Collecting « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Collecting’ Category

Ramen 10: I’m Not Stopping!

Sunday, September 12th, 2021

I’m not reviewing ramen today, just showing off a recent purchase. Specifically this:

It’s a noodle stopper, which is a figurine designed to help keep the top on cup noodles while they steep. Most of us probably use a fork or plate or some other device, but now you can use a cute figurine:

Yes this is a real figure designed for this use. They are made by the Japanese company Furyu mostly as UFO Catcher prizes, although the days you can just buy them on amazon. Mine is Hatsune Miku in a cherry blossom outfit, and I’m astonished at the sculpting and paint job considering how inexpensive she was ($20)! She also sits on the noodles very well and keeps the top nice and sealed while the hot water does its job.

Of course since I don’t want to damage her I won’t actually be using her for this purpose, and instead she’ll sit happily on a ledge in my office to remind that a piping hot cup of noodles is only a few steps away:

Noodle stoppers: an essential tool for the cupnoodologist! 🙂

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Food, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 4)!

Friday, July 23rd, 2021

My bottomless stash of weird trading card packs has no end! Time for some more…

Anastasia (1998) was one of those animated films everyone saw and immediately forgot about. These cards are equally forgettable, and since they were always a staple in the discount sections of card shops (remember them?) I imagine they were massively overproduced and none too successful. The only chase of note were lenticular cards showing a scene from the film, but they were rarer than one per box.

Kristin actually bought me a box of Maverick (1994) cards for Christmas so I have a full set of them! I’ve never seen the film, and based on the images on the cards never want to. It’s another by-the-numbers boring movie card set, and the only chase cards (‘tekchrome’) are so similar to the normal cards they’re almost indistinguishable!

Country Classics cards (1992) are another curious relic from the days of ‘sounds like a great idea’ opportunism! Who bought these? I’m no expert on the topic but it seems to me that in ’92 many of these dudes were long in the tooth, so were these cards aimed at senior-citizen card collectors? Obviously they’re of no interest to me, but I can’t deny I wanted to pull the super rare (only two existed!) redemption cards that back in the day could be mailed in for a 24-carat solid gold card!

This is a good contender for the worst card set I’ve ever seen. In the great trash can of repulsive designs, far below the wacky packages and garbage pail kids, you’ll find this dross. Troll Force (1992) cards showcase horribly drawn ‘trolls’ (which don’t resemble any troll I’ve seen) with ‘comedy’ names doing ‘wacky’ things. They’re disturbingly amateur and utterly unappealing in every way. If you ever come into possession of a pack of these, just burn it.

Based on these Saved By The Bell: The College Years cards (1994) this TV series only had a few characters and they were all girls. It’s a stupid-boring set that reprints pseudo-glamour shots of the actresses with nothing of note on the back. In short, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the show (and I suspect it was made before the show screened). Another trash set hardly worth the cardboard.

There’s a box of beanie babies in our attic and I’ve already decided to do a blog post on them soon so stay tuned for that. These Beanie Baby cards (1988) on the other hand… are a total scam! They’re completely unofficial, and feature bad photos of the toys with meaningless statistics on the back. Beanie Babies were very much on the way out when these cards came out but I’m sure the screaming hordes of collectors bought these cards anyway. I reckon they’ve all ended up in landfills alongside the stuffed toys.

Yes there’s even more packs left to open, including one or two ‘good’ ones! I’ll get to them eventually…

Posted in Collecting, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Time, Trading Cards | Comments Closed

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 3)!

Sunday, June 13th, 2021

It’s been a while, but it’s time for some more random packs of trading cards!

These Pocohontas cards (1995), obviously based on the Disney film, are somewhat bland, mostly due to the somewhat ugly style of the animation. The set contains a selection of impressive chase cards such as etched foils and lenticulars, but the only unusual card in my pack was a standee. This set was overproduced and whole boxes of them can be found for only a few dollars.

Occasionally you open an pack from decades ago and find that all the cards have stuck together, like in this pack of Power Rangers cards (1994). This is due to the inks becoming slightly adhesive over time, and essentially ruins the cards (you can see the damage on the creature card at the lower left). This is a by-the-numbers series with unremarkable but flashy ‘rainbow’ chase cards in every pack.

Desert Storm (1991) is a somewhat infamous series all about the first Gulf War. Several companies made card sets based on this topic, but Pro Set packs were most common. The cards are packed with info but it’s a massive set (300+ cards) that would have benefited from judicious editing. Entire boxes of this set are common as dirt and can be bought for as little as $2 (for dozens of packs) so the cards are basically worthless.

Now these are nice! Released in 1993, these San Diego Zoo cards feature lovely photos of animals with information on the back. They’re well made and would have been a nice set for younger collectors. The set had a few extremely rare (1 in 40 packs or fewer) hologram chase cards and a single (even rarer) ‘tekchrome’ card.

This is a weirdly ugly Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy set from 1994 is based on the book (not the TV show) and features bland original art that misses much more than it hits. I struggle to imagine the market for this series, which was released during the heyday of speculation and market saturation. As usual the hologram chase cards were too rare (one per box or so) and based on images I saw online weren’t much prettier than the basic cards.

Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with codes usable on an online site to ‘play’ with the toys online. In the mid 2000s four trading card sets were released, and as you can see they’re execrable. The are technically playable as a TCG though, so maybe I should buy a box and bring it to Oz so Adam and I can have a Webkinz tournament next time I visit?

After this bounty of dazzling packs you may think things couldn’t get any better… stay tuned 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Otaku, Retro, Trading Cards | 1 Comment »

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 2)!

Wednesday, May 19th, 2021

Time for some more trading cards from that random selection…

I’m sure I’ve seen Shrek 2 but I don’t remember it. These cards from 2004 are unremarkable but have fairly high production quality. I got one foil card (the last shot) but the set also had autograph and sketch cards available by mailing in rare redemption cards. Aside from the autographs, these cards are mostly worthless today.

These Bone cards (1994) are based on the comic and feature seemingly unrelated images of the (in my opinion) ugly title character. They’re boring and clearly of interest only to fans of the comic. Chase cards included an extremely rare ‘medallion’. The set is worthless today.

Back in 2000 when these Backstreet Boys cards were released the band was at the height of their fame. You’d think therefore that the company buying the rights to a trading card set would have done a better job that this awful set. The photos are blurry and ugly, the text on the back is trite and the stickers extremely boring. In my pack was one ‘chrome’ chase card which was as blurry as the rest.

Interestingly there seems to be quite a few different BSB card sets released in different languages, and some look of higher quality than these. So if the topic interests you, seek out a newer release 🙂

These Skeleton Warriors cards (1995) are based on a Saturday morning cartoon and feature some really, really bad artwork. I suspect it’s an early example of computer-assisted art but the character all look deformed and repulsive to me. I would have liked to have gotten one of the transparent or glow-in-the-dark chase cards in my pack, but alas was not so lucky. A well produced set crippled by hideous art.

Toxic High (1992) was a Topps set in the same vein as Garbage Pail Kids, and like those sets I hate it. The cards feature near-photorealistic artwork depicting gross-out topics related to (American) high school life. Funny if you like vomit or pee jokes I suppose. The card at bottom right has four stickers designed like yearbook photos. If they still stick I may use them on postcards!

Another from the ‘they printed anything in those days’ are these Guinness Book of Records cards (1992). It’s a soporific collection of stock artwork with pithy ‘records’ on the back. As a kid I may have liked this, but I’m guessing as a card set it failed utterly since I once passed on an entire box of these cards for under $5!

Posted in Collecting, Otaku, Trading Cards | 1 Comment »

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 1)!

Monday, May 10th, 2021

KLS bought me a ‘mystery’ variety pack of trading cards for my birthday. It was a plastic bag with about 30 different packs of cards from 10+ years ago. Starting now – and in no particular order – I’m going to showcase every pack, with a bit of info about each set.

These Hunchback of Notre Dame cards (1996) are obviously based on the Disney film. It’s a weird set since each pack includes only one or two traditional cards with the rest being standees, jigsaw puzzles, strange 3D model pieces etc. I reckon kids would have loved this, but I wonder if perhaps it failed since this approach – ‘activity’ cards – hardly caught on.

This Bill & Ted’s series (1991) is based on the first two films and is a mostly bare-bones set showcasing movie photos but with no chase cards. Alas, I didn’t win the bodacious trip to San Dimas 🙂

As a result of opening this pack I bought the set of both Bill & Ted films for a mere $3.74 at Walmart the other day. I bet they’ll be non-heinous!

Hyborean Gates (1995) is a legendarily bad TCG that was maligned in early reviews and delayed upon release so when it finally hit stores no one bought it. It’s spectacularly badly designed, and the base set includes cards that cannot even be played since they require cards that were to be included in an expansion that ultimately was never released. Furthermore all the art is by Boris Vallejo or Julie Bell, so if their airbrushed style isn’t to your liking the cards aren’t even appealing for their art.

I bought a couple of boxes of this series a few years ago for $1 each, so this single pack would be worth maybe $0.04. In other words, these cards are just garbage!

Just who was the target audience for a Blondie card series in 1995? The newspaper strip was ancient even when I was a stripling, so this is a good example of the rampant overproduction in the card industry in the 1990s. The cards themselves are poorly designed, with strips reproduced over multiple cards so you’d have to buy many packs to even read a tiny comic! Interestingly 1 in 72 packs contained only chase cards, which was pioneering then and very rare even today! Still, this set probably didn’t need to exist.

I’ve never seen Hook so all I’ll know about the movie I’ll get from these cards. They’re certainly nice enough, and follow in the design footprints of the famous Topps sets from the ’80s. Plus the stickers are (always) cool! The cellophane packs are extremely unusual, and probably one reason why the set has no chase cards.

I actually have an entire unopened box of these cards. If you leave a comment on this post I’ll send you a sticker 🙂

I’m less than a quarter through this big pile of trading card packs, but could there be any set weirder than Iditarod (1992)? Before opening it I thought it may be nice photos of dogs and snowy vistas, but it’s almost entirely photos of (human) entrants with ridiculous statistics on the back. Who was this aimed at?

As I said there’s many packs left to go. What’s coming next? Wait and see…

Posted in Collecting, Trading Cards | Comments Closed

Robot Claw