Great gets Jake

Thanks Spider!

Well, wife was at another Target today and bought 5 packs. Pulled another sketch!



We are starting to map out the Targets and such on our drive from Vegas to Disneyland and from there to San Diego for SDCC to see what we find. Who knows!

I finally scored a few hobby boxes of these from the San Diego Comic Con. I got them for $60 apiece and here's the results:

Got to like a Layton, the best of the modern Iron Man artists. And as a Ken Steacy collector who also has a small Captain America sketch collection, this Cap by Ken was a godsend. I was thrilled to get it! Cool to get the Favreau auto, and the box also had a Justin Hammer memorabilia card. o


Pennington and not sure of the 2nd artist. It is very lightly drawn, but still excellent quality. No auto, but the box did have a different Justin Hammer costume card than the one in the box above


Nice box here, no auto, but a Scarlett Black Widow costume is always welcome. Pretty nice color Mandarin, and Jen Mercer put a lot of work into this Thor, which is really well drawn.

Great cards, it's a good thing (for card collectors, not so much movie fans) that the Iron Man sequel was a mere shadow of the the original, or else these cards would have likely sold out long ago. Also, a lot of people had lost faith in Upper Deck by the time this set was released. I believe the original intention would've been one sketch per box as with the Marvel Masterpieces sets, but pre-orders were so weak, Upper Deck went ahead an double inserted the sketched into boxes. This would be very similar to what happened with Indiana Jones Masterpieces. Disappointment with Crystal Skull and Indy Heritage led to so many cancelled orders on Masterpieces, Topps drastically lowered that print run for that set, and that's why those boxes were so loaded.

I picked up 3 retail gravity boxes for only $64.00 shipped. Each box had 48 packs - 2 costumes, 1 sketch, + 18-20 foil inserts. This was definitely a fun break. Here are the results:

- Base sets: only had time to sort 1 set, there's probably at least 2-3 more in there
- Classic covers inserts: 3 full sets + extras
- Armored card inserts: 1 full set + extras
- Die cut inserts: almost a set (missing AH3) + extras
- 6 costumes:


- 3 sketches: (Marat Mychaels, Sarah Wilkinson, Benjamin Glendenning). The Wilkinson is painted and looks really nice in person:

Anyone else busting these? The price of a retail box has dropped significantly compared to a year ago. This is a really fun and cheap break.

quote:

Originally posted by Booker:
Anyone else busting these? The price of a retail box has dropped significantly compared to a year ago. This is a really fun and cheap break.

Busted a couple of hobby boxes last year, but costume cards do not sell product and the autograph list was too short and the ratio way too high. The sketch cards were OK, but nothing good enough to make up the difference. If the boxes get blown out at $10 a pop I might buy another. UD didn't do a very good job with this title, and it didn't help that the movie was not up to the first one either.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by Booker:
Anyone else busting these? The price of a retail box has dropped significantly compared to a year ago. This is a really fun and cheap break.

Busted a couple of hobby boxes last year, but costume cards do not sell product and the autograph list was too short and the ratio way too high. The sketch cards were OK, but nothing good enough to make up the difference. If the boxes get blown out at $10 a pop I might buy another. UD didn't do a very good job with this title, and it didn't help that the movie was not up to the first one either.

I think you would be surprised at how much the costumes sell for, especially the Natasha Romanoff, Pepper Potts, and Nick Fury. I bought 11 boxes total for $220.00 and already recovered $150. I still have 1 costume for each character in my PC + a few extras, along with a half dozen or so sketches left (including the above Wilkinson), and nearly 4 mini master sets (only missing insert AH3 for each). Not bad for $70 and a little bit of dirty work on the bay....

Can anyone opening the Gravity feed boxes let me know if Autographs are a possible pull or just the costumes and sketches?

quote:

Originally posted by TheMetatrOn:
Can anyone opening the Gravity feed boxes let me know if Autographs are a possible pull or just the costumes and sketches?

The wrappers says autographs are possible, but I have yet to pull one. I read somewhere that odds were rumored at 1 in 2000-3000 packs. So its clearly not worth it if that's what you're interested in.

I bought a box of these last year when the movie came out and I don't know why I never showed my box break until now

The Bibb autograph was in the very first pack ,


I have no idea what that second sketch is of, I'm guessing it's a puzzle piece,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Darth Vader Fan,

quote:

Originally posted by Booker:

quote:

Originally posted by TheMetatrOn:
Can anyone opening the Gravity feed boxes let me know if Autographs are a possible pull or just the costumes and sketches?

The wrappers says autographs are possible, but I have yet to pull one. I read somewhere that odds were rumored at 1 in 2000-3000 packs. So its clearly not worth it if that's what you're interested in.

No just nice to know there IS a possibility. Might have to buy some of these 48 pack retail boxes and try for a costume set and an auto

quote:

Originally posted by Darth Vader Fan:
I have no idea what that second sketch is of,

Iron Man side profile, looking left?

Opened 36 loose packs today:

Classic Covers: CC2, CC3X2, CC6, CC7, CC8, CC9
Armored Cards: AC1 & AC6

Costume Card IMC-9


And 2 sketches
Matt Minor and unknown

I'm just finally getting a personal collection started and decided to get it going with a bang, 1,960 Retail packs!!!

All 1,960 packs were loose, none were in sealed boxes. They most likely were bought back from some major retail chain stores that hundreds of packs that went unsold. I pulled a total of 28 sketches and 34 costumes cards. No autos, but plenty of inserts. It was definitely a fun bust and though the hits were few and far between, I had a great time and got to add some fantastic pieces to my new collection. I have another 3,000 on the way, 2,000 of them are at sitting at the post office waiting to be picked up.

First up, pic of all 1,960 packs!



And now for the sketches, no pics of the costume cards since they're so common.































Still can't figure out this artist:

















I think the artwork on all of them is unique and show worthy in their own way, but these are my favorites from the bunch:



Frank Rapoza


Michael Jason Paz


Neil Vokes


Kate Bradley!!!


Benjamin Glendenning!!-Would love to find the left half of this puzzle, it's Iron Man playing against him!

They only thing I can think of is . . .

How much did you pay for 1,960 retail packs, with another 3,000 ordered?

And what are you going to do with the 34,720 some odd cards left over?

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
They only thing I can think of is . . .

How much did you pay for 1,960 retail packs, with another 3,000 ordered?

And what are you going to do with the 34,720 some odd cards left over?

Looks like we will be seeing a massive liquidation of Iron Man base sets on ebay!

The packs were on clearance at the time so the price per pack was about .18 cents. Here's the last of my breaks:





Dietrich Smith



Mark Pennington


Daniel Cooney


Adam DeKraker-Love these ones!



Joe Pekar


Ken Steacy!!


Michael Jason Paz


Travis Walton


Tod Smith: /50



Ron Salas-Love this one too!


Jonboy! Puzzle


Lak Lim: /25


Mike S. Miller


Marat Mychaels




I thought just about all of the ones from this batch were great but one stood out.....



I'm pretty sure he was a short printed artist.....



Ryan Orosco!!! LOVE IT!!!!

Thanks for the pictures, it took a few years but another nice stack of sketches from this product have finally been revealed. I still rank it the third best Marvel sketch set ever after only Marvel Masterpieces 1 from 2007 and 1998 Skybox Marvel Silver Age. (Yes, 1997 Fleer Ultra Spider-Man had an awesome sketch set, too, but sketches from it, like the 2003 Topps Hulk set, were too hard to find in packs, requiring the purchase of multiple boxes to find even one).

Anyway, here's some of my Iron Man 2 sketches, mostly pulled from clearance retail packs, like Iron Cap's above (except for the Steacy, most of which I bought for less than $10)

Oh WOW! Those are superb, thank you for posting them. Great Steacy's too, I had the chance to meet him at a recent comic con, very friendly and amiable person.

quote:

Originally posted by Iron Cap:
Oh WOW! Those are superb, thank you for posting them. Great Steacy's too, I had the chance to meet him at a recent comic con, very friendly and amiable person.

Steacy is a absolute master. I'll bet he drew those 9 cards I've got in about 20 minutes total.

A lot of people complain about sketch cards that the artists only spend a minute or two on. If the artist is as good as Ken Steacy, the amount of time spent doesn't really matter, as he can can whip up something cool very quickly. And on the other hand, if an artist isn't yet ready to do these kinds of cards (like a good percentage of the artists working on them these days, sadly), they can draw all day long and still won't produce anything memorable.