Uncut sheets, that is. The more unusual the better, and bonus points for telling how you got it.

Here's Upper Deck MARVEL MASTERPIECES Series II from 2008.





There were "point" cards worth 100 points each in every Series 1 and 2 pack of the relaunched Marvel Masterpieces cards issued in 2007 and 2008. The points could be redeemed at a short-lived UDE website. At first there were only some "Vs." and "World of Warcraft" game promo cards, and things like that, not much of interest for regular card collectors, but for a brief span they added as prizes the 9 card Marvel Masterpieces preview/promo card set in the Captain America folder that was originally a Comic-Con exclusive and even more unusually, this full-size uncut sheet of the Series 2 set.

This was the set that had no less than 3 (and perhaps 4) different characters with the wrong names ascribed to them, so it was pretty astonishing that they first, didn't fix that before the cards went into packs, and then, even worse, actually sent out sheets with these glaring errors on them as a prize.

Even so, I'm glad to have it. They were careful shipping it (sent flat, in between heavy pieces of cards, and free of charge), so it's in great shape despite its large size. These were limited to one per customer (address, at least) and it took a lot of points for one, plus they weren't offered long, and even the "redemption center" was shut down fairly quickly. There can't be too many of these out there.

Ok, what do YOU have in this regard?

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

I have two uncut sheets of the Valiant cards by Upper Deck, from 1993-94, from shows those years

I gave scans to a Valiant collector, and he posted them on his website. These are actually MY cards, as evident from the fact that my scans are not even. I am terrible at scanning !

http://www.sonicdan.com/valiant/Deathmateuncut.jpg

http://sonicdan.com/valiant/cards/1994CapXOholoun.jpg


As to how I obtained these 15 or so years ago...I can't recall !

Those are sharp! I got one of them about a year ago (the one with more cards on it) in huge box of miscellaneous items from a comic shop dealer who was calling it quit after about 25 years.

In the early 1990's there were several different distributors competing for dominance in the market, so they used to put on retailer summits which is where a lot of these kind of promotional items were issued. The dealer told me a lot of them were on the East Coast so he couldn't usually attend those, but even so, sometimes the exclusive items would be included along with his monthly order, leftovers from the convention/summit, most likely.

Diamond ended up winning the battle (they are pretty much the exclusive distributor of comic related items through their "Previews" catalog), but one of their main competitors Capital City (who used to publish the "Advance Comics" catalog) were responsible for a lot of these awesome giveaways. The upside was that they were largely given to dealers who generally knew to save and take care of things, as opposed to the average convention goer in those days who would often toss stuff in a bag and then get rid of anything they didn't like after the show was over. There was no Ebay outlet back then.

The downside is these kinds of items tend to be all shapes and sizes, making them difficult to store. As a result, these items that weren't sold to collectors pretty much right away tended to take some wear-and-tear while in storage or on the display racks. The limited quantity of them (in an age of generally massive overproduction) makes them hard enough to find these days as it is, but even more so in anything approaching mint condition.

The one I have is in decent shape, not mint, but yours look pretty nice, David. Congrats on them!

Thanks, Chesspiece !

You know, I actually have a THIRD sheet, the one I think you are talking about. It has about 20 uncut cards on it. All 3 of these are framed on my wall, so I am not about to pull them out and re-scan them. I think the Valiant guy may have my sheet on his website. I will look for a link later.

You know which ones I am still looking for ? Those 3 card red foil strips from the 1993 Marvel Universe set, from the cons that year. They are the uncut chase. I have one in the plastic holder, a second one loose, and am missing the third, the one which has Doom 2099 and others on it

The first sheet, linked to above, is an uncut sheet of some of the Deatmate chase cards. It is only 6 cards, I believe

I don't see on his site the scan that I sent him, which is of the uncut First Appearance cards, or whatever they are called. That's like 20 cards or so

Perhaps he took it down ? Who knows

I found the scan that I sent him in 2005

Look at the second sheet, the one below of the 20 cards from the Valiant Era set

http://sonicdan.com/valiant/VEIIXOuncut.jpg

I'm not into sheets, but I love holograms, so these are my only uncut sheets.

Going back a few years...

Holograms and monsters!!!
Love 'em! Keep 'em coming!

These are my two favorite uncut sheets.

A Witchblade special card uncut sheet:


And a Storm (Don Lawrence) series 1 uncut sheet:

Beautiful art on both, for sure!

On the "Witchblade" sheet, are the two color cards the size of regular cards with the black and white cards being miniature cards?

Or, are the two color cards oversized with the black and white cards being normal sized cards?

Also what are the black and white cards? The image on the color cards was used on a promo card. Are those promo cards on the sheet?

Thanks for sharing. I've got a couple more cool ones to post as soon as I can get them pictured.

The Witchblade sheet has 2 uncut versions of the 9 special foil cards and 2 set of the autograph cards (these 6 cards are unsigned and the black foil is missing).

The sheet with the Storm cards has all the 50 base cards.
Years ago, you could only make a complete regular card set when you joined the Don Lawrence fanclub. Every one or two months you receive a pack of 5 random cards with the fanclub magazine.
NB: There are no special cards for this set.

I have an uncut sheet of Star Trek NG I was given by a book store that was sent free as a promo.

Some of the chase cards in uncut sheet form from the outstanding Australian made "Simpsons Down Under" set from 1996, by Tempo Cards

These were sold by Tempo as a limited edition of 50 and were sequentially numbered out of 50. Both sheets are double sided and exactly the same, but so you could display both sides at the same time, purchasers received two of the sheets. One is numbered on the front side (12/50) and the other is numbered (with the same number) on the reverse side.

The card themselves on these sheets are unnumbered as opposed to the pack-pulled versions, all of which would be themselves sequentially numbered.

On these sheets are the 3-card "WOO HOO" redemption set (pack version limited to 1,250) and the Binder Incentive Bonus card (the real one being numbered to 500).

Not from a proper card set as such, this is from a 1984 Japanese movie magazine with the mouthful of a title:
"Screen : Magazine For World Movie and TV Fans".



This card sheet was from the 6th issue, which featured a teenaged Diane Lane on the cover. The cards include a nice mix of movie stars from back then including Clint, Phoebe Cates, Kristy MacNichol, and young Jackie Chan.

There's a good chance earlier and later issues of this same magazine included similar card sheets, and I'd sure love to see one. Anyone have any of them?

Japanese magazines in general tend to be very thick and also often have inserts like this card sheet, which was loosely in the magazine, not attached. This issue also came one with a couple of fold out posters and a completely separate full color mini magazine featuring the stars of the then current movie "The Outsiders", one of which was Diane Lane.

Here's a 1989 Comic Images Mike Zeck uncut sheet. The Comic Images Marvel sets, which began in 1987 (Marvel Universe 1) and continued through 1997 (X-Men 2099 Oasis) were generally simple affairs, especially at the start. The fronts on the earliest sets were always reprinted from existing art, usually the comics themselves. The art being necessarily re-sized smaller meant it had to be recolored for the cards, unfortunately usually not too well, although I'm sure Comic Images and its color artist(s) did their best with the still limited coloring and printing technology of the mid to late 1980's, especially that which was available to smaller company.



The artist here, Mike Zeck, was immensely popular for his art on "The Punisher" comics series, the original "Secret Wars" (to be redone as this summer's big Marvel Comics crossover event) and a 6 issue Spider-Man storyline where Kraven the Hunter buries Spidey alive and assumes his identity to prove his absolute superiority to him, before committing suicide after realizing he has no foe left to best since Spider-Man had been the only one he couldn't beat, so he was a hunter left with no quarry. The story was controversial at the time, but is now seen as a classic.

This was one of the "artist" sets that Comic Images made for several fan-favorite Marvel artists of the 1980s, including Zeck here, plus John Byrne, Arthur Adams, Jim Lee, and a few other four-color luminaries. They were 45 or 50 card sets to start, no inserts of any kind (unthinkable today) and priced at $1 (or so) per pack of 5 cards with the same header card in every pack, although at least that was a sticker. Collation was pretty rough in my experience with them. You could get the same cards over and over before getting the last few you needed, if ever, and there was no real internet to fill in the gaps that way.

Even worse, the backs on the were black and white puzzle pieces with no text that individually weren't much to look at, like so:



However, this is where these uncut sheets can really shine. The two puzzles, in completed unbroken form, are iconic Zeck art, nice grey wash pieces a lot sharper than the usual (recycled & resized) images that constituted the puzzle backs in the early sets.



These two large portraits very well may have been drawn by Zeck specifically for the cards which would make them pretty unusual for any Comics Images Marvel set, as virtually all of their sets used recycled artwork, a notable exception being one of their final sets, the 1997 X-Men 2009 Oasis which featured all-new artwork (paintings by the Hildebrandt Brothers!). That was a co-production with usual Marvel card maker Fleer/Skybox which was well on the way to oblivion by then, which is perhaps why Comic Images had a part in it's release.

At any rate, the Comic Images sets of the 1980s are important as they showed there was a market for Marvel cards (indeed, a market Comic Images was instrumental in developing by getting lots of their various products, cards being just one, into the then-rapidly expanding number of comics stores) which led directly to the Golden Age of Marvel trading cards, 1990 to 1998, characterized by set after set of all-new specially commissioned art created for the cards by top artists manufactured using the most cutting edge printing processes of the time. Fleer/Skybox would be gone by 1999, but on their way out, they put a score of legendary comics creators signature and sketch art cards into collectors hands, a glimpse of the cards we now expect (and pay for!), and where Marvel cards are concerned, it really did start with good ol' Comic Images.

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

From eBay I won a Xena Beauty & Brawn Amazon Warriors aw1-9 uncut sheet. The seller said it was a prize from Rittenhouse. I don't know of another in existence. I did email Rittenhouse about it at the time but didn't hear back.

At the moment I have no picture but I will add it to my scanning list

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

One of a kind is good!
Please do show it once you're able to, especially since no one else would be able to.

Here you go, front and back.

Not 100% sure it's unique but I have never seen another and not heard of it until I came across the auction.





This thread has reminded me I really need some more 1 pocket pages

Very nice! You have to figure that Rittenhouse probably has a couple of them in the, ahem, archives, but I'm sure it's true there aren't many, if any, others out there in collectors' hands besides yours, if a longtime Xena collector like you has never seen another.