quote:

Originally posted by David R:

In terms of weird, obscure promos, how about the 2 that they did in the 1990s for that Nancy Kerrigan (the ice skater) set ? I have those !

David,
Could you post a pic of these Kerrigan promos or describe them in detail. I just came across a Kerrigan promo but somehow I don't think it's the same as in your collection.

Haven't looked at them in awhile, but both are blank backed, but say PROTOTYPE

One shows her as a little girl, one as an adult

I can email you scans, but I don't know how to post here

I would gladly like to add these two cards to my collection but were these two internal prototypes or were they, in fact, used for some promotional purpose?

I see that I posted scans of them here on the board in 2005, but the link does not work

Albert and Bill, you can email me for the scans

Thanks will do. The reason I asked is that I came across 3 promo cards that I had never seen before. Two are of Nancy Kerrigan and the other is of Tonya Harding. The fronts are very similar in style, composition and colors as the Star Trek promo cards of unknown origin listed in the 2008 PCE's "Tomb of the unknown" section.
The front of each card is a sketch drawing of the skaters (different poses) and the backs are blank except they are numbered promo #1 of 3, promo #2 of 3 and promo #3 of 3. Does anyone know where these came from?

Broders, Unlicensed cards sold in bulk to take advantage of the Promo craze of the 90's.

Maybe those 3 came in a comic ?

Albert, mine have photo fronts, same images as the common cards from the set by Topps, or whoever did the cards

quote:

Originally posted by Bill DeFranzo:
Broders, Unlicensed cards sold in bulk to take advantage of the Promo craze of the 90's.

Interesting... Never heard of Broders.

Maybe you can write a future NSU article on them and some promos they made?

Never heard of them either. Can you elaborate?

Its from the sports cards. I've never heard anyone use it in a discussion of non-sport cards, but it is the same principle, so why not?

It's an unlicensed card. In the early 90's they were all over the shows, especially for baseball stars. Some were of cheap quality, but others were very well made and might look more attractive than what the licensed manufacturers were putting out. If the collector was unfamiliar with the hobby and the dealer less than honest, some buyers could be lead to believe that they were promos, or prototypes, or came from other print sources.

Other times a collector might know it was a Broder, but if it was sold cheaply they just bought it as a novelty item. The collectors who really got stuck were the ones who did not know about the licensing or believed the story and really thought they had cards that would be worth keeping. These cards were all worthless, no matter what you paid. They could be reproduced at any time, in any number and without a copyright they are considered counterfeit.

I use to know why they were called Broders and I think it had to do with the name or title of whoever produced the first wave that hit it big, but for the life of me I can't remember the exact connection now. Anyway it's nostalgic to hear the term again.

This term comes from two California-based photographer/collectors, Ed Broder, who created many semi-legitimate sets during the 1960s and 1970s, and his son, Rob, who was a freelance photographer at major league games, and who issued his every few months during late 1980′s and early 1990′s.

Thank you Raven.
Are those 2 Star Trek promos Broders? The one of Kirk and Mr. Spock listed in PCE. Even if they are, I can't find them and I've been looking.

For the issue of NSU released in February 2010 I wrote (this is an unedited version) the following. And YES, those two unidentified Star Trek "promos" in PCE are broders but most likely not produced by Broder.

Does anyone remember Ron Broder? The term broder card was coined after him. As a card producer in the mid-1980's his output consisted of "unofficial" or "unlicensed" subjects, mostly, if not exclusively, sports personalities like Michael Jordan. You know how sports card collectors focus on a few stars and rookies then buy up everything associated with them. The Broder cards found an audience and these cards popped up everywhere. When Promo cards became all the rage in the sports card market after 1989 there was no such thing as a common Promo. Every Promo was a piece of gold. Since Broder cards were no more than a non-license to print money, so to speak, was it any wonder that the producers of such cards would take advantage of the new fad and tag their cards as "Promo" or "Prototype"? These "Promos" were printed in limited quantity. Many as low as 25,000 (no joke) and originally sold for $1.00 to $5.00. I mention all this because we have not been untouched. The publication, Ballstreet eventually got on board with broders followed by their sister publication, Rockstreet. All of their Marilyn, Liz and Elvis Promos from 1993 with those huge National Sports Collectors Convention logos on the back and limited to a mere 10,000; all broders. they are unlicensed yet fun to collect at $1.00 or less each. After the 1994 National brought us the 6 card Promo set of the O. J. arrest and after some litigation against the producers, we pretty much saw an end of an era on the non-sport side. Or did we?

Yes, I misspelled Rob's first name. Maybe that was cause for some confusion.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill DeFranzo:
Yes, I misspelled Rob's first name. Maybe that was cause for some confusion.

I think the last name was the confusing part, non-sport collectors just haven't been exposed to that term and it is an old term. Your article makes the connection and I agree with you about those cards that were inserted in the magazines, they were unlicensed and could be called Broders. I probably even read that article 5 years ago too, as I have subscribed to NSU for many years now.

The thing is, with sports cards the term Broder got to be synonymous with an unlicensed card, not just a promo, any unlicensed card. At the time it was exclusively sports cards as far as I know because that was your big market. Non-sport was a little niche area, so people wanting to sell counterfeit cards were picking bigger targets, like any baseball stars, or Jordan, or Gretsky. No need to make unlicensed cards that had no large demand.

While some of these cards may have said "promo" or been blank backed to indicate some sort of prototype, it was generally a dealer who fostered the myth on some unsuspecting collector. Sometimes they were erroneously sold as blank backed error cards, yes some people actually wanted half a card. But that was a lie too.

Many were full cards with fronts and backs and some had foil and looked really good. Some single player and team collectors who knew exactly what they were still bought them just because they liked what they looked like.

Today most card collectors know about unlicensed cards and non-sport is not exempt from them anymore. Just look at those pre-printed autograph cards that were easily found on that auction site for awhile as an example. So maybe now, if they read this, non-sport card collectors might adapt that old term of Broder that applies to any card without a copyright, that is in fact counterfeit and will therefore never have any real value.

I see the link is broken to the images of these incredibly rare cards. I was asked to post these:

quote:

Originally posted by beamer:
I was lucky to find a fellow collector who was willing to give these up. A special thank you to him. They are the Gemstone Carl Barks promos. I was told that there were only 4 of each card printed. [IMG:right]

For me, the subscribers-only variant was the hard one. I wasn't actively collecting cards again until late in '94 and didn't know about the promotion until at least a year later - too late to get the card directly from the source. Some show promos like the Chicago one and the Heroes Convention one can be hard to find especially now. The Heroes World Distribution one should be the hardest to find as that had a run of only 500 (apparently the smallest run of the set) but it all depends on your luck in the marketplace.

quote:

Originally posted by pendragon:
For me it's been the 1994 Mars Attacks Homage cards produced by Non-Sport Update. Out of the 8 produced i've only been able to collect 6. The two that have been very elusive are the "Capital City Distribution" (1500) card and the "Chicago Comicon" (1000) Card. I wouldn't consider them rare ( # in ()'s are # produced) just hard to come by. I've only seen the Chicago one once in the past 5 years. I should have gotten it when I had the chance. I'm seriously considering buy the uncut sheet available in the NSU store and cutting out the ones I need.

One of those DC/Marvel Mirage proms sold as a Best Offer for somewhere south of $349.99 (so maybe around $300?). That's one that has held its value for at least 10-15 years but didn't get a bump during the Marvel craze of the past few.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/12561...rksid=p2047675.l2557

quote:

Originally posted by John Oder:
Here's a few hard to find promos in my collection.

DC vs Marvel Mirage (nn)

Godzilla P1 Test Card

Star Wars Finest Split Level

Star Wars Galaxy Series 2 P3

Star Wars Vehicles P2 Refractor

Superman SW1

Hammer Horror Series 2 P2 Var.

Brian Lumley Collection nn