet Sky, Christy Hemme, Daniels, Daffney, Jeff Hardy and Ric Flair.

There are some nice dual autographed cards highlighting business partners such as Hogan and Dixie Carter, allies like Hogan and Abyss or bitter enemies like Kurt Angle and Mr. Anderson.  The Hogan/Angle and Hogan/Flair cards should be two of the more sought after cards from this set.

There are also triple signed cards as well.  There are four different cards with one featuring former nWo members Hogan, Nash and Syxx-Pac another with the current members of The Beautiful People, the third features The British Invasion and the last one features some of the more popular ladies of TNA (Tara, Christy Hemme and Traci Brooks).

Last, but certainly not least are the quad signed cards.  There are five different cards including the one pictured here that Beckett called the greatest wrestling card ever produced.  I think I’ve got to agree.

The other quads feature the current members of The Beautiful People along with former member Angelina Love.  The Hogan/Jarrett/Angle/Foley card should be popular as well, but not as popular as the pictured card.  There’s a card of TNA Knockouts Taylor Wilde, Sarita, Hamada and Awesome Kong and the final quad is of Hulk Hogan, Abyss, Ric Flair and AJ Styles who have been the subject of many main events lately.

There are 6 different single event-used, autographed cards.  Along with the pictures Ric Flair, you can also pull Hulk Hogan, Mick Foley, Sting, AJ Styles and Velvet Sky.  No bums there and these cards look great.

You can find the checklist and more details about the set on the official website.  Thanks to the generosity of TRISTAR, you can expect to see a preview of the set right here on the blog close to the release day.

Technorati Tags: TNA Wrestling,Hulk Hogan,Ric Flair,TRISTAR,new release information,Jeff Hardy,RVD,Rob Van Dam

I owe Jorge Garcia .41¢

When it came to sending out autograph requests through the mail, I wanted to make sure that my first attempt would be a successful one.  Fortunately, one of my current favorite actors is great with his fans and is probably one of the best people there are at the moment for autograph requests.

I’ve been hooked on Lost since before the show even aired.  I bought into the hype big time and was eagerly awaiting the series premier.  Once I saw that ABC was actually committed to the show and that I wouldn’t get burned for following it (as opposed to ABC screwing around with Cupid until they finally cancelled it) it quickly became my favorite show.  The one character that grabbed my attention right away was Hurley.  His comic relief was perfect for the show, but we eventually found out that he wasn’t quite so happy-go-lucky off of the island and he was as tortured as the rest of the survivors from Oceanic 815.  Hurley’s winning lottery numbers, which somehow corresponded to Jacob’s numbered list of potential candidates, brought him nothing but bad luck off of the island.

So, I sent off my first autograph request on January 20th and waited.  It arrived in my mailbox on March 1st.  While I thought that I had done everything correctly, I think that I forgot the additional cost that the Post Office puts on rigid envelopes.  It turns out that Jorge Garcia had to put an additional .41¢ on the return envelope in order for it to get back to me.  So, thank you Jorge, for both the autographs and the extra postage.

Here’s the awesome picture that was sent.  The inscription reads, “To Mike, Aloha”  This is going to be the first item that I hang in my room once the construction is all finished and the paint is dry.

 

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Box Break: Fantastic Four Archives

I’ve read comic books for most of my life and for all of those years, I’ve been a fan of the Fantastic Four.  I’ve had my eye on a box of Rittenhouse’s Fantastic Four Archives for a while now and BlowoutCards’ Black Friday sale presented the perfect opportunity to pick up a box.

This was the first time that I had opened a box of any Rittenhouse product.  The cards are nice.  They’re printed on a sturdy stock and have a nice gloss to them.  The colors are bright and pop off of the cards.  The front of the cards have an image from an issue of Fantastic Four.  The backs of the cards display the cover from that issue along with a short summary of the events that unfolded in that issue.

My box contained a complete set which is always a good thing when it comes to non-sport sets due to the fact that singles can be tough to find.  Even in this day and age with singles readily available on the Internet, non-sports singles can still be a challenge to track down.

Nemesis cards depict some of the Fantastic Four’s biggest foes.  The stated odds for these cards are 1:8 packs and that held true in my box.  I pulled Red Ghost, Super-Skrull and Dr. Doom.  When it comes to the Fantastic Four’s foes, there’s none bigger than Dr. Doom.

The next insert set is titled Ready For Action.  These are inserted into every 12 packs.  From the two that I received, it looks like this insert set consists of images of the Fantastic Four ready to head into battle.  These cards are printed on foil board that is only exposed in certain areas such as the Human Torch’s flame and the 4 logos on the heroes’ uniforms.  This printing process gives the card a unique look that you can’t really see in the scan.

The next insert set also uses foil board in the printing process.  The Legendary Heroes come one per box and there are nine different cards.  Since the Fantastic Four only consists of four members, they decided to include some of the other superheroes who have filled in as a member of the team including Crystal, Medusa, Power Man, She-Hulk and Black Panther.  I understand why they did this, but when I’m buying a box of Fantastic Four, I want cards to be of the four main members of the team.  Luckily, I was able to pull one of the charter members in Sue Storm, The Invisible Woman.

The main reason that people open these boxes are for the other one-per-box insert.  Sketch cards have gotten very popular within the hobby to the point that they’ve been included in various sports sets by Topps.  While I lucked out with my Legendary Heroes card, I wasn’t as lucky with my sketch card.

Like a lot of people, I’m hoping that these boxes will yield a Katie Cook sketch card.  My wife introduced me to her art and I’ve been following her work online for a few years now.  She’s become extremely popular with sketch card collectors and her cards go for huge amounts of money.  Pulling one out of a box is probably the only way that I’m going to end up owning one.  I didn’t pull a Katie Cook sketch, but what I did pull is a beautiful sketch card of Storm done by Dennis Crisostomo, but I’m not a huge fan of either Storm or the X-Men.  Yes, Storm has spent time as a member of the Fantastic Four, but if I wanted a Storm sketch card I would be opening boxes of X-Men Archives.  So, this card is destined to make its way to eBay.  Luckily, it looks like Crisostomo is a popular artist and right fully so because it looks like he’s done a lot of beautiful sketch cards.  If this was of the Human Torch, Thing or the whole team it would be a great part of my collection, but now it may end up paying for my box.

I was very happy with my first Rittenhouse product.  The quality and collation were great.  I would give this product an A and my box in particular a B due to the fact that my sketch card wasn’t one of the main members of the Fantastic Four.

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