Hello, i need some information on the Twin Peaks card set. were they released in pack form and factory set? i have seen both. and where are the autographs found? and does anyone know the odds?

I think the autographs came in the little factory boxes. As for odds no idea but i know you could open every box you ever found and still not find one.

I may be wrong but I think there were two different types of factory set.I don't think they were ever released in pack form.

I heard somewhere that the autos were about one in every twenty factory packs so quite a tough pull but the only way to be sure the card is genuine.

There are a lot of dubious autos out there for this set due to the famous names who did sign and the relative ease with which the little gold authenticity stickers can be transferred from other cards.

From what I've heard very few autographs actually made their way into the sealed sets. Why I don't know. Here's a quote off another site from Twin Peaks mega-collector Bruce Phillips concerning the autographs:

"Concerning autographed cards being inserted in the official 76 box card set, I personally have never found an autographed card in such a set. I've had many other people tell me the same thing. However, I have had approximately 5 people tell me they did open a box and find an autographed card. I was told by Star Pics employees that yes, the earlier-released box sets did include some randomly-inserted autographed cards. They told me that late, redemption cards were inserted and you mailed the redemption card into Star Pics whereupon they would mail you the autographed card. In 1992, a mass mailing was sent out to Twin Peaks fans by Star Pics to purchase individual and grouped autographed cards. I even purchased cards from this mailing and received a certificate of authenticity signed by the president of Star Pics. After Star Pics went out of business, I was contacted and purchased quantities of Star Pics cards, autographed cards, promo items, and other items with documentation all of which I personally picked up. At a later date, I purchased the entire remaining autographed cards, over 2,000 cards"

The factory box sets definitely came in two versions and the cards are the basically the same in each, but with a variation. The first hundred thousand boxes have a serial number on the inside of the top box flap and the cards in those sets are marked "Limited Edition" on the upper reverse side.

Later sets don't have the serial number on the underside of the top box flap and the cards themselves don't have the "Limited Edition" designation on the reverse side.

Both boxes mention the possibility of autographs to be found inside and even give a phone number to call to register (whatever that meant) your autograph were you lucky enough to find one.

I can say I've opened planty of both versions, but have, like many others, never found an autograph.

The packs were Jumbo packs, made for test purposes and were a limited run, less than a thousand made, I believe. (That information comes from Marchant Cards, a longtime internet and mail order dealer). I don't think any autographs were to be found in those. I have a couple of them, but prefer to leave them sealed, and have never opened one, so I'm not sure if the cards inside are the "Limited Edition" version or not.

In any event, I still love the set, the difficulty of obtaining signed cards notwithstanding. The autograph selection was comprehensive and remains among the finest ever issued in any set, and certainly set the standard for all non-sports autograph sets to follow, particularly those based on TV shows.

As many have warned, one should indeed tread very carefully when purchasing Twin Peaks autograph cards, particularly the more expensive ones.

The problem is that to authenticate the Twin Peaks cards that had been signed, Star Pics simply affixed a little metallic gold sticker on the reverse side of regular cards which were otherwise indistinguishable from unsigned cards. These stickers are unfortunately easy to remove, and since Star Pics released several collegiate sports set during the same era, and utilized on them the exact same kind of stickers employed on Twin Peaks cards, there are a lot of those little stickers to be had, and cheap, since the vast majority of the many thousands of autographed sports cards from Star Pics are essentially worthless as very few of the college athletes they depicted made it in the pros.

There was more recently (2007) released a 61 card postcard set. These were issued only in the earliest edition of the Twin Peaks Gold Box DVD set. The cards came in envelopes of 12 random cards with two parallel chase versions of 7 of the cards found at extremely long odds. One version has a gold foil border, while the even more limited parallel has the gold border and the signature of only one signer, but it is that of series creator David Lynch, easily the most desirable autograph from anyone involved with Twin Peaks. (Interestingly, Lynch was one of the only people featured in the Star Pics Twin Peaks card set who didn't sign a Twin Peaks card).

There was also a super chase card in the postcard set called the "Wild Card" which featured a new photo of David Lynch. It was made in three versions, all of which are rare. The regular version has no enhancements but is numbered out of only 160. The Gold Border version is numbered out of even less than that, and finally, there is a signed version of the Wild Card numbered out of only 7. It's the Holy Grail of Twin Peaks collectibles where I am concerned.

The main downside of the postcards is that they aren't standard card sized, they are larger. They're fairly hard to find these days as only the first 60,000 sets released world wide came with a postcard packet, so most are now either in collections, mailed off as postcards, or were simply thrown in the garbage by people who don't save the packaging of their DVDs, and rental stores who often repackage box set DVDs into regular cases while discardingsuch inserts.

The upside of the postcards is that they are absolutely beautiful and the (scarce) David Lynch autographed cards would be virtually impossible to fake, unlike (unfortunately) the Star Pics cards.

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

thanks for the replies. i just started watching the show and i'm really enjoying it. it looks like it is a very hard set to put together

I envy anyone who's not seen the entire series yet. You are in for a treat, and after the 29 episodes from season 1 and 2 are through, all the storylines are wrapped in a tidy little bow at the end.

And just in case you don't quite catch every nuance, don't worry, there's a theatrically released Twin Peaks movie called "Fire Walk With Me" also available on DVD. It was made and released in cinemas after the series had wrapped up and it very cleverly ties up any remaining loose ends from the series.

TWIN PEAKS is on my top 10 list of all time best TV shows. I was going to buy two of these when released but didn't want to spend the extra money. Now I wish I'd bought 10 of them! Oh well, at least I have one, but only postcards, no autograph...sigh. The cards are in the folder, only taken out once very carefully and then replaced. The seal is still intact!

Just today on eBay I bought a sealed first issue Gold Box DVD with postcards for "Buy It Now" $45. Lucky for me it was newly listed and I was one of the first to see it.

Congrats on the sealed envelopes of postcards, both of you!

I have a lot of experience with these postcards. Obviously, the autograph, gold border parallel, and any version of the Wild Card are the most desirable, but even within the regular set, certain cards are considered harder to find than others, so hopefully you have some of these numbers in particular in your envelopes

4: The Bridge
32: Police Sketch of Killer Bob
42: Josie & Catherine (the single rarest card in the set, for whatever reason)
43: Cooper Meets the Giant in the Red Room
53: Madchen Amick as Shelly Johnson
58: Glastonberry Grove

There is a secondary list of about 8 more cards that seem to be less common. I can add those to this post if anyone is interested in that information.

There are a couple (beautiful) cards of Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey and two of David Duchovny, later of X-Files, as the first FBI agent he played, Dennis Lawson AND Denise Lawson (he appears in full female drag with makeup as his "undercover" character Denise on one of the cards). These cards are popular with fans of those two actors, but don't seem to be short-printed like the ones on my list above,which I consider the "big six" in the set.

While the envelopes are randomly packed with 12 postcards (but sometimes 11 or 13), each usually holds two of the harder to find cards, (usually the 2 cards on top, with the rarest cards on the very top if your lucky enough to find one in your envelope), while the other 10 cards tend to be the more common ones.

is there a way to tell the difference between the "limited edition" box sets and the regular ones? I mean without opening them of course

Only that the presence of the rectangular sticker mentioning the postcards will tell you a sealed set has a pack of them.

When the postcards ran out, the sticker was replaced with another of the same color, but in more of a circular shape with no postcards mentioned. Some of these sets still have the pocket in the inside front cover to hold them, but has no postcards in them, so some who received that set probably just figured their booklet was missing, but there was never a traditional booklet made for this set, which is kind of too bad.

When the set remained a good seller, the packaging was reformatted with the removal of the pocket and for the first time the addition of a printed table of contents. This was not done as booklet as seen in most other box sets, but rather the contents were printed in the inside front cover of the disc booklet where the pocket for the postcards had been.

This modern version is a bit thinner compared to a set with postcards as a result of the elimination of the pocket, and it lacks any kind of sticker on the front.

I've had so many of these, I can tell whether a sealed set has postcards just by the feel of it, but if you've not had a lot of these, and you're buying a sealed set to get the postcards, make sure it has the rectangular sticker that specifically mentions them.

It's a great card set, and made nearly 20 years after the show was ended. I treasure mine. I have one of the rare Wild Cards with a very low serial number, a prized possession. I actually had one of the autographs, but it was the only one of the 8 that didn't have a person on it, just the sawmill blades from the opening credits, so I sold it....
to buy more sets!

quote:

Originally posted by tragicend:
is there a way to tell the difference between the "limited edition" box sets and the regular ones? I mean without opening them of course

Here's the answer to the actual question tragicend was asking, in case anyone is interested. My first answer was about the postcards in the DVD sets thinking that's what he meant. This is about the arly 1990's Twin Peaks regular sized card set from Star Pics back when the show was still on the air.

=============================================

I'm not sure you can tell which version is which without opening the sealed sets, since the outer box is identical but I do remember some of the regular (non limited edition) had a big green sticker on the back that said "Wild Cards" and had some information about the cards and the Star Pics company.

Both versions have the Star Pics printed shrinkwrap, like with Topps cards, so always look for that on any sealed set.

As far as the difference between the two, the limited edition has a individual serial number (out of 100,000!) for each set stamped on underneath the box lid, and the reverse of the cards actually say "Limited Edition" on the back of each, whereas the regular versions have no serial number on the box lid underside and no mention of "Limited Edition" on the card reverse.

I believe both versions are supposed to have autographs since the side of both boxes mention them along with a phone number you could call back then to "register" your card, but to actually find one in either kind of set it impossibly difficult to do. It's been theorized not a lot of autographs made it into the packs and were instead sold direct to dealers.

Counterfeiting of these is also unfortunately very easy to do, since the Star Pics authentication sticker can be easily removed from some of the very low value Star Pics college sports autograph cards and affixed to a Twin Peaks card with a fake signature, so beware purchasing from a seller you aren't familiar with.

I cracked a case of the factory sets, pulled nothing. For auto's, you really have to know your stuff. Might be better to try for some of the cut signature cards, since at least then they have a case which claims authenticity. I know I have one (press pass platinum cuts) that says something like Sheryl Lee Twin Peaks Laura Palmer, for an auto/inscription. About all you could hope for... (I never saw the show, think I saw the movie. It was weird...). --Chris

I have never seen a Twin Peaks autograph card in person. As already stated a large percentage of them didn't make it to the market until after the bulk sale and then it became a mail order thing.

I did get several of the All My Children autograph cards shortly after they came out. AMC was also a Star Pics product and the autograph cards were produced pretty much the same way, except that they have affixed round gold discs instead of gold stars that can also be removed.

At this point its hard to trust any seller that didn't have these autographs very early on or has documentation from the bulk sale. It's not that a particular seller may be trying to scam you, he could be selling in good faith. These cards have changed hands so many times now that they may only be assumed to be authentic by anyone holding them.

A seller is currently selling his entire collection of Twin Peaks autograph cards on eBay. Looks legit.

Twin Peaks autograph set

This is one for the money no object guys.

Wow, not only does the seller have all 36 Twin Peaks cards, they also have a set of the 12 Saturday Night Live autograph cards, also from StarPics.

I can't afford them, but I sure am glad to now have nice pictures of them all. Notice that all of the Twin Peaks autographs are on the "Limited Edition" versions of the cards (see earlier posts), so that burnishes the idea the autographs, when found, are only found in the serial numbered sets. The cards in the non serial numbered sets don't say "Limited Edition" on their reverse sides.

Both sets are amazing, but definitely too expensive. It's all relative, but what would you rather have, a full set of all three sets of Star Trek the Original Series Skybox autographs for the same money (or less) than this Twin Peaks set?

How about a full set of both series of True Blood, Game of Thrones, and Walking Dead autographs or just the Twin Peaks cards?

How about a full set of all Buffy, Angel, Lost, Alias, and Firefly/Serenity autographs or just the Twin Peaks cards?

What about all of the James Bond autographs or just the Twin Peaks cards?

How about a full set of Simpsons 25th and Mania Autographs, a set of the 9 Mania Sketches, and an Art D'Bart Matt Groening sketch from 1993 Skybox or just the Twin Peaks cards?

I was there from before it aired, having already been a David Lynch (creator of Twin Peaks) fan for years. I don't know if anyone digs Twin Peaks more than I do, but 5 grand for this set, no matter how rare it is, is just too high when you consider what you could get in newer cards with that same money. I'd rather have pretty much all of the alternatives I listed, and I'm not even a big fan of some of that stuff. It's just a much better value.

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

Well when you are talking 5 grand for an autograph run of anything,that's pretty stupid money to begin with, so anyone who buys it can just afford whatever.

Having said that, you have to consider that just about all those autographs in the products you named can be easily found. They will be expensive, but we have already established that expense is no object here. Those other autograph cards are out there for the taking, but Twin Peaks has both an availibilty problem and an authentication problem.

If you consider that any of the Twin Peaks autographs very rarily show up, and then consider that it is very difficult to trust the source of single TP autographs as they do appear, that elevates the worth of this buy, again assuming that we are absolutely certain of its authenticity. To have the full run makes it much stronger than just piecemeal purchases after all.

So a rabid Twin Peaks fan, or even an investor who wants to take a chance, might find it tempting if they had 5 grand to burn. I'm not endorsing it, I'm just saying that I have seen things that make less sense in this hobby.

I check eBay for these all the time and I can't believe that 2 autograph sets showed up this close together. Here's the other one that sold for $4,000:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Twin-P...rksid=p2047675.l2557