Dyson Here

Incredible Hulk #104..

The only relatively major non-sketch card pickup I added to August's just-arrived art-heavy lineup was the above Dyson Card from Thor: Ragnarok.  They are basically rip cards, though much, much easier to pull than Allen & Ginter.  Lot cheaper too.  This one was the cheapest on the site at the time and set me back a cool $3.75.

The back (I didn't scan it until after I already opened it)..

I'm glad the cheapest one available was from the best Hulk story ever imo.  Planet Hulk is where Bruce Banner's story ends as far as I'm concerned.  As you can see, it's all perforated & much easier to open without obliterating your card than A&G rip cards tend to be as well.

Open card surgery..

Here it is open.  According to Cardboard Connection's checklist, the basic pull is "Mini Comics" (1:2 Dyson Cards), with an ever-so-slightly rarer acetate parallel (1:3), Comic Creator Autographs fall 1:6 Dyson Cards, with acetates at 1:11, and the big score: Actor Autographs falling 1:39 (Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson can both be hit in there, as well as director Taika Waititi).  COMC shows non-autographed characters from the movie too, but I don't see them on the checklist anywhere, so I can't give you any odds on them.

Anyway, my pull came in a mini sleeve glued to the inside of one of the flaps that open up.  That's mighty sporting of them.  So what did we pull?

The mini(s)?!

Immediately I noticed there were two cards in the sleeve.  The card itself, and a COA, which means...

Mini backs, feat. auto goodness!

We hit a Ron Garney mini acetate autograph!  He is a fairly prolific artist and very occasional writer, almost entirely with Marvel.  It's hard to tell in the scan, but this is a sticker auto.  It's all on it though and he has pretty solid penmanship.

There are some huge legends on the creator checklist (Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, etc), so this isn't the biggest pull.  But it's probably an $8-10 card, which more than double what I paid for the Dyson card.  I think almost anything you pulled would probably be at least worth the price of admission though if you pick one up for under $5, so there's no fear in breaking these the way there is with A&G.  And the potential to hit a monster is still there.

But enough pondering of the potential monetary value of things.  I'm not inclined to part with this right now, since it looks rad as heck fits nicely into the unofficial mini-PC I have going of creator autos from various Marvel products (I also have a few from that one CBLDF set from... almost a decade ago now).  I've barely bought anything but singles this year, so this probably qualifies as my best pull of the year to this point (looking it up, this is only the second auto & 4th "hit" overall that I've pulled in 2018, which is actually not terrible for how little I've opened).

I need some food and then some sleep, so I guess that's enough jibba-jabba for now.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next...

High End Heroes (and Villains)

2015 Fleer Retro Marvel Elektra Blue PMG...

While I was going insanely overboard during COMC's Spring Cleaning sale, I also won another a cool lot in one of my very few forays onto the eBay this year.  The above Elektra-fying blue beauty actually came from the COMC sale, but the lot also comes from the 2015 iteration of Upper Deck's high end Retro Marvel set, so I figured she fit in with them better than a leading off a COMC Miscellany post.  Precious Metal Gems are also a low-key White Whale, so getting both a red and blue in short order (and both of characters I like!) was pretty cool.  Just need a Rogue & She-Hulk from 2013 and I can close the book on Marvel PMGs for good.

...#'ed 30/50!

Now onto the lot itself.

The low-tier inserts..

They all mimic the backs of the originals pretty decently..

These are some of the low end inserts from this high end set.  They mimic early-'90s releases.  Most have autographed parallels.  There will be one later.

Regular Metals..

Backs..

The regular Metals are easier gets too.  PMGs are their parallels, which come in the above Blue /50 and below Red /100 (which are one per box) varieties, as well as the far beyond my means Green, which are numbered out of only /10.

Flair..

Flair backs..

Flair are where the inserts start to get a little more interesting, and they have their own, honestly rather forgettable, throwback parallel.  They're on sturdier stock though.  I didn't get any of the higher tier of inserts in this lot, which are mostly based on sports base and inserts sets from the late-'90s, though there's a couple vintage-styled inserts in this iteration of the set as well.  Certain ones can even outstrip the price of Red PMGs, despite none of them being numbered.

There are also sketch cards, and I do have one from the 2013 set, but that'll probably get its own post somewhere down the line.  I did get a couple autographs though.  Have a looksie,,,

Falcon (base) and Iron Patriot (Skybox)...

...autographed by Mark Brooks and Stuart Immonen..

Here are the autos.  Falcon is a base auto and Iron Patriot is from the same insert set as Ares.  I dig the gold ink.  Nice choice.  Immonen is a recognizable name.  Shame he's not the auto on Falcon.

Storm Red PMG...

We've finally reached the end of this post, and the Precious Metal Gem that was the centerpiece of the lot.  Mohawked Storm.  Nice.  I got all that for just a hair more than the blue PMG cost by itself, and way less than half what all of it would have cost me individually on COMC (and those comparisons were made back during the huge Spring Cleanup sale!).

...#'ed 83/100!

Almost done, and not a moment too soon.  I've been blogging about sports cards off & on since March of 2008, and this is first time in all that time that I've ever managed an entire, uninterrupted week of posts!

As for the lot itself, most of it I expect to be keeping.  PMGs ain't going anywhere.  If I trade the autos, it'll probably just be for autos on characters I like more.  All the ladies will go in my hottie binders.  Cyclops can stay, because he is a great character that very few people, including many X-Men writers understand and respect.  Ironically, their attempts to turn him into unlikable jerkass have made him a much more interesting, complex character than he'd ever been before.  On top of that, while ol' Cyke has gotten all deep & interesting over the past decade, eternal rival Wolverine has kinda truly become embodiment of the lame, overrated, overexposed Marty Stu a proud few of us had always known and professed him to be.  Glorious.

Whew, rant mode off.  I do have other destinations in mind for a few of these, like Iceman going to Gavin in my trade with him, since Bobby's younger self was recently outed in the comics, on questionable grounds, and via rather carelessly skeevy means.  But it is what it is.  Pack War, Cardboard History, and Johnny's Trading Spot might have a card or two waiting for them when I finally get their packages sent over the next month or two.

That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next...