Category: Collecting

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 2)!

  • May 19, 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!

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 1)!

  • May 10, 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
  • Robert

Ramen 6: Finale!

  • April 12, 2021

And so we reach the final ramen post. But I’m not eating ramen today, I’m making it. Specifically, this:

It’s a plastic model kit of a ramen cup! This was made to commemorate 50 years of Cup Noodle and lest there be any doubt…

It’s not edible!

Here’s the contents:

As with all Bandai plastic kits the engineering is astonishing, and the pieces went together easily and almost seamlessly:

I particularly liked the lettering, which was made of plastic rather than used a sticker:

That’s not to say the kit had zero stickers. In fact it has a lot, but they’re easy to attach and make the finished product look incredibly lifelike:

Here’s a shot of the contents (pre-cooking, of course):

And here I faced a choice. Display it with the contents showing, or attach the lid? I chose the latter, and the contents of my cup will therefore be sealed away forever.

Here’s a shot showing scale next to a toy car I just happened to have:

It’s a fantastic kit, and I’ll be keeping it on permanent display 🙂