Not much in the way of details other than October release.

Judging by base card design, looks to be taking a similar retro approach like Journey to the Force Awakens.

http://www.beckett.com/news/to...ne-trading-card-set/

The trailer for this looks awesome, even moreso than Force Awakens IMO. I would love an auto of Ben Mendelsohn as whatever Imperial he is playing.

Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker would be good signers too and both have done cards before so fingers crossed...

Heh, because Topps needed another excuse to recycle a bunch of old Star Wars images...

Here are the first autograph images/mock-ups:

Looks very similar to Journey to the Force Awakens. Here are the details on what has been announced: http://www.beckett.com/news/20...e-one-trading-cards/

Who the heck is Wedge Antilles, Mon Mothma and General Madine?

I know, if you don't know them, you don't know Star Wars.

I don't.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Who the heck is Wedge Antilles, Mon Mothma and General Madine?

Wedge Antilles was in Star Wars. Obviously, not for long.
Denis Lawson is also Ewan McGregor's uncle.

I know who Wedge, Mon & Crix Madine are (yes that is General Madine's first name). But then I LOVE Star Wars.

Really do not like that auto design at all though.

Wedge also has the distinction of being the only Rebel pilot to fight in and survive the battle of Yavin, Hoth and Endor.

The Empire Strikes Back Series 3 (1980) design used for the autographs is fairly ugly (having oddly used leftover colors from the garish late 1970's), and especially compared to the classic design for Series 1 (red) or Series 2 (blue). That said, I'd love to get any of those autograph cards shown for my collection. The Luke/Wedge would be fantastic.

quote:

Originally posted by X:
I know who Wedge, Mon & Crix Madine are (yes that is General Madine's first name). But then I LOVE Star Wars.

Haha. The 1995 Star Wars Finest Chrome set gave a lot of great information about the minor film (and major expanded universe) characters, including Madine's first name, as I recall.

It's also been recently revealed that Palpatine's official first name is "Sheev". You think anyone called him "Sheeee-vo" as a teenager?

Probably not...

Sweet Jesus those are ugly cards.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
Sweet Jesus those are ugly cards.

Hahahaha! My thoughts exactly!

I dunno, I'm so tired of Topps pimpin out Star Wars like they do. I can only get behind one set every two or three years. The last thing I bought was Star Wars Illustrated A New Hope.

The prices have really gone up on them right out of the gate recently, so I went from getting a case or two of every release starting in the mid 2000's to a few boxes of them around 2 years ago to none at all of some of the most recent sets.

The beauty was/is that if you just want the regular cards and chase, the big breakers dump it cheap. All the ones I found too pricey to pre-order, I was able to get the regular cards from them for a song, usually less than the price of one box.

From that, I can say the cards themselves are still very well made. A lot of work goes into Star Wars base and regular chase sets. They really aren't afterthoughts, or extra packaging to wrap around the hits, as is the case with a lot of hobby product these days. I think that's also why they are able to sell a lot of it on the retail market, which means they don't have to sell as much of it to hobby.

All to say these are selling very well, and they're going to be making a lot more. Actually, a lot lot more. This latest set, "Force Awakens Series 2" had mandated repeat-a-sketches, the usual-by-now sticker autographs, a manufactured medallion card in just about every box as one of the two hits (that kicked the retail price of hobby box to $96), and only a handful (6) of the big draw in the set, the first autographed "Old" Han Solo cards....

....and I still bought a case. I got a Princess Leia autograph and nothing else spectacular, but nevertheless, I was still happy with what I got. The value is there.

Basically, there are plenty of people to buy this when even cheapskates like me are slopping it up.
Go figure...

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
The beauty was/is that if you just want the regular cards and chase, the big breakers dump it cheap. All the ones I found too pricey to pre-order, I was able to get the regular cards from them for a song, usually less than the price of one box.

From that, I can say the cards themselves are still very well made. A lot of work goes into Star Wars base and regular chase sets. They really aren't afterthoughts, or extra packaging to wrap around the hits, as is the case with a lot of hobby product these days. I think that's also why they are able to sell a lot of it on the retail market, which means they don't have to sell as much of it to hobby.

All to say these are selling very well, and they're going to be making a lot more. Actually, a lot lot more. This latest set, "Force Awakens Series 2" had mandated repeat-a-sketches, the usual-by-now sticker autographs, a manufactured medallion card in just about every box as one of the two hits (that kicked the retail price of hobby box to $96), and only a handful (6) of the big draw in the set, the first autographed "Old" Han Solo cards....

....and I still bought a case. I got a Princess Leia autograph and nothing else spectacular, but nevertheless, I was still happy with what I got. The value is there.

Basically, there are plenty of people to buy this when even cheapskates like me are slopping it up.
Go figure...

But what you are describing is overproduction on a scale that pales in comparison to the overproduction of the early Star Wars sets that are still easily found.

Sure there are certain limited premium hits that will go for big bucks, but they are the small exception. Everyone is always screaming about maintaining secondary market value. These Star Wars cards, produced in these numbers, are wallpaper.

If I was a Star Wars card collector I'd go nuts, pick one fairly limited set for each movie and maybe look for autographs of each actor to keep it interesting. Anything retail is for the kids to be tossed out by the mothers. Hobby side will not hold value as the accumulated supply of all those limited sets floods and drowns the demand for all except the rarest cards.

Well, the "everyone" is getting a lot smaller.

At this point, I think production runs are low enough that the cards will always hold some value, monetarily, in addition to the content within the cards of value to Star Wars fans. The reason the "regular" cards aren't more valuable now is not so much that too many of them are made, but rather that there aren't enough people who want them. And while that would normally dictate simply producing less, the numbers are low enough already that Topps probably wouldn't issue the product at all if they had to make less. As it is, their profit margins must be very low for non-sports, particularly compared to their sports and candy division.

There is so little of the modern material made to begin with, it will never sit unopened in warehouses on dusty pallets like 1980's Topps card did and do.

Ultimately, these cards will be hard to find, but that doesn't mean anyone will be trying to find them. For speculation's sake, the real remaining gamble is whether or not people will even collect trading cards in the future. Sports are a safer bet as the seasons continually renew and new players come to the forefront each year.

With non-sports, these are some strange days. Star Wars is a big driver and it's become rather like a sports property in that there will be a new Star Wars movie every year from now on, indefinitely. Beyond that, I'm not sure what has a future in non-sports. Who would ever thought there wouldn't be card sets for the most recent pair of X-Men or Superman movies, based on what we came to expect 10, 20, 30, and now nearly 40 years ago with Star Wars in 1977?
Well, here we are.

Related to that, I thought mine and maybe one generation after would be the last generation of newly minted non-sports collectors, but it now turns out there will be a few more after ours, which is good news for us that still have a lot of cards. After that, no one can say, but I don't think too much about it since I likely won't be around to see it.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
Sweet Jesus those are ugly cards.

They've pretty much used all of the other retro designs in earlier sets, and this is it, ESB III. It's just what they look like.



Maybe it's time to go the exquisite 1977 Wonder Bread design. Not made by Topps, but they were covered alongside the original 1977 Topps Series in the recent Abrams retrospective book.