I've read the article in NSU. I have seen the pre-sell. Is anyone going to try for this? I am seriously thinking about 1 box of two "miniboxes" still on the fence. It looks to be a lot of fun but is it almost 200 bucks worth of fun?

I am sort of the same way. It is nostalgic which is cool since I collected those sets from the 90's but the price is a little off-putting. Upper Deck is trying to cash in on the success of Retro Basketball. I need to justify wanting sports inserts of Marvel characters(maybe if there is a card of Galactus dunking a planet!). The other thing that makes me not want to open it are the number of inserts and parallels. There is no way I can put all of these sets together.

Same with me. The base set will be expensive and there are so many Marvel sets released recently it's getting tiresome. A great idea to bring 90's collectors back into the fray but not at that price point.

Kind of curious that they are using Fleer in the title when that company is long gone. This is an Upper Deck product.

My feeling is that it's too big and expensive to sell to collectors who just want a retro look. If the original art sketch cards are well done, and by that I mean the average sketch looks good, it will sell.

If the average sketch card is not appealing it won't sell. I think it just comes down to that with sets that have a sketch as the primary hit these days. And the higher the box price the more collectors expect a quality sketch. But that has been very hit and miss judging by images I've seen from recent $100 plus boxes.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Kind of curious that they are using Fleer in the title when that company is long gone. This is an Upper Deck product.

Upper Deck purchased the Fleer name in 2005. They've produced sports products under the name previously.

Non-sports already as well. 2007 Marvel Masterpieces came with three versions of the base cards. The regular version has the Skybox logo on back, the foil parallel had the Fleer logo on back, and the Gold Border version has the Upper Deck logo on back.

I think I wrote my post badly, I didn't mean to say I didn't know that UD had the Fleer name. I was thinking that UD must believe that Fleer makes people automatically think Retro, but I was wondering how many collectors remember the Fleer name at all.

I do, but younger card buyers might not. And even if you do remember Fleer it says nothing about the product because its not produced by the original company in any way.

I guess what I'm saying is that Upper Deck Marvel Retro would have at least as much name recognition now as Fleer Marvel Retro and I would say even more because all the recent Marvel movie sets do belong to UD.

Just related to all of this peripherally, but I find it interesting that out of all the companies, Upper Deck is the one making all of these high profile Marvel sets like the the Marvel Vs. cgc, the new Marvel Masterpieces 1-3 from 2007-08, Beginnings 1-3, Iron Man 2&3 movie, Thor and Cap movie, Marvel Premier High End, and now this Retro.

At the height of their sports cards powers during the 1990's, Upper Deck had to settle for comic cards based on Valiant and the like because the firm Fleer/Skybox hold on all of the Marvel card licenses through the 1990's, and especially after Marvel bought Fleer (or was it the other way around?).

Now that Upper Deck's star has faded somewhat in the licensed pro sports sets that used to be the overwhelming majority of their releases, they've been able to swoop in and use those formerly unavailable Marvel characters who for so long were made by Fleer/Skybox (and then Topps for a brief time around 2000 to 2002).

I wonder if Topps was unable or unwilling to wrap up the rights when they had a chance to.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

early box breaks are in and this stuff looks amazing. UD over-delivered on the content and the PMG inserts are stunning-looking.

They do look really nice, but just too much in the set for me. I'm still unclear what a master set would contain. If I were going to collect this I'd want a master set with the blue PMG and that could cost me way more thousands than I care to spend. I started to add things up, but still not sure how many cards in each subset. I'll probably bottom feed for the cheap sets. Is it me, or is UD getting more ridiculous in the number of subsets they add to sets.

quote:

Originally posted by Stuff_guy:
They do look really nice, but just too much in the set for me. I'm still unclear what a master set would contain. If I were going to collect this I'd want a master set with the blue PMG and that could cost me way more thousands than I care to spend. I started to add things up, but still not sure how many cards in each subset. I'll probably bottom feed for the cheap sets. Is it me, or is UD getting more ridiculous in the number of subsets they add to sets.

It's not as difficult as you may think to put a mini master together. Certainly any serialed card is not part of the master, so after breaking one case, i was about a dozen cards short of a mini master. (the long odds inserts -- non-serialed -- i would think those would be tougher to put together.)

Thanks Snoopy, but I am one of those collectors who would want want the full master set if I decided to go for it. Not sure what the 'serialed' cards are, but assume they are the the autographed base cards, holos, blue PMG and ??? (Still not sure what everything is in this product.)
I might look for a mini-master as a whim purchase down the road; but again not quite sure what that is either. Base set, and 3 or 4 retro sets? Guess I'll poke around at some point.

I agree way too many "base" sets and these random hits are designed like sports cards and there are way too many of those as well coupled with the high price I passed too many Marvel sets as well out there these days.

Still, it's pretty awesome to see those Impel/Skybox designs from at least the first three Marvel Universe sets (1990-1992) on new cards, likewise for the 1994 Ultra X-Men design.
The Holograms are in the style of Marvel II (silver surface, full bleed) from 1991 and significantly better looking this time around. The "PowerBlast" cards are like those seen in Marvel Cards Universe 1994 (Series 5) from Fleer, so those definitely a blast from the past. The Metal cards mirror the lone Marvel Metal set from the mid 90's, too, but this time, the art isn't obliterated by the coloring like it was on the original. The digital coloring process has come a long way since then.

Not too sure about the "Jambalaya", "Intimidation Nation", "Quick Strike" and "Ultra Stars", "Metal Universe Ti-22", and "Metal Hardware" inserts found in this set as those were various sports cards inserts back in the 1990's and weren't in any of the original Marvel sets, so probably shouldn't have been included here either. Then again, neither were autograph and sketch cards up until 1997 Ultra Spidey for sketches and 1998 Fleer/Skybox Marvel Age for autograph cards, so maybe a few liberties aren't so bad. I looked at each of them and they are all quite handsome.

Anyway, this set is a sure hit, price notwithstanding. There's just too much good stuff in it. I'm going back and a forth between picking up a $200 box or else just getting a minimaster, and skipping my usual tries at a nice sketch or autograph pull. The two mini-boxes would be fun to open, but I really do want all of the "common" cards from this set. I love the idea of the old designs with new images.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

I saw some of the cards in eBay and other forums. Seriously. First I thing was another Rittenhouse thing. Upper Deck just make a nice copy-paste of the border design used for the cards. Just beware except Sketch cards as far I saw it is more copy-paste artwork from Marvel comic covers.

As far I remember the Marvel Universe Series 1-3 character cards only shows the characters. These copy-paste not even take some serious to at least delete other characters. I saw a "Captain America" card that looks more like an "Avengers" cards.

If you like to collect Sketch cards. Go for it and pay the $200 by box. I will buy them only if they drop prices like Avengers Kree-Skrull War.

It fascinates me to see the wildly divergent opinions from one message board to another. Two other places are raving about this release and yet here there is a lot of negativity. The same thing happened with premier really. i guess maybe UD just isn't liked here? I really can't explain it otherwise. As someone who breaks a lot of product, I will say that the collectors chiming in on the other sites about this being the product of the year are pretty spot on.

I think for a lot of us here (speaking of myself and a group of cardtalker I talk with off the site) feel that for 200.00 (now it looks like 300) a box is a huge price for 100 cards total.
As I am not interested in the precious Metal gems and not a huge sketch card collector, I am interested in the base and retro card sets only.
I was able to grab a base set for 15.00 and looks like I can pick up the retro inserts for 1 to 3 bucks each. This is going to be my option.

I don't think anyone has been extremely negative here. Saying, I don't think I could have dropped 200 bucks for a box of cards is not negative to the product at all just to my situation 2 kids, house payment, etc.

The cards are gorgeous, but also expensive.
Except for the sketch cards, though, was there any new art actually created for the cards?
If not, it fits snugly into the category of modern Upper Deck and Rittenhouse Marvel sets which are almost entirely recycled art.

This set may be hot now (and it is), but it'll never compare to the 1990's heyday of Marvel sets when virtually ALL of the art was newly created for the cards. They were an event in those days. Modern card sets now tend to be merely extra packaging around the sketches.

With this set, however, it's almost the sketches that are the afterthought given the big bucks some of the other chase is going for, so that's kind of new.

20 years from now, though, the Impel/Skybox/Fleer classic sets from the 1990's will still be collectible and likely even moreso than now. These recycled art sets, however, I don't think history will regard as well (in my blowhard opinion anyway).

quote:

Originally posted by snoopy351:
It fascinates me to see the wildly divergent opinions from one message board to another. Two other places are raving about this release and yet here there is a lot of negativity. The same thing happened with premier really. i guess maybe UD just isn't liked here? I really can't explain it otherwise. As someone who breaks a lot of product, I will say that the collectors chiming in on the other sites about this being the product of the year are pretty spot on.

No, I wouldn't blame the negative comments on anti-UD sentiments, there are wildly divergent opinions because we have a fairly wildly divergent bunch of non-sport collectors on Card Talk. The other sites you are referring to might be geared more for artists or for comic book fans. We certainly have many of those here as well, but we also have movie and TV fans, autograph and sketch collectors, vintage non-sport card collectors, master set collectors, relic collectors, you name something in non-sport and someone here is probably interested in it.

And many people here collect multiple things, which makes it harder financially to commit to a single product at the expense of passing on other things you also want. At $200 plus a box Fleer Marvel Retro is a budget buster for the average collector.

That is the problem and it wouldn't matter what card manufacturer made it. The product of the year should be affordable. Only the high rollers can take their chances opening these boxes. Maybe a lot of the collectors on this site have already been there and done that and they learned a thing or two.

Like snoopy351, I'm similarly fascinated by this phenomenon. It's clearly a set driven by the chase cards which is a nice and refreshing change. The set as a whole has lots of elements and inserts that are very difficult to collect. This is a fun and challenging set to put together. I think it's got the ability to maintain some relative value for years to come just because there's so much within the release. I love it.