Last week, I was looking at Completed Auctions out on "the bay," and noticed a final price for a Marvel Universe 1 promo that surprised me. It went for just under $55. I figured it was one of the ones with the gray Diamond logo on the back or one of the Toy Biz logo cards but I checked the original listing out of curiosity. It turned out to be yet another promo version of a card from the base set. These Marvel promos did not come up in a search of Card Talk and are also not listed in PCE2008 but they are listed in the old NSU price guides from early 2016 and before.
Like the better-known promos with the gray Diamond logo on the back, there are 20 different cards and they might be best termed as prototypes as they are not marked as promos anywhere. They look just like base cards except on the back at the bottom they do not say "Exclusively distributed by Impel marketing, Inc." at the bottom. At least one of these cards also does not have the same card number as the base card it resembles.
I was wondering if these cards could actually be just pack-pulled variants that were in packs and someone was just trying to sell them as something more exotic but these are for real.
I've noticed that more of these cards have appeared for sale asking even higher prices but that $55 sale price might have been just one collector willing to overpay to finish or nearly finish the set.
I should note that the 5 4-card sheets with promos with the gray Diamond logos can be found as singles, and while many are unsure whether singles were ever officially cut and distributed, "Comic Cards and Their Prices" by Stuart Wells III (1994, Wallace-Homestead Book Company) does have a listing for "cut" cards without specifying whether they were company cut or not. At the time there was a question whether there were 4 or 5 different uncut Diamond logo sheets.
Jess
Edit: I neglected to copy the card front and back but these have come up again because an unopened pack has surfaced and was sold a couple of days ago and is being discussed in another thread.This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,
It was about 2005 that someone was going around offering dealers sets of the Diamond uncut sheets or singles for $5-10 per set. I didn't pay much more than that. Now, it appears the Diamond promo singles go for about $6-7 each.
These marvel Universe Series 1 promo/prototype cards came in 3 different flavors. One is the 5 uncut sheets that most are familiar with which make up the 20 cards(4 cards on each sheet) with the Diamond logo. Unfortunately, many of these sheets have been cut and trimmed and being sold as "mint" individual cards by unscrupulous sellers. These sheets were pullouts from magazines and should have the evidence of such(glue remnants, large borders etc..) to be considered mint. The next ones are the set of 20 individual cards with the Diamond logo on the back. These were distributed as singles and were not cut from the sheet. Caveat Emptor, though, see above. The 3rd and most difficult ones to find from the set, are the 20 individual cards similar to the preceding but without the Diamond logo and the backs do not say" produced and distributed by Impel Inc." anywhere.
there is still a lot of confusion out there about these Marvel promo/prototype cards from 1990 but now you know the reality!
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February 16, 2021, 10:50 PM
Tommy C
I know there have been discussions here on Card Talk about early 90s Marvel cards suddenly going for crazy prices. Just saw on ebay the 1990 promo sheets from Previews going for $ 20 each. Saw another auction with the set of the Diamond promo sheets, asking price $ 400. And a third auction with an uncut sheet of the base cards with bids of up to $ 265 ! What is going on with these ?
March 30, 2021, 08:31 PM
catskilleagle
A scarce cello-pack of prototypes without the Diamond logo and without the line, "Produced and distributed by impel, Inc." sold on Sunday for $217.50 with 11 bids.
Originally posted by promoking: These marvel Universe Series 1 promo/prototype cards came in 3 different flavors. One is the 5 uncut sheets that most are familiar with which make up the 20 cards(4 cards on each sheet) with the Diamond logo. Unfortunately, many of these sheets have been cut and trimmed and being sold as "mint" individual cards by unscrupulous sellers. These sheets were pullouts from magazines and should have the evidence of such(glue remnants, large borders etc..) to be considered mint. The next ones are the set of 20 individual cards with the Diamond logo on the back. These were distributed as singles and were not cut from the sheet. Caveat Emptor, though, see above. The 3rd and most difficult ones to find from the set, are the 20 individual cards similar to the preceding but without the Diamond logo and the backs do not say" produced and distributed by Impel Inc." anywhere.
there is still a lot of confusion out there about these Marvel promo/prototype cards from 1990 but now you know the reality!
July 13, 2021, 02:59 PM
Tommy C
A set of the 20 Marvel promos with the Diamond logo on the backs (not the sheets) just sold for $108.00 on ebay.
August 03, 2021, 02:18 PM
David R
A set of the 20 promos without the Diamond logos sold for $ 950.00 !