Surprise Prize.

Since my return to the trading card and collectables scene, I have had to search around the internet and real-life to find informative places to get my up to date information from.

After having a dabble in the sports card scene for a bit I had decided to go back and have a gander at the television show/games based trading cards, so, Pokémon and Yugioh. A link from a friends Facebook page led me to the YouTube channel POKECOLLECTION. Not just informative, but funny and engaging for the older generations whilst still enjoyable for the younger generations.

Through the many different platforms of social media, POKECOLLECTION ran an online competition for a gift-pack. Which, as I am writing a blog about it I obviously won, and by “I” won, I mean my kids received. Then just a few business days later, boom, MAILDAY. (It has actually been a slow fortnight for maildays, my American card supplier seems to be backlogged with outgoing.)

 

So, the parcel actually arrived as I was out at work, so the Jnrs had to await my arrival. Getting home from work we all sat down and opened the parcel. The Jnrs were ecstatic with the delivery, 2 DVD series and a dual Pokeball belt set. With multiple giveaways through his social presence, these are more than generous and more than what we should expect from people. The  even bigger plus side is that you can see that POKECOLLECTION loves what he does and that is how this industry will continue to expand, through the passion passing from one generation to the next.

So go have a gander at the YouTube channel, Linked anywhere I have written POKECOLLECTION. And, hopefully a new blog next week as I have 2 deliveries in transit as I type.

Later all,

Joshua-Marc.

Custom Collector Cards.

A few weeks back I was at the Adelaide leg of the Oz-Comicon. There was a young artist there who amongst other styles like to portray existing characters as llamas.I didn’t manage to pick up any pieces on the day but didn’t want to miss out on having a llama-d item (does anyone know what a llama creation is called?)

So, having found their website and looking at the artwork, I was thinking what I could have done that would be my own little piece for my collection. Then I remembered that I had just opened 2 boxes of Adventure Time trading card, which each contained a blank card for fans to draw artwork on, and well, I can not draw for shit.

I then commissioned Kaci Star to Llama-rise (I’m making these llama words up) to draw some of my favourite characters as llamas.

 

The ball was smashed out of the park on these!

Everything about these is perfect. The colouring is true to original, the styling is crisp. Both Finn and Jake are completely recognisable, whilst still completely being llamas.

Saying that I am happy with these is an understatement and they deserve to be sat next to my existing set artwork cards without a doubt.

 

I would highly recommend going to the Kaci Star website and checking out her existing pieces on there.

Thank you and have fun.

Joshua

 

 

Mail Heavy Fortnight

Well, I think that to date the last fortnight has been the most mail that I have seen since my thirteenth birthday. Not only that, but from a week that stumbled very early on it then only got better and better.

The week started with the most hated item that a collector can possible receive, the dreaded “Sorry we missed you” card! This is a common occurrence at mine, I have happened to even watch the delivery man walk straight from his van to my letterbox without even attempting the door once.

From this point though, the week then was on the up and up. The boxes were delivered the next day and all was good. One of the delivered items was a single Player collection card for my stash (I am not doing a blog on these until the collection is closer to complete) another item was a box of the StarWars High-Tek cards, which landed me a very nice gold Warwick Davis autograph as Wicket.

The third item was a early delivery ordered straight from the supplier, a limited edition box, released for the retirement of a basketballer who will without a doubt go Hall of Fame. The Kobe Bryant Heros/Villians box set. With 2 identical card sets inside, 21 hero & 21 villains, separated by either a white or black border and a different quote on the back for each. The cards are a nice stock, with a good finish and good choice of pictures. The clincher of the item is the separate pack inside that contains 5 coloured foil bordered cards, with the chance at one of one an Autograph. Although I didn’t land a rarer card, the foil has been done really well, and definitely makes them a very good chase set

This was quite a little haul and I thought I was going to be quite content with the items, but, some spontaneous shopping visits and a dull workday online shopping saw otherwise.

The next little item sprung from a day of boredom online, the random purchase of stuff because it’s on sale conundrum. Oh boy am I happy with the purchases though. A favourite of mine is the cartoon Adventure Time, and when I saw the collectors cards on sale it was a must have! So, I placed the order and then had to deal with the delivery wait from the USA to Australia, which in this case was so quick I had nothing to complain about.

In the small wait-time that I did have I read up on the ‘per box’ breakdown to find out what to expect. Each box delivers (on average) 2 base sets, 1 Autograph and 1 Hand drawn sketch card. In terms of expectations from box breaks, those are a very good turn out. The boxes also have a single blank card, that is designed for yourself to draw your own fan-art on, and this card doesn’t really warrant a mention normally, but I have done something quite special with mine.

The particular boxes I received seemed to have a good pay-off, only one of the two autographs was a main character, but that’s all good, when the sketch cards are as cool as they are anyway. I think I lucked that both Sketches are of the same character, it just now has that feel of a small collection to it. Each artist has their own styling, and it makes for a great contrast between the cards. Overall I was very happy with the purchase and have decided that I will be getting a few more boxes to increase the size of my sketches collecting.

 

Well, it was at this point that I was quite sure that I had done enough purchasing for a while, a quick visit to the shops to get some more folders for my newly acquired cards saw differently though.

After having got my new folders, and excited to get home and do some sorting. We found ourselves in the local Target for my son to spend his birthday money (even though I desperately tried to get him to buy some collector cards from the hobby shop), and well, lets just say its a good thing that he wanted to buy a web slinging Spider-man glove. On they way out, I happened to glance a shelf that had a few random packets of Magic the Gathering going out at a discount, so I proceeded to purchase every single pack. I had no MTG cards and though this to be the perfect entry. I know nothing of the game, but do know that some of the art work is amazing. I found the card stock to be much thinner than sport and entertainment collector cards, and can see why players sleeve their cards in protectors, I found this unusual for cards that get handled so much.

Not really knowing what to look for in terms of rarity or collectability, I went home opened all the packets, admired the art-work and got sorting into my new albums along with Adventure Time cards.

Again, I was now overly content with my new purchases, and was sure that it was enough for the time being, alas, another spontaneous trip out and another run-in with a collection I hadn’t yet started. This year was my first year buying AFL collector cards as my kids are now just starting to get into the sport (which is just the reason I use to keep buying things anyway).

The drive home from a friends childs birthday party had seen us pull into a random shopping centre so I could clean them out of MTG cards, as I had the one the day before. When there was none available I was quite down, so one the exiting of the shopping centre my wife suggested looking in the news agency (hahaha sucker), there was nothing I wanted, but stuff I needed. Yes, we left with collectables that I had previously not even thought about getting.

Myself and the Jnr J, left with a new folder and box of the AFL Team 2016 trading cards. Which we promptly opened and sorted once we got home. A very nice looking entry level football product, with a lot to collect. Our main star card was not a player from our supporter teams, but oh well. We did manage to get alot of inserts from our teams though, and more importantly sit and enjoy the sorting and time together.

So, I would like to say that I can now go and spend some time just enjoying what I have. I can’t though as I now currently have more items in transit. Luckily, not all the items are purchases as I happened to win a competition recently and have a nice little Bag’o’Swag on the way! Something else I have coming is some custom pieces, and my next post will be on these 2 deliveries.

Thank you all, have fun and keep doing what you enjoy.

Josh