So Many Questions....

1. Do Archive Boxes contain all the cards from that particular set release? For example, does the Stargate Atlantis Season 1 Archive Box contain all the inserted cards (and sets) plus all the case toppers and incentive cards?

2. If not, what makes an Archive Box so valuable especially when compared to a complete Master Set you have collected of all the cards for that release.?.

3. Is the Archive Box still as valuable if its been opened??

I am pretty sure there's another thread here somewhere but couldn't find it.

Short answer is that an archive box for a non comics series has all the pack inserted cards (ie base, chase, autos...). Some have the case cards but some don't.

For a comic set, the archive box will have the base, chase and some number of sketches (eg 25). Different sets have different numbers of sketches running from 10 (Batman Archives) to 55 (all artists in DC Legacy).

The orange sticker will describe the content.

quote:

Originally posted by Zinc:
Is the Archive Box still as valuable if its been opened??

Well I would faint if I ever saw an Archive Box in the flesh, so to speak.

However there are two types of Archive Boxes. The one most people are familar with is the obvious kind with the sticker on the outside. Unless you are a case buyer yourself, a collector will never get a hold of one of these without buying it straight from the dealer who has broken the case and gotten the Box as a kind of bonus. When these are sold they are always sealed and I would be suspious of one that had been opened.

But the other, rarer type is the hidden Archive Box that has no indication on the outside, but has the sticker inside the box. These do wind up in the hands of collectors because dealers can't pick them off when they split the cases, at least in theory anyway. Now this type would have to be opened, whether it was kept or sold afterwards, because you wouldn't know what it was until you got inside.

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

1) Depends on the release. The orange sticker says if any of the cards are missing.

2) I think a master set is more valuable, especially if the archive box is missing any of the case cards. Again that depends on the release- archive boxes from sketch card releases have a bunch of sketch cards that could end up being worth more than a master set, especially if the archive box has exclusive artists.

3) Not really- mainly because a sealed archive box has a guarantee of contents and when the seal is broken there is no way to show that it hasn't been tampered with. At the high prices that archive boxes go for, few are willing to take a chance on an opened archive box versus just buying the cards outright.

I want to say thanks to you guys (or should I say guy and gals!) for taking the time to respond to me. It was something I had been pondering (giggle) for a while.

I have seen the archive boxes come up for, ahem, auction every so often. I just buy my cards individually, but have been able to grab a couple of "lot" auctions. Needless to say, I do have some doubles of the lower end autos....but I love my costume/relic/pieceworks card variants.

So at the end of the day, I can just relax and be happy with my collection and stop worrying about those "A" boxes.

quote:

Originally posted by Zinc:
I want to say thanks to you guys (or should I say guy and gals!) for taking the time to respond to me. It was something I had been pondering (giggle) for a while.

I have seen the archive boxes come up for, ahem, auction every so often. I just buy my cards individually, but have been able to grab a couple of "lot" auctions. Needless to say, I do have some doubles of the lower end autos....but I love my costume/relic/pieceworks card variants.

So at the end of the day, I can just relax and be happy with my collection and stop worrying about those "A" boxes.

For the most part, I would go with buying the cards individually unless you have none of the cards in the set, and that some of the regular cards are hard to find. I bought an archive box only once (Enterprise Season 4) mainly because I wanted a Jolene Blalock auto, as well as the Brent Spiner auto (both pretty hard to find, the Blalock almost impossible and very expensive), and I needed quite a few of the 1:40 cards and many of the low level autos, so it made more financial sense to do the archive box route versus waiting to do it piecemeal, especially since some of the cards were so rare.

I just got this today. My very first archive box! It looks very nice next to the Wolverine expansion auto

I'm still debating about whether I truly need the McHaley incentive sketch, binder, and promos. But I'll decide later. Just going to enjoy this for now.

It is pretty fun to open one, and I recommend the experience to everyone who is able to acquire one.

I got one of Twilight Zone Series 4 a few years ago, after having missed the release of it entirely, so it was pretty great to open one box and pull pretty close to a master set!

I saw a sealed Archive box of the Complete Highlander sell for $40 about 5 years ago on the popular onlinE Bidding site. Clearly the seller didn't know what they had, but the buyer who snapped up that miniscule "Buy-It-Now" certainly did!

I bought my first Archives box during blowouts sale. Got a Heroes Archives archive box for about $510 dlvd. Should be getting it in a day or two.

I actually bought one of the "Complete ST DS9". It did have every insert in it BUT it didnt have a full set of the base cards. >_< lol

Would highly reccomend them!

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:
I bought my first Archives box during blowouts sale. Got a Heroes Archives archive box for about $510 dlvd. Should be getting it in a day or two.

I was tempted to pick this up just for the Hayden P. variant auto. But I had already completed the mini-master, costume set, and about a dozen autos. So I didn't want to spend the time to sell the duplicates. Still, it's a great set and well worth the price. Have fun

My one and only ARCHIVE BOX, which I will never open since every card in it is already in that binder. For some reason the binder has wrinkled as you can see in the picture. I don't know why. The only two cards missing (that I know of) are the RAUKTOL UK promo and the Leonard Nimoy expansion set autographed card.

I opened my Heroes Archives Archive box last night. Surprisingly there were only 23 base cards in 24 packs, but each pack included at least 2 autos. I had no idea there were 53 autos in this set. The only auto not included in the archive box was the six case incentive. To be honest I wasn't expecting the Case Topper and 3-case incentive since they weren't pack inserted. There were some randomly inserted in the bottom of regular boxes so maybe that's why they were included. I also didn't realize there were 10 signers with two different autograph cards in the set so I guess that means there was only 43 different signers. Still a ton though. I defintely think the archive box was worth what I paid for it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chuck Bartowski,

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:
I opened my Heroes Archives Archive box last night. Surprisingly there were only 23 base cards in 24 packs, but each pack included at least 2 autos. I had no idea there were 53 autos in this set. The only auto not included in the archive box was the six case incentive. To be honest I wasn't expecting the Case Topper and 3-case incentive since they were pack inserted. There were some randomly inserted in the bottom of regular boxes so maybe that's why they were included. I also didn't realize there were 10 signers with two different autograph cards in the set so I guess that means there was only 43 different signers. Still a ton though. I defintely think the archive box was worth what I paid for it.

I think that out of all of the releases that had archive boxes, Heroes Archives is probably the best release to buy an archive box for. Between all of the signers, relics, and the archive box exclusive content, the archive box is a great buy!

quote:

Originally posted by cardaddict:
My one and only ARCHIVE BOX, which I will never open since every card in it is already in that binder. For some reason the binder has wrinkled as you can see in the picture. I don't know why. The only two cards missing (that I know of) are the RAUKTOL UK promo and the Leonard Nimoy expansion set autographed card.

I have the same binder and it wrinkled on me aswell.
I have all the cards for this set aswell as the varient P1 promo

I just bought a Quotable DS9 Archive Box. Definitely my favorite of the Star Trek series.

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:
I just bought a Quotable DS9 Archive Box. Definitely my favorite of the Star Trek series.

I was looking at that aswell.i thought it was too cheap.damn it!! great buy Chuck!!

quote:

Originally posted by simpsonscardman:

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:
I just bought a Quotable DS9 Archive Box. Definitely my favorite of the Star Trek series.

I was looking at that aswell.i thought it was too cheap.damn it!! great buy Chuck!!

I thought it was a good deal. I think a Berman recently sold for around $200 didn't it?

I'll try to remember to post scans of the costume cards.

quote:

Originally posted by Logan:

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:

I think a Berman recently sold for around $200 didn't it?

I think the Berman is not included in the archive box since it's an incentive and that archive box states it only contains all pack inserted bonus cards. I may be wrong about that though. Still an excellent buy either way.

I thought that too, but according to Allender's site the Quotable Archive boxes include both case incentives as well as all inserts in the packs (does not say it has all the base cards).

By the way...my Heroes Archives box included both the case topper auto and 3 case incentive auto.

Yes I stand corrected. Here is a quote from Wixiban about the Quotable DS9 archive boxes:

"Archive boxes contain at least one of every card inserted in packs, as well as both multi-case incentives. The only cards not included for a true master set are all 4 box-topper sketches, the 5 promos, and costume card C22. The 9 Starfleet's Finest cards found in the archive boxes all have matching numbers."

So that's great news for you Chuck!