I found the image below posted by a card designer. It appears back in the day, when various card companies were bidding for the Lord of the Rings license, Comic Images had asked its designers to mock-up what their LOTR product might look like. Below is their ad, wrapper, box, etc. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Interesting, I like the look of the design.

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Originally posted by H_Toser:
I found the image below posted by a card designer. It appears back in the day, when various card companies were bidding for the Lord of the Rings license, Comic Images had asked its designers to mock-up what their LOTR product might look like. Below is their ad, wrapper, box, etc. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Very nice! Thanks for sharing. This makes me realize that since The Hobbit is being filmed in 3d, it would be a perfect candidate for Topps 3di technology... Imagine wide, 3d cards. AHHHHHH!

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Originally posted by Nicnac:
This makes me realize that since The Hobbit is being filmed in 3d, it would be a perfect candidate for Topps 3di technology... Imagine wide, 3d cards. AHHHHHH!

They did, it was called Avatar and nobody ordered any.

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Originally posted by wolfie:

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Originally posted by Nicnac:
This makes me realize that since The Hobbit is being filmed in 3d, it would be a perfect candidate for Topps 3di technology... Imagine wide, 3d cards. AHHHHHH!

They did, it was called Avatar and nobody ordered any.

LOL ouch!

The Hobbit should have more takers than Avatar. LOTR has a proven hobby market.

Yes, but Wolfie does have a point. Avatar is the top grossing movie of all time. Least I think so, anyway. One would think it would be a no-brainer for cards. And everyone was asking for them too.

Of course, it didn't help that the series was going to be release a year after the movie. Hopefully The Hobbit comes out before the movie or near the day of release, anyway.

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Originally posted by Nicnac:
Imagine wide, 3d cards. AHHHHHH!

Empire Strikes Back 3D?

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Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

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Originally posted by Nicnac:
Imagine wide, 3d cards. AHHHHHH!

Empire Strikes Back 3D?

Oh yah, I know. I meant MORE wide, 3d cards. Of course there are the original New Hope cards, as well as those from The Phantom Menace. And, as you have said, Empire. I'm sure Jedi is coming up in a couple of years to coincide with the 30th anniversary.

I need to prepare a mock up for The Hobbit :P

Will Topps be doing a Hobbit set like they did the LOTR sets?
I wouldn't particularly want 3D.
I'd like Autos though, especially of one Mr Armitage and a Aidan Turner wouldn't go astray either

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Originally posted by Juelle Lou:
Will Topps be doing a Hobbit set like they did the LOTR sets?
I wouldn't particularly want 3D.

After seeing the Empire Strikes Back 3di set I wouldn't want The Hobbit to NOT be 3d.

Fascinating. When LOTR was up for bids, Comic Images was focusing on art such as Olivia and Final Fantasy. They still did have a working agreement with the WWF, but only for ccg's; Fleer had the WWF trading card rights by 2000. The last Comic Images movie set I recall is Madagascar which had zero chase cards.

Not sure if this needs a new topic or not, but the question was asked if Topps will be doing a set for The Hobbit. I talked to one of their reps today that said "We do not have any plan as of yet to release this product."
Of course, we have plenty of time before the movie release, but I think now would be a good time to be negotiating the rights and getting something in the works. Personally, I'd like to see what Rittenhouse, Breygent or Cryptozoic could do with such a huge license!

The problem is that it is such a huge licence.The asking price is probably way too much for the majority of card manufacturers.

If you look in the past few years we see less movie card sets produced unfortunately or cancel.

We missed a few great movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, Batman the Dark Knight, Avatar just to name a few.

What we see is more preview sets from RA as example like Conan, Green Hornet, etc.
Topps seems not interested anymore in movie card sets since they didn't have success with there pass releases like Terminator Salvation, Crystal Skull and the second movie from Transformers.

Also to get people sign seems more complex in the movie world to get done. Which is a big factor on sales.


Hope the Hobbit will come to life as for the next Batman movie. I can say Topps did a great job with they Lord of the Rings movie card sets in the pass. And no stickers on they autograph cards.

I'd love to find out the costs of the licenses you mentioned, archifou. I'm sure they are insanely high, which may be why we saw 10+ sets of LOTR.

And while getting actors to sign can be rough, Topps landed about every major name in the original trilogy. However they did it, I'd hope they can do it again.

I really am scratching my brain on the preview sets. While I'm not the biggest fan of Green Hornet or Conan, it seems like they had enough Green Hornet relic and auto 'hits' to package a bigger set.

Topps' failure with Crystal Skull can be boiled down to overproduction. A quick check on Allender's site estimates 23,000 hobby boxes and 8,500 retail/gravity boxes... 756,000 packs!
Some retail sites can't even give boxes away. I've seen cases not sell for $99. Scale back production, dump the Waterhouse/Woodside sketches, could have been a great set.

Enough of my rants I'm hopeful for Batman and The Hobbit too. Hope we see some of your work on them, arch

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Enough of my rants Smile I'm hopeful for Batman and The Hobbit too. Hope we see some of your work on them, arch Wink

Maybe not on those properties but you can see on others coming soon