Just want to see what your top 5 (more if you have) boxes are. I have not been collecting for that long, so I am still getting my head around what is out there and what they have to offer.
My list is as follows: Alias S1, 2010 Panini Americana I Century Collection, 2011 Panini Americana,Celebrity Movie Posters Collector Cards, Topps American Heritage, Topps Indiana Jones - Masterpieces, Topps Lord of the Rings LOTR Masterpieces.

Those are all great sets.

Some of my favorites are:

SIMPSONS MANIA (Inkworks 2001)
SIMPSONS DOWNUNDER (Tempo 1996)
STAR WARS GALAXY 1-7 (Topps 1993-present)
MARVEL MASTERPIECES 1-5 (Fleer/Skybox 1992-1996)
TWILIGHT ZONE 1-4 & Complete (Rittenhouse)
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (Upper Deck)
LOONEY TUNES All-Time Toons (Upper Deck)
KING KONG (Topps 1976)
SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN (Donruss 1975)
GROO THE WANDERER (1995 Wildstorm)


The Celebrity Movie Posters you mentioned is from Breygent and they have also put out some beautiful sets including Three Stooges, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Wizard of Oz, Dexter, and Sci-Fi/Horror posters, and I recommend any of those you can find.

quote:

chesspieceface

Thanks Chesspieceface. I do like Star Wars Galaxy. I was lucky enough to get some boxes for SG6 when they first come out at regular prices and got a sketchagraph of Luke Skywalker.

I'd probably go

1. 2009 Ink Vault
2. 2013 Big Bang Theory Seasons 3 & 4
3. 2012 The Walking Dead Season 2
4. 2012 Avengers Assemble
5. 2009 Ink Archives

Chuck is right. For fun in opening boxes, you can't beat the Ink Vault/Archives, and Avengers Assemble and both Iron Man 2 and 3 have lots of great cards in those packs.

Galaxy 6 was definitely the most collector friendly, hits-wise, of pretty much all Star Wars card boxes, so that was a great get, Gerry. I was glad to be able to wrangle 4 boxes myself, and while they were a little more expensive, they held the same amount of goodness as a normal 8 box case.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say that there is no way to answer this question without misleading someone. You can pick the top non-sport products, but once you say pick the top non-sport boxes, well a box is only as good as its contents. If you get a nobody autograph, a **** sketch or a common one-color swatch in your box, it hardly matters that everyone else is pulling gems.

So I'll be serious now and say that I look for the best guarantee of premium hits. Because I collect autographs, I like boxes with the most number of autograph cards. Even if most are commons, you get some value from the box just by pulling 3 or 4 minor autographs and you still have the chance of a big hit. I don't like products that offer autographs or sketches at a certain ratio of boxes. That's fine if you find the extra hit and not so fine if you don't. Currently I find that I am buying almost exclusively RA and Breygent on new products.

As for those old repackaged Ink Vault and Ink Archives boxes, I would agree that they were fun to open, but I would add one thing. You have to have very few Inkworks cards in your collection to get good value from them. If you have collected a lot of Inkworks in the past you will basically get many duplicate autographs that have been priced reduced because of the increased supply when these boxes showed up.

All true. If you're just thinking of high quality, aesthetically pleasing cards without regard for the inserts, of the sets mentioned at least, I would say the nicest looking base cards are from Star Wars Galaxy, Indy and LOTR Masterpieces, and Breygent Celebrity Movie posters (with the amazing enhancements those cards have that made the incredible art on them look even better).

No matter what chase cards are in those, and there are gems and lemons in all of them (well, not the Breygent posters so much, they have higher sketch standards than Topps, certainly), you can at least know every pack will have a little stack of beautiful "regular" cards in it.

Marvel Masterpieces UD 2007 (best non-sport product imo)
Lotr masterpieces set 1
Avengers Assemble
Razor ink vault
iron man 2

Marvel Masterpieces 2007 from Upper Deck is a nice set, but all of the art was from earlier Marvel gaming cards, so it was technically recycled, quite a far cry from the makeup of the original 5 Skybox/Fleer MM sets which boasted all-new art from some of the finest illustrators of the day.

I was still really happy with that first Upper Deck Marvel Masterpieces set, though, because the sketch cards were generally excellent and it was great to have the "brand" back.

For the followup sets, however, UD got very sloppy, mislabeling characters and misnaming artists on the card backs. In some cases, they even used the same art for promo cards, base cards, and chase cards from one series to the next, which, even with recycled art, they shouldn't have done. Clearly they had more to choose from, but set 2 and 3 really were afterthoughts to the sketch cards, which, while generally not as good as the ones from Set 1, were still of pretty decent quality overall.

quote:

Originally posted by morpheuz31:
Marvel Masterpieces UD 2007 (best non-sport product imo)
Lotr masterpieces set 1
Avengers Assemble
Razor ink vault
iron man 2

I really liked MM1 because of the artist sketch card list.

I forgot to add SpookShow by Monsterwax. It has a very interesting subject, great base card set, well thought inserts, good sketch cards (one per box).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: morpheuz31,

Going from when I was a kid until now
1980 Topps Empire Strikes Back series 2 (I bought these when I could- packs mostly at TG&Y). Got a box about a decade ago just to relive the childhood memories).
Early 90's The Hildebrandt sets
My wife loved The Hildebrandt sets and I really should pick up another box of Greg I and II, Tim, Brothers, and Together and Seperate
Smallville Season 1 and 4 (Inkworks)
These were my favorites.

1979 Incredible Hulk - The first set I ever had
1994 DC Master Series
1995 Marvel Masterpieces
1995 Marvel Metal
2007 DC Legacy
2007 Marvel Masterpices

quote:

Originally posted by barobehere:
Going from when I was a kid until now
1980 Topps Empire Strikes Back series 2 (I bought these when I could- packs mostly at TG&Y). Got a box about a decade ago just to relive the childhood memories).

I remember being flush with cash (10 dollars!) and using a lot of it on packs of Empire series 1 in the summer of 1980, but at the Sprouse-Reitz, which was across the street from our TG&Y.
Living in a small town in New Mexico, those cards were gold! The big movies could take awhile to reach our lone movie theater, and as I recall, we didn't get Empire until September/October, a couple of months after everyone else, so it was nice to have something to hold us over.
The set was also really well designed (I loved the "Space Paintings" from Ralph McQuarrie) and what kid didn't spell out their names with those letter stickers?
Great set, 1980 ESB, and a great pick!

I can remember saving my pocket money and buying Star Wars cards. I still have both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back cards stored in a box back in Australia.

Every summer our folks used to take us up to this small lake town where our grandparents owned this little cottage for a few weeks. One summer, we were amazed and delighted to discover that the local store had the Return of the Jedi cards (this was '83) and over the next few weeks, we wiped out their supply. Fed right into my love of SW and helped to alleviate the boredom of otherwise being in the middle of nowhere for weeks on end.

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:


I remember being flush with cash (10 dollars!) and using a lot of it on packs of Empire series 1 in the summer of 1980, but at the Sprouse-Reitz, which was across the street from our TG&Y.
Living in a small town in New Mexico, those cards were gold! The big movies could take awhile to reach our lone movie theater, and as I recall, we didn't get Empire until September/October, a couple of months after everyone else, so it was nice to have something to hold us over.
The set was also really well designed (I loved the "Space Paintings" from Ralph McQuarrie) and what kid didn't spell out their names with those letter stickers?
Great set, 1980 ESB, and a great pick!

My parents were great. The back of my bedroom door when I was a kid was covered with The Empire Strikes Back Letter stickers and several of Disney's The Black Hole stickers. Then I because a teenager and wanted them off. I remember scraping them off one afternoon and repainting the door.

Loved the Women of Sunnydale set, but wish they added an Eliza Dushku autograph card!

Here's some Marvel themed boxes:
1995 Flair Marvel Annual
1995 Marvel Masterpieces
1996 Marvel Masterpieces
1997 Fleer Ultra Spider-Man
1998 Marvel Creator's Collection '98
1998 Marvel: The Silver Age
2006 Complete Avengers
2007 Marvel Masterpieces
2012 Marvel Premier
2013 Marvel Fleer Retro

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Heroes For Hire,

My top 5, for reasons of either rarity or I just plain like them, that I possess unopened would be:

1. STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES SEASON ONE
2. TWILIGHT ZONE TRADING CARDS PREMIERE EDITION
3. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON TWO
4. THE COMPLETE JAMES BOND TRADING CARDS
5. 007 40TH ANNIVERSARY TRADING CARDS

The top 5 I bought for no particular reason other than that they were available and which I've never opened, or just to complete a master set (of which I consider an unopened box to be part of) that proved to be a good investment would be:

1. THE WALKING DEAD SEASON ONE
2. THE WALKING DEAD SEASON TWO
3. THE BIG BANG THEORY SEASONS 1 & 2
4. AVENGERS ASSEMBLE
5. maybe WOMEN OF JAMES BOND IN MOTION

Marvel Masterpieces all the way! Especially the set by Hildebrandt brothers, they look like portraits! I even bought the case topper set, they look very nice even without bling blings.

And that Marvel Universe that included the Venom VS Spiderman hologram, just because of that specific card.