Are there any websites or blogs that are devoted to old 1990s FPG cards, with pictures of chase, autos, etc. ?

I think FPG was pretty much done with cards by the time the internet really got going in 1997 or so, so I don't think they ever really had a company site, unfortunately.

This site is here is a start.

http://www.catawiki.com/catalo...type=s&vg=all&view=g

I'm sure it's not complete, but it is a nice list of many of the FPG sets, and nearly all of the base card are shown, along with pictures of some of the chase (usually found on page 3 for each set) including holograms and "Metallic Storms" which was the go-to insert set in most of these series, a chase set of usually 5 or 6 cards, of which you'd get 3 or 4 per box along with 3 or 4 base sets. FPG collation and quality control was usually excellent. I liked Comic Images sets from this same era, but the FPG ones are a little better made, with slight to moderately higher quality, especially toward the end when chrome and the like came into play.

I've corresponded with a couple of people who collected the heck out of the autographs. Usually the artist would sign copies of most if not all of the base cards, and those were then certified with a Gold Foil FPG AUTHENTIC stamp. Some of these super collectors have actually been able to collect an entire set of autographs cards, we're talking something like 90 different cards signed by the artist.

These sets also have a lot of prototypes, promos, and some had really nice case toppers (including an original art sketch card case incentive on one of the Ken Kelly series). Jeff Allender's terrific site probably lists all of the sets, but it would be great to have a photo archive of all of those cards. They were well made and featured a who's who of fantasy art legends. My favorite set of theirs was the one for Steranko, missing from the site I gave the URL for, unfortunately.

Thanks ! I bought a few FPG and Comic Images related art sets back in the mid-1990s. Sometimes I wonder if maybe the production run on certain ones was not that large ?

The reason I ask is because back in '95, I distinctly recall buying 3 boxes of Prince Valiant and each box contained a Hal Foster auto (or a redemption ?) If only several hundred of these existed, how did I get so lucky ?

I think you actually were pretty lucky with that!
The print runs for Comic Images and FPG did get lower, especially by 1996 for FPG and 1997 for Comic Images, but the Prince Valiant was during the good times, so you can bet plenty of it was made.

A good example of a short print set for FPG is "Femme Fatales", a multi-artist pinup set, which was one of their last sets, so from 1997 or so.

A Comic Images set that seems to have been made in lesser quantity, at least compared to the production runs of just a couple of years earlier, is the "X-Men: Oasis" set with all-Hildebrandt Brothers painted art.

Yes, I can vouch for the scarcity of the Femme Fatales set. I am complete of virtually all fantasy art sets from FPG and Comic Images with all inserts, medallions, bonus cards and autos. However, the Femme Fatales set evades me. The only time I saw it advertised on the 'bay it had an asking price of an arm and s leg so I passed.

I'm not aware that FPG ever had a website, and only occasionally have I seen some images. That might be a future project.

I remember quite a few discussions about forged FPG autograph cards, and Webjon has maintained a section on card counterfeits on his current blogsite: Webjon.com Cards and Art -- Blogified

In Jon's old website, he posted a compilation of all known FPG autograph cards. I found it again through the internet wayback machine: FPG Autograph Cards

The page was last updated in 2005, but FPG hasn't issued anything new since then...

quote:

However, the Femme Fatales set evades me. The only time I saw it advertised on the 'bay it had an asking price of an arm and s leg so I passed.

There was a base set up for auction at a starting bid of US$9. There was only 5 hours left yesterday when I saw it and I knew your time zones were upside down, so I bid and won it at that price. It's yours if you want it, and then you'd just need to worry about the pricey inserts. And anyway, what's an arm and a leg? You'd just say "Dillon, Retrieve!"

I still say it's supposed to be "Femmes Fatales." Nobody respects the French.

Now that's looking after fellow collectors, Jeff. Well done

Approximately how many sets did FPG release ? 50 ? 100 ?

I count about 67 if Google caught them all. And btlfan probably would have told me over the years if I was missing some.

The FPG and Comic Images artist sets are the big thing got me immersed into my card obsession. It was a link from the days of cataloging all of my SF & Fantasy magazine and book covers! And then pre-internet had rec.arts.sf.collecting and FidoNet, to let me know there were plenty of fellow oddball collectors out there.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by allender:

There was a base set up for auction at a starting bid of US$9. There was only 5 hours left yesterday when I saw it and I knew your time zones were upside down, so I bid and won it at that price. It's yours if you want it, and then you'd just need to worry about the pricey inserts. And anyway, what's an arm and a leg? You'd just say "Dillon, Retrieve!" (/quote)

Hey Jeff!! You are one OK guy! As A token of my appreciation if you would be so kind as to PM me a mail address I will reciprocate with a set or three that I know you do not have!

How many FPG sets?? 67??? Hold all tickets there is going to be a Royal Commission (or more likely a Senate Inquiry probably) into this matter. I list only 64 so who's holding out on me?? How dare someone have superior knowledge than me while I am the (self-appointed megalomaniac)authority on FPG?

Mind you, I didn't count the super-sized cards as I don't recognise them as a set and I also don't call the large Deluxe cards into the count as they are promos. Finally, don't count Keepsake as they are also promos and parallel sets (Achilleos) are also not counted.

So what am I missing?

PS I will PayPal you the ten bucks soon.

I'm pretty sure the "Keepsakes" sets are from Comic Images, so they wouldn't be part of that number.

It was "about" 67 because all I did was Google for FPG and count the pages. Give me a little while to cross-reference after I attend to the day-job and I can megalomaniize with the best royal. I'll email the results.

PS, don't do the Paypal. You've offered to send stuff enough times and now there's something to return without my neverending complaint about "cards are in storage."

Didn't the Comic Images sets all have the same basic format ? 6 foil cards that came 2 or 3 per box, a medallion card, a 3 card set that came 1 per box, and a redemption for an auto ? My recollection is that CI sets were easy to complete if you bought 3-4 boxes

Were FPG sets a similar format ?

FPG was usually just a 5 or 6 card Foil insert set and autographs in some series, and didn't have inserts equivalent of the Comic Images ones you mentioned.

The autographs were all pack issued, not redemptions, I'm pretty sure, as was the case with Comic Images autographs, except for the Gold Foil facsimile autographs like one for Norman Rockwell, another for Jack Kirby (I think), and the Hal Foster Prince Valiant that you mentioned. Those were redemption cards you had to send in to get the actual gold card.

Comic Images did release a Godzilla set in 2006 and that had the usual foil cards, but also sketch cards.

While FPG was pretty tight with the inserts, they did issue some really nice case toppers, including specially packaged uncut 10 card sheets signed by the series artist, and more impressively, for one of the Ken Kelly series, an actual regular card sized pencil sketch, one of the earliest one ever issued, predating by several years the Marvel Comics related ones from Fleer/Skybox in 1998 that really got the ball rolling on that kind of chase card, one that it is now hard to imagine non-sports cards without.

So are unopened FPG boxes tough to find ? Looking around the auction site, I see a bunch, unsold, in the $ 8-10 range. Some much higher

And are any FPG chase REALLY tough to find ?

I see a Ken Kelly sketch which sold for $26. So I guess that one is not super tough

I think part of the reason FPG boxes are so cheap is that they used the UV gloss that makes all the cards stick together in the packs.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
So are unopened FPG boxes tough to find ? Looking around the auction site, I see a bunch, unsold, in the $ 8-10 range. Some much higher

And are any FPG chase REALLY tough to find ?

I see a Ken Kelly sketch which sold for $26. So I guess that one is not super tough

The sketches tended to be very similar from one to the next, and he only did a couple of different designs. There may be some that did less of, and those would probably hold more value. The one I have is a pretty common one, I think, a Conan-type warrior holding a sword, but I just love the idea of having an actual drawing, even a simple one, from this artist. He is simply one of the greatest ever in his field.

It is absolutely true cards from that era with a lot of UV coating do tend to stick together, (especially cards issued between 1994 and 1998) but that's usually when both sides of each card have a lot of the coating. I remember FPG cards generally having "flat" surface card backs, so hopefully, that won't happen with a lot of those.

As for why they are so cheap, even now, I'd say the main reason is because they were pretty much all (with the exception of sets from the last year or two they issued cards) wildly overproduced.

It's not unusual for boxes from that era to be produced in the hundreds of thousands, a number that is likely to never be approached again, and would be essentially insane for a modern manufacturuer to even make 1/10th of that amount in most cases.

The original retail prices on these boxes also were nowhere near today's card box prices, so they start out at a much lower baseline to begin with. Then add in the fact that most of the collectors who've wanted these sets have had about 20 years to get them, and have done so, making current demand limited to say the least. Finally, these boxes usually weigh several pounds, so even when they can be found for $10 or less, which is often, the cost to ship just one of them is usually another $10(at least), so it ends up not being as great a deal (although at $20 for a box, including shipping, is still a nice discount from the original price).

Around the year 2000 or so, I remember buying a lot of different boxes and even some binders (FPG made some really nice ones for their sets, sometimes with an exclusive autograph card in them), for about $5 each, and though the package was heavy, shipping was A LOT more economical back then, so it ended up being an incredible deal AND a lot of fun to open all those boxes.

Very informative. Thanks so much !

I could be wrong, but I think a lot of 1990s sealed boxes are cheap except for maybe the 1994 Simpsons Series 1 set by Skybox, and most of the mid-1990s Marvel Comics sets

Well, a few years ago I bought some 93 Jeffrey Jones boxes, along with some 92 Ken Kellys and a box of 94 Don Maitz. I remember all the cards sticking together, and I just looked at the cards and all of them do have gloss on both sides. It wasn't that big of a problem, I just had to take some card in unsticking them. Occasionally one of the cards would be damaged from it, but the vast majority of them were ok. Though definitely some sets to consider buying loose as I wouldn't want to have sealed boxes of these sitting around in the collection when presumably the sticking problem is continuing to get worse over time. I like the chase cards they did, they usually did a chase set of three holograms for each series of cards.