To my utter amazement and great pleasure, my first two cases of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug arrived here in the UK on Thursday afternoon. I still can't believe they only started their journey from the States on Tuesday !!

Anyway, I have now almost finished breaking and collating both cases. The six major hits from the first case were:

Andy Fry, Danny Silva, Dan Gorman
Martin Freeman Poster Auto 61/75, John Callen Poster Auto 67/75, Card #63 Magenta Printing Plate


And from my second case:

Bob Stevlic, Danny Silva, Damien Torres
Martin Freeman Poster Auto 59/75, Lee Pace Poster Auto 15/75, James Nesbitt Poster Auto Card Black Printing Plate


Not too bad really...

As a final note, this is a breakdown of the autos and chase cards I pulled from the two cases.

First Case:

Regular Autographs:

Peggy Nesbitt as Sigrid
Ryan Gage as Alfrid
Aidan Turner as Kili the Dwarf
John Callen as Oin the Dwarf
John Bell as Bain son of Bard
Jeffrey Thomas as Thror, King under the Mountain
Andy Serkis, Second Unit Director
Stephen Ure as Fimbul the Hunter
Lee Pace as Thranduil
Adam Brown as Ori the Dwarf
Stephen Fry as Master of Lake-town
Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn

Poster Autos:

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins 61/75
John Callen as Oin the Dwarf 67/75

Printing Plate:

Card #63 'The Darknes Will Spread' - Magenta Plate

Case 2

Regular Autographs:

Aidan Turner as Kili the Dwarf
Stephen Fry as Master of Lake-town
Ryan Gage as Alfrid
Stephen Ure as Fimbul the Hunter
Peter Hambleton as Gloin the Dwarf
Andy Serkis, Second Unit Director
Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown
Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield
Stephen Hunter as Bombur the Dwarf
Peggy Nesbitt as Sigrid
Mark Hadlow as Dori the Dwarf
Lee Pace as Thranduil
Mary Nesbitt as Tilda

Poster Autos:

Lee Pace as Thranduil 15/75
Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins 59/75

Printing Plate:

John Nesbitt Poster Auto Card - Black

Other content:

Both cases had 12 complete Base Sets, 1 Dwarf Beards Set, 2 Character Biography Sets, 2 Lake-town Sets and 1 Panoramic Poster Set.

I was able to make the complete Lenticular set from the two cases but only found S1, S3, S4 and S6 from the Sauron Set. I have yet to combine/collate the foil parallel base set.

I received my box today, thank you Ed!

Breakdown was:
1 base set missing 3 cards
40 extra cards
4 Parallels

Inserts:
Dwarf Beard cards (1:24) I got 2
Lake Town (1:24) 1
Character Biography (1:12) 2
Collage card (1:96) 1
Autograph 1, Andy Serkis

Base cards look nice, there should be a complete set of 72 cards in each box, the fact I was missing 3 cards is inexcusable, especially considering there were 40 extra base cards, with doubles of some of them.

Inserts are mostly nice, the poster and Biography cards are beautiful, the clear Laketown and Beard cards not so much. The Laketown cards could have been printed on some kind of opaque stock and looked really nice. I don't see how the clear Beard cards are a good idea.
My autograph is Andy Serkis, as Second Unit Director. I think it would have benefited from a photo of him.
In today's market, I think a full base set should be guaranteed, also, Cryptozoic raised the price of their product, but there is only one hit per box, while most competitors provide 2 or 3 hits per box.
Hope everyone does better than I did with these, maybe my box was just a fluke.

Here are the results of my one case of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug...

AUTOS
Aidan Turner as Kili the Dwarf
Andy Serkis, Second Unit Director
Ben Mitchell as Narzug
Jeffrey Thomas as Thror, King under the Mountain
John Bell as Bain son of Bard
Lee Pace as Thranduil
Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins
Mary Nesbitt as Tilda
Peggy Nesbitt as Sigrid
Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield
Ryan Gage as Alfrid
Stephen Ure as Fimbul the Hunter

ILLUSTRATION AUTOS
Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield #12/25

POSTER AUTOS
James Nesbitt as Bofur the Dwarf #1/75

SKETCH CARDS
Chris Meeks
Damien Torres
Fer Galicia

I busted 2 boxes tonight, nothing over the moon to report, just the expected inserts plus the following autographs





It is a good thing I stopped at Walmart for WWE Chrome to balance out my luck.

Opened 1 box.

4 Foil parallels

Character Biography
CB-20 Beorn
CB-27 Smaug

Smaug
S6 Gilded

Dwarf Beard
D10 Ori

Lake Town
LT3

Autos
Peggy Nesbitt
Manu Bennett

Not too bad with 2 autos (1:24) cards and 1 Smaug (1:96) card.

After spending 10 days in Customs lock-up, my final two Hobbit cases arrived yesterday and I have to say they were worth the wait

Across the two cases, I only picked up two new standard autographs. Fortunately, that included a Martin Freeman auto in both cases so that was fine. Anyway, I wont waste any more time on the standard stuff as I know everyone will want to see the case hits.

First case was very much like one of my other cases with three sketches, two poster autos and a printing plate. Two of the sketch artists were also the same as from one of my previous cases. But, I also found a nice little bonus in the form of an Arkenstone 1/1 of Card # 29 !

Dan Gorman sketch, Danny Silva Sketch of Bombur, Javier Gonzales sketch
Graham McTavish Poster Auto 02/75
Peter Hambleton Poster Auto 53/75
Lee Pace Auto Printing Plate - Black
Arkenstone 1/1 of Card #29



Now my second case was a bit different. While it was undeniably loaded, it was also a little short on case hits compared with the other three. Only three sketches and a single poster auto. Then again, considering the pulls I did get I can't really complain too loudly

I've included a scan of one of the autos I pulled, as it is a little scarce as far as I can tell. It's the only inscribed auto variant I've seen from Mary Nesbitt. Perhaps others may know different. But it is a nice quote from the film.

Gavin Hunt sketch, Scott Houseman sketch of Thorin Oakenshield, Brian Kong sketch
James Nesbitt Poster Auto 22/75, Mary Nesbitt Auto Variant

...and Oh yes, the really big hit was Redemption Card R05. 'Nuff said

Hi Millhouse here got 6 boxes and got the following cards

1) Stephen Ure as Finbul the Hunter

2) Adam Brown as Ori the Dwarf

3) Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown

4) John Bell as Bain son of Bard

5) Ken Stott as Balin the Dwarf

6) John Callen as Oin the Dwarf( Love from Erebor inscription on the card)

Then I pulled these 2 Surprises

7) Base Card 28 Make for Shore Magenta Printing Plate

Then wait for it I got

8) A Martin Freeman Poster Autograph Card





Not bad from a 6 box break

From a very happy millhouse

Picked up a really cheap case last month in Solarfly Cards sale.

12 standard autographs, best of which was Lee Pace, two poster autographs of Mark Hadlow and James Nesbitt, and these three sketches :




Fer Galicia, Sean Pence, and Tim Proctor.

Enjoyed the movie, so thought I try a cheap Hobby box...

1 complete base set
4 parallel foils
2 character bios
2 dwarf
1 laketown
1 auto - Stephen Fry - Master of LT

Overall C+

Happy collecting.

quote:

Originally posted by xtime:
Enjoyed the movie, so thought I try a cheap Hobby box...

1 complete base set
4 parallel foils
2 character bios
2 dwarf
1 laketown
1 auto - Stephen Fry - Master of LT

Overall C+

Happy collecting.

I would be VERY happy with the Auto - nice pull