Category: Trading Cards

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 5)!

September 11, 2021

I never imagined that box of random trading card packs I received for my birthday would last six months but here we are. Let’s open the final six packs…

Thunderbirds (2004) was a forgettable live-action remake of the classic 1960s marionette series (directed by Jonathan Frakes!) but the card set confusingly calls it Thunderbirds Are Go which was actually the name of the 1960s film, 1982 Japanese anime series and 2010 _and_ 2015 TV remakes. These cards are about as uninspired as you can imagine: just movie stills with no chase cards. I bet this set was in the budget bin upon release!

When you think of topics of interest to trading card collectors, does The Royal Family (1993) come to mind? This is a somewhat irreverent set showcasing pictures of everyone’s favourite monarchy, with a focus on Diana who was of course still alive when these came out. The cards are fairly well done, with lots of info on the back, and apparently the set features a ‘secret’ scratch off card with a ‘slightly risqué’ picture of Sarah Ferguson on it!

I wouldn’t call Generation Extreme (1994) cards non-sports, but whoever packed the box does so oh well. This is a terminally boring set with photos of ‘extreme sports dudes’ from the oh-so cool early 1990s. Remember when this stuff was all over MTV? I suppose these cards were of interest to the guys featured on them, but for everyone else this set is just recycling material.

Fun fact: I’ve always loved the song Iron Lion Zion posthumously released by Bob Marley but I’ve never known much about the guy himself. This set from 1996 attempts to remedy that, with an encyclopedic amount of info about the man and his life and beautifully produced cards. The set has loads of chase cards as well, including embossed cards and fantasy art versions of the singer painted by Ken Kelly! I was impressed with these cards and I imagine a Marley fan would have been over the moon.

Ah yes, the beloved film Bingo (1991)! I’ve never heard of it, and I doubt many have. Weirdly these are wax-packed (like early 1980s sets) despite being released in 1991, and most of the images on the cards I got are studio shots of the dog in weird outfits/poses. This is an awful set, that I doubt ever had an audience.

Back in the pre-copyright strike glory days of the internet I watched several entire series on YouTube. One of them was the 1970 British series UFO about a covert government agency tasked with stopping an alien invasion. This was – still is – ahead of it’s time and in my opinion remains one of the best sci-fi tv series ever made. This card set from 2004 includes beautifully produced cards on thick card stock and seems to be a precursor of the higher-end collectors series of today. Of all the packs I opened in this box, this is the one I wish I had more of!

And that’s it: every pack has now been opened and showcased here. And yet in the six months it has taken I have obtained a few more packs of cards from other series. Who knows, maybe I’ll continue this series at some point in the future?

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 4)!

July 23, 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…

Let’s Trade Cards (Part 3)!

June 13, 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 🙂

Robot Claw