Category: Collecting

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 🙂

Pullip Time!

  • March 6, 2021

KLS recently bought her second Pullip doll. “What’s that“, you ask? Time for some photos…

Here’s the first one she bought several years ago. Her name is Alice du Jardin and she was first released in 2012. She’s obviously inspired by Alice in Wonderland, and the text on the card that came with her makes that explicit.

Pullip dolls are hyper-accessorized collector toys for adults. They stand about a foot tall and as you can see have detailed clothing and lovely hair. The South Korean company that makes them releases a new doll every month and there’s well over 200 available now.

They’re slightly disturbing but also cute, and Kristin loves their clothes and hair. Alice has been on display for many years now in the room that has become Kristins work-from-home-office, and as an unbirthday gift to herself she bought a second Pullip:

Meet Midnight Velvet. She’s was also first released in 2012 and is the evil witch from the Snow White legend. Her headdress makes her about 6 inches taller than Alice, and the detail of her clothing is astonishing and possibly lost in these photos. (She has voluminous and detailed undergarments that aren’t even visible!)

The dolls are posable but obviously designed to be displayed standing since they include a stand. While the company is South Korean the dolls are most popular in Japan and a lot of the licensed ones are based on Japanese properties.

Oh, and they’re eyes move:

And yes, she’s got glittery makeup!

So now you know it’s not just me that buys crazy things! KLS has her own otaku interests as well. I asked her if she had any comment to add to this post and she said: “I’m not some creepy doll collector!” 🙂