I am curious to know. In terms of non sports since 1990 or so, what sealed boxes are the hardest to find or go for the most amount of money ? Early Buffy sets by Inkworks ? Or maybe some of the Skybox Marvel sets from 1996-1998 ? What is your opinion ?

Just a guess - Inkworks Twilight?

I agree with Ted on the Twilight box.

Also, Buffy Season 1 as well as Dark Angel.

I would have thought with the low print runs these days finding a sealed box of most things would be difficult.

I thought I read in various places here on Card Talk that 1996's Marvel Masterpieces is tough to find, which was infamous for costing $ 100 plus when it came out (unheard of at the time), and that Ultra Spider Man 1997 is rare also, because of the sketch cards inserted. Everyone gobbled up the Spidey 97 to get the sketches

quote:

Originally posted by Starchild:
I agree with Ted on the Twilight box.

Also, Buffy Season 1 as well as Dark Angel.

Funny that you mention Twilight, as when Inkworks was putting this together a number of dealers bailed on it when it was announced that the autographs had fallen through. Those who stuck with Inkworks made a nice tidy sum.

Right now, a box of Marvel Masterpieces 1996 runs around 1200 to 1500. I would say that is a top one.

I have no idea how much a box of Twilight runs.

quote:

Originally posted by Arvin Sloane:

quote:

Originally posted by Starchild:
I agree with Ted on the Twilight box.

Also, Buffy Season 1 as well as Dark Angel.

Funny that you mention Twilight, as when Inkworks was putting this together a number of dealers bailed on it when it was announced that the autographs had fallen through. Those who stuck with Inkworks made a nice tidy sum.

Very true. And while I was not one of those who profited, I used to get the email product updates from Inkworks in those days and I remember quite well that when the autographs fell through, they dropped well over $100 off the case price, but also added that they understood completely anyone who wished to cancel, and that any such deposits would've been returned.
Would've been a pretty good idea to get those, particularly at that reduced price!

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

The Inkworks Twilight base sets were selling at the $70/100 point early on. Had Inkworks managed to hang on, Twilight might have saved them!

I distinctly recall in 1995-96 when Disney Premium and Masterpieces 96 came out. No one had ever seen such expensive boxes before. It was pretty shocking to see boxes for more than $ 40-50

And shortly after that came 3 more sets from Skybox that just blew our minds how expensive they were:

Batman Master Series ($3+ per pack)
Marvel Motion ($4 per pack)
Marvel Masterpieces 1996 ($4 per pack)

The Batman Master series sold very little as a result, and despite it being a beautiful set, boxes had to be dumped and they were available for $10 a box for sometime after, and to this day can be had fairly inexpensively.

Marvel Motion sold a little better, but those boxes were on clearance for $20 each (or less) for at least a few years. Those boxes likewise, are still pretty readily available for well under retail.

1996 Marvel Masterpieces, now very likely the most valuable and hardest sealed box to find, also did not sell well due to the price, but certainly did move better than the other two. Even so, I remember one booth at Comic-Con, I want to say in 1999, that had a pretty decent sized pyramid of them they were selling for around $50 each, so about $25 less than retail approximately three years after they were issued. Unfortunately, I only went one day that year, and that booth only took cash which I was low on. When I saw them, I remember debating buying one, but ultimately passed on it because it would've been most of the rest of the cash I had with me. D'oh!

I can't recall what I spent that money on, but obviously, I should've bought the MM96 box. The main reason I didn't was because my friend and I, owing to the high original retail price, purchased one box of it when new (for the $70 or so) and split the cost and packs. We were both about 35 cards short after that and I'd picked up a few more loose packs to get down to needing about 20 cards. I figured I'd just pick those up a little later, rather than buy more expensive packs, let alone a whole box, even at the "cut" rate of $50.

Long story short (too late!), it took me another 15 years after passing on those discounted boxes to finish my set, as I only completed it just a few months ago.

As for $50 today, when related to that set: about 5 years ago, I sold the sell sheet for MM96 that I got at Comic-Con in 1996 by itself for $50. (And that wasn't even in perfect shape since I had just tossed it in my bag a carried it around all day! I also now really wish I'd picked up even two of those, haha)

I seem to recall that Marvel Flair 94 and 95 went for $ 75 or so a box when they first came out. Even that was considered to be expensive at the time

Or is my memory fuzzy after 20 years ?

I think they made a lot of both sets, and now the cards are pretty easy to find dirt cheap, including the inserts

In all these years checking. I was difficult to see the following boxes:

- Batman Holo Series
- Marvel Masterpieces 1995
- Marvel Masterpieces 1996
- Marvel Creators
- Marvel Silver Age
- DC Kingdom Come
- Marvel Flair 1995
- Superman Holo Series (Red Holograms)

I saw more Marvel Masterpieces 1996 boxes for sale in eBay than the others I have in the list, but the prices are really very high.

You're right about the Flairs, David. They were $3.50 per pack or so, but people didn't balk at that price because those cards were so much more deluxe than anything issued up until then, and people could really see where the money was going.
Each pack was like a little box of cards itself, individually shrinkwrapped, with a insert card in pretty much every pack. They were also from 1994 and 1995 when cards sold much better in general. 1996 was the year sales started to flag across the board.
I don't remember either of the Flair boxes ever being discounted from retail. They were excellent sellers, especially the 1994 set.

As for the cards themselves, super-thick, quadruple UV coated affairs though they were nevertheless, in a word, horrific to my eyes. The then "state of the art" computer coloring just obliterated the actual artwork on them, and no amount of super high gloss or metallic ink foil accents could make up for that. The same was true of Marvel Metal from 1995, just ghastly looking things. Those were around $2.50 when regular packs were closer to $1.50, but they also had lots of inserts and sold well. I don't ever remember seeing those at clearance either.

Marvel Silver Age is hugely sought after today and for the last 10 years or so, but was a very poor seller in 1998 like most other non-sport cards. Those were on clearance all through 1999 for as low as $25 per box since they could not sell the run of 12,000 boxes for even their very reasonable original price of about $50. I didn't pass on those at regular price, or later at clearance and I'm really glad I didn't.

One single box I purchased for $25 (from a pyramid of them at that price!) had a Stan Lee autograph card AND a John Romita Spider-Man sketch. I have those still, but that I could get them for that price illustrates how very in the dumps the card market was in 1998.

I can't remember the last time I saw a box of Twister. I only know one person who has one and they got it by buying a half open box off of eBay, then found loose packs at stores until the box was full. That is a tough box to find.

Why is Marvel Silver Age so desirable? The sketches, or just not many boxes produced? What does a sealed box go for now?

I'm just curious because of all the boxes mentioned that's the only one I have.

quote:

Originally posted by beamer:
I can't remember the last time I saw a box of Twister. I only know one person who has one and they got it by buying a half open box off of eBay, then found loose packs at stores until the box was full. That is a tough box to find.

Wow. I walked past a box of Twister hundreds of time back when it was releases at an Eckerd's Drug store. One day it was gone. Did not know it was rare.

I have sealed boxes of Marvel Masterpieces 1992 and 1993's Return of Superman (Skybox) and perhaps others.

But since these early 90s sets were so mass produced, I'm sure they're probably pretty common now, right ?

1992 Masterpieces is just such a classic, those boxes will always be popular, but it's from the pre-hits era, so it can't really ever attain the value of a box that might hold an amazing sketch or a particularly valuable autograph. That's what drives most of the most currently desired (and therefore valuable) modern boxes.

While that is also basically true of the Boris and Julie Marvel Masterpieces V set from 1996, the difference is that the 1996 set was limited to something under 20,000 boxes, while the 1992 Jusko set, I believe, has a sticker on it that boasts a "limited" production run of about 200,000 boxes. Limited by 1992 standards, sure, but a massive print run by todays standards, and many, many thousands of those boxes likely remain sealed, holding their value down.

Beyond that, Skybox also made a factory set of the 1992 Masterpieces set, and even that was produced in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. (Sorry for the sketchy numbers, I don't have my own sealed box or factory set in front of me now).

Basically, the first three sets of Masterpieces, while beautifully made, were produced in gigantic numbers and have no especially hard to find or unique cards in them, so sealed hobby boxes will remain at the price they've been at for some time to come, I'm sure. (One exception: there are Jumbo and Wal-Mart boxes of the Hildebrandt 1994 set, and those have Gold and Bronze versions, respectively, of the usually silver Holofoil cards. Sealed boxes of those non-hobby or standard retail kind, especially the Wal-Mart ones with the bronze foil versions, can be quite valuable).

As for the Return of Superman cards, you are right, those were also massively overproduced and have the same "problems" of 1992 and 1993 Masterpieces, plus one more. DC Comics cards have basically never been popular. I'm not sure why. They are just as nice as the Marvel cards of that era, and were made by the same company, but I can't think of too many runaway hits from DC. Perhaps the "Death of Superman" set which capitalized on that storyline in the comics. Even those are now available quite inexpensively now, but boxes once sold for up to $100 at the height of their popularity, 90 card sets for $50, foil chase cards for $20 or more. The whole thing can be had for $20 now, sealed boxes or a master set.

From the later era, Batman Holoseries has value, but pretty much strictly for the 6 exclusive Overpower Batman holograph chase cards, as that game still has its devotees.

quote:

Originally posted by cardaddict:
Why is Marvel Silver Age so desirable? The sketches, or just not many boxes produced? What does a sealed box go for now?

I'm just curious because of all the boxes mentioned that's the only one I have.

Only 12,000 boxes in total with an on-card autograph AND hand-drawn sketch in every box. The autographs are from Marvel Silver Age big name participants ONLY including Stan Lee. Sketches in the boxes are mostly drawn by actual Silver Age artists including. John Romita, Joe Sinnott, Marie Severin, John and Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, George Tuska, and even Stan Lee himself. A few new artists were commissioned for sketches to pad the numbers to 12,000. They did nice work, but their presence alongside legends is unfortunate, and finding one of theirs instead of one from one of the Silver Age artists, was like, to me, getting a dud box.

The regular set is also nice, and there are some really sharp silver foil chase cards, only 3 per box from a set of 9 or so.

Unfortunately, in boxes of those still sealed, most of the regular cards will be ruined. This is seen on more than a few sets from this mid to late 1990's era. In an attempt to give the cards extra polish, they apparently used too much UV coating on them and that causes them to stick together in the packs (unstable molecules like Fantastic Four uniforms, haha) making each pack like a little brick, and when you try to separate the cards, they pull ink from one another. If they'd have only coated one side, this problem probably wouldn't exist. The double coating was actually a selling point in those days, but many, many cards, even some in sealed boxes, are ruined as a result of that choice.

Luckily, the sketch and autograph are on a different card stock, so those should be OK (and there is a chance that your regular cards might be, too. All I know is I had some stored in optimum temperatures without any kind of weight on them, and even those ones are stuck together in the packs).