Non Sports Trading Card

An non-sports trading card is a trading card featuring entertainment content on some subject of popular interest other than sports, designed for collecting. The cards are produced in series featuring celebrities, subjects from television and movies, or original creations, for example. As many trading cards involve sports, editorial trading cards are often called non-sports trading cards .

Most of the card series sell for only one or two years, tracking the popularity of their subjects. In recent years editorial cards have overlapped with the newer phenomenon of collectible card games. For example, the Pokémon craze yielded both a trading card game, produced by Wizards of the Coast, as well as regular trading cards by Topps and others that were not designed for gameplay.

Trading card series

Humor

  • Frankenstein Stickers (Topps, 1966)
  • Funny Monsters (Topps, 1959)
  • Garbage Pail Kids
  • Hollywood Zombies (Topps, 2007)
  • MAD (Fleer, 1983)
  • Nutty Initials (Topps, 1967)
  • Odd Rods (1969)
  • Toxic High (Topps, 1992)
  • Ugly (Topps)
  • Wacky Packages (Topps, 1967-2007)
  • Your Own Name (Topps, 1966)

Movies

  • Star Wars episodes
  • Rocky (Topps, 1979, 1985)
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Topps, 1978)
  • James Bond (Philadelphia, 1965)
  • Thunderball (Philadelphia, 1966)
  • Harry Potter

Television

  • Lost in Space (Topps, 1966)
  • Mork & Mindy (Topps, 1978)
  • The Simpsons (Topps, 1990)
  • Star Wars Clone Wars
  • The Man from UNCLE (1965)
  • The Monkees (1966)
  • Star Trek (TOS, 1967 Leaf)
  • Stargate SG-1
  • Stargate Atlantis

Factual/Historical

  • Civil War (Topps, 1962) (artwork by Norm Saunders)
  • Johnson vs. Goldwater (Topps, 1964)
  • World War II (Philadelphia, 1965)
  • Green Beret (Philadelphia, 1966)
  • Man on the moon (Topps, 1969)
  • Desert Storm (Topps, 1991)
  • Don't Let It Happen Here (Monsterwax, 2003)

Comics

  • Marvel
  • DC
  • X-Men (Impel, 1992)
  • Spider-Man

Games

The most well known are listed below, for additional, see List of collectible card games.

  • Magic: The Gathering
  • Pokémon
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!
  • Chaotic
  • VS System

Music

  • KISS
    • 1978 Donruss Series 1
    • 1978 Donruss Series 2
    • 1980 Donruss Series (re-release of the 1978 series 1 exclusively in Australia for the 1980 Unmasked tour)
    • 1997 Cornerstone Series 1
    • 1998 Cornerstone Series 2
    • 2001 NECA Alive! series
    • 2008 Presspass Ikons series
    • 2009 Presspass 360 degrees series
    • 2010 Presspass Legends series
  • Rolling Stones (Whosontour Entertainment, 2007)

Science Fiction

  • Art of H.G.Wells: The Time Machine, Island of Dr. Moreau, War of the Worlds (Monsterwax, 2005)
  • Dinosaurs Attack! (Topps, 1988)
  • Mars Attacks (Topps, 1962) (artwork by Norm Saunders)
  • The Outer Limits

Sketch Cards

A sketch card is a trading-card sized piece of original art usually measuring 2.5" (65mm) x 3.5" (90mm). They have been randomly inserted into various trading card sets since the 1990s. One of the first sets to include this type of chase card insert was the 1993 Simpsons set by SkyBox International that had 400 redemptions for an "Art DeBart Card."

The sketch card insert has been most common in non-sport trading card sets like Lord of the Rings: Evolution, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Scooby Doo: Mysteries & Monsters. A few sport sets have also adopted the idea like the 2005 Topps Gallery Baseball. One of the all-time most popular sets was the 1998 Marvel Creator's Collection by Fleer. They called their sketch cards "sketchagraph" cards. The set was popular because it used the artistic skills of hundreds of different artists who were allowed to draw any character in the Marvel Comics universe.

Sketch card inserts have usually come one-per-box of trading cards, but some sets like Hulk by Topps came one in 12 boxes, and Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces by Topps come two per box. Some companies even offer oversize (3x5 inch) sketch cards as case premiums like Fathom by Dynamic Forces.

A few of the titles that sketch cards go by include:

  • sketchagraph (Fleer/Skybox)
  • sketchafex (Rittenhouse Archives)
  • art de bart (Fleer/Skybox)

Autograph Cards

Although earlier sets contained autograph cards, cards hand signed by celebrities related to the set in question, they started to become more common when Skybox inserted original series signatures, at a ratio of 1 per box, in the Star Trek The Original Series set issues in 1997. Other companies, including Topps, Rittenhouse Archive and Inkworks, started to add autograph cards to their sets and now, many collectors routinely expect to find at least one autograph per box. Cards are signed by cast members, behind the scenes creatives and, in the case of a set based on TV series Lexx, by artists contributing art for the set. Some manufacturers have used such variations as dual autographs, triple autograph (and more!), autographed memorabilia cards and cut autographs, where a signature from a cheque or other document is secured in to a specially produced card. Recently, some manufacturers (including Topps and Inkworks) have started to use holographic or foil stickers, which are signed then affixed to the card. Collector opinions on these 'sticker cards' has been mixed.

Memorabilia/Costume/Prop Cards

Some manufacturers, most notably Topps, Inkworks and Rittenhouse Archive, have included so-called 'memorabilia' or 'costume' cards, each card containing a small piece of costume or other clothing worn in a TV series or film. As with autograph cards, these have become increasingly common, and some manufacturers insert them at the ratio of 1 or 2 per box, and have tried such 'innovations' as autographed memorabilia cards, dual memorabilia cards (containing two related pieces of material) and Prop cards, containing fragments of props used in the production of a particular film or TV series. One set, for TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and issued by Inkworks, had pieces of the 'stake' used by Buffy to kill vampires! Most are pack inserted though some of the thicker cards are only available by redemption.

References

  • Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. , 501 F.Supp. 485 (E.D. Pa. 1980).
  • Benjamin, Christopher et al. (1988). "The Sport Americana price guide to the non-sports cards". Edgewater Book Co.-Cleveland, Ohio ISBN 0-937424-36-6

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