eBay, USPS and the Death of the International Singles Market

Time to stand on my soapbox once again and bemoan the injustices inherent in being an overseas (i.e. non-US based) card collector!

Since starting this blog I’ve written at length about the problems in collecting outside the US. From obscene (and often random) import duties and admin charges to actually finding sellers who are prepared to ship internationally, the odds have always been pretty much stacked against us! Such is our lot in our collecting lives!

When USPS increased their shipping rates at the end of January 2013 the writing was already on the wall for anyone based in the US wanting to send parcels abroad. And while domestic US prices saw a small increase it was the cost of international shipping that was a real shocker!!

You can click on this link to read all about my thoughts on the USPS increases.

Late in 2012 eBay introduced their Global Postage Program, designed to help streamline the purchasing and shipping process for both sellers and international buyers. While I championed the program as far as getting hold of boxes of wax, I did envisage some potential issues with the purchasing of singles.

Click here to read my thoughts on the GPP.

Anyway, the reason for my current musings have come about while scanning some eBay listings today, on the hunt for some potential bargains in Cardinals jersey and bat relics. I started to notice a familiar pattern with regard to lower cost items and inflated shipping prices due to seller’s listing international shipping through the GPP.

Check these out, and pay close attention to the cost of the card against the cost of the postage –

As you can see, if I wanted to ‘Buy It Now’ on the David Freese relic I’ll end up paying over $18 extra in postage due to the sellers use of the Global Postage Program. If the seller sent this without using the GPP it would likely cost between $5 and $8, depending on the type of packaging used. Postage on the Miggy, as you can see, is even more!!

Yet have a look at this Adam Jones as an example of a listing without the GPP –

Here the postage for the single card is $6.50 – a much more realistic proposition! To be honest there will plenty of overseas collectors out there who would baulk at the idea of paying $6.50, but it’s important to remember that this amount is down to the machinations of USPS and NOT the seller!

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So where does that leave us now?

To be honest, the purchasing of single cards off eBay for international collectors is a costly proposition! Through the USPS increases and eBay’s implementation of the GPP things have gotten worse almost overnight, and the singles market for international collectors is all but dead.

If USPS sounded the death knell then eBay pretty much put the nail in the coffin! I know that there are alternative ways of getting your singles (COMC, Collector Revolution) but it doesn’t take an idiot to understand that eBay has far and away a greater variety of cards on offer.

So all I can do at this stage is send a message out to US sellers on behalf of all overseas collectors! I know there are a lot of you who won’t ship overseas for a variety of reasons, and I appreciate that. But to those of you who do ship internationally I implore you to not use eBay’s Global Postage Program when listing singles!

As I’ve demonstrated above the price that buyers have to pay in total for a single card is extortionately high once the GPP admin fees are figured into the final shipping cost. I’ve spoken with several sellers recently who weren’t even aware of the impact the GPP has, simply because they don’t see any extra fees being added as part of their listing process.

But the fact of the matter remains in that when the postage amount far exceeds the initial value of the card itself then no-one will ever want to buy it, which affects both the buyer and the seller. There are several cards today that I would have happily picked up had the postage amount not been inflated by the presence of the GPP in the eBay listing!

This might not matter to most sellers as international custom will only make up a miniscule percentage of their business, but without the option to purchase singles from US-based sellers our collecting options become severely limited and there’s a real danger that this could turn a lot of international collectors away from the Hobby!

And I don’t know about you guys, but I think that will be a crying shame!

Teaser Gallery: Panini America Cracks One Early Box of 2013 Cooperstown Baseball

Man, this seemed to come around quickly!! We’re only a few days away from the release of this year’s iteration of Cooperstown Baseball from Panini and Tracy has been kind enough to provide us with a look at an early break! Firstly, I absolutely love the packaging, especially the packs! Nice classic look which fits in perfectly with the type of product we’re dealing with! And then, as with last years product, there’s a huge array of base cards, parallels and inserts!! You can’t argue the value for money that appears to be on show in these boxes, but the cherry on top for me always comes in the form of the on-card autograph of a Hall of Famer, the design of which looks simple, elegant and incredibly classy!! More on this set as soon as it hits!!!

The Knight's Lance

Simply put, there’s a refreshing old-meets-new dynamic within each box — and almost within every pack — of Panini America’s 2013 Cooperstown Baseball that makes the first pack as entertaining and educational to open as the last. And after just ripping through all 24 packs of an early hobby box, we can say for certain that there’s also an abundance of hits, too.

Our particular randomly selected box — detailed in the gallery below that takes you pack-by-pack through the experience — yielded 24 Colgan’s Disks, 13 Cracked Ice parallels (and four levels of scarcity), four Induction inserts, four Historic Ticket inserts, three Museum Pieces inserts, two Numbers Game inserts, two Cooperstown Lumberjacks wood cards, two Colorized base-set SPs, one International Play and one splendid Cooperstown Signatures on-card autograph.

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A&G Half-Case Break – The Results

A couple of weeks ago I took part in another box break through Kidder Cards. It was a half-case break of 2013 Allen & Ginter’s and I’d purchased the Cardinals slot some weeks earlier.

Happily the cards arrived last week and although I didn’t get any major hits as I’d done the time before – click here for the details of that – I was still very pleased with the results!!

Here’s what I got –

I came out with a full set of base cards (non-SPs) along with a fair few dupes as well. Oddly enough I only got the one Shelby Miller RC out of the six boxes despite the fact there were pretty much at least two of all of the other major RCs, including Puig and Machado.

I’m not sure what the collation was like across the board and we might get more details on this over time as some of the bigger case breakers write up the results of their breaks.

Out of the three Cardinal SPs in the set I got two of the three (Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright – although I doubled up on the Molina). This means I’m an Ozzie Smith SP short of a full team set, so if anyone out there’s got The Wizard for trade then let me know as I’ll definitely be interested in that one!

Finally I got two minis (Stan The Man and Waino, both standard backs). I love the A&G minis, especially this years!! I’m still toying with the idea of putting together a set of the A&G back minis but keep baulking at the thought of how big a task I might be setting myself!

We’ll have to wait and see!!!

I don’t know if it’s me or not but there seems to be a whole lot more HOFers and retired players this year, not that I’m complaining as I like seeing older players depicted in modern sets, and the more different players that are added to those from previous years the better as far as I’m concerned!

So there we go!! No relics, autos or other hi-end inserts this time round. In some ways I’m glad I didn’t hit any of the framed relics as several of the ones that Geoff pulled as part of the break were damaged out of the box. It looks as if this was done during the packing process and I hope that Topps will resolve this for those who landed any of these damaged inserts!

Thanks go, as always to Geoff, for the break itself and the exemplary post-break customer service! Here’s to the next one!!

2013/14 Topps Premier Gold Soccer Preview

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a short post back on 9th August announcing (no – more like “shouting from the rooftops”) the forthcoming release of Topps’ first official trading card set dedicated to the Barclays Premier League!

No, I’m sorry Topps Attax, but you most certainly don’t bloody count!

Now, this will be a Football card set and I won’t make any apologies for not calling it anything other than that! Topps may well label it up as ‘Soccer’ but to anyone outside the US, Football is what it will be!

I mentioned back in that post two weeks ago that although I set The Wax Fantastic up as a Baseball card blog 12 months ago I’d be remiss if I didn’t cover this set (along with any other Premier League sets) that Topps are kind enough to release in the future! I also promised to try and keep you as up to date as possible with any details about this set as they emerge, so here we are with the first official product release details straight from Topps!

2013/14 Topps Premier Gold Soccer Sell Sheet

Topps has gone for the high-end release with this particular set and this might not be a bad thing as a way of introducing collectors to the wonders of the English Premier League. Good quality cards with a varied array of game-used relics and autographs will hopefully strike just the right balance to draw collectors in! Picking up a box of this may well be out of the price range of most collector’s when it comes out but I get the feeling that there will be a healthy singles market springing from this set!!

If the set is a success then I’m hoping that a ‘proper’ trading card release will be just around the corner, something akin to one of the base Topps US sports with 300+ cards per set and a handful of inserts and a relic/auto per box! This will give us more players from more teams, and will be a true representation of what we’d expect from a Premier League Football card set!!

Hats off to Topps for having the stones to produce a product like this. Football is easily the most followed sport across the world and the Barclay’s Premiership arguably the most prominent and supported league!

Topps has effectively lit the torch, now it’s up to the rest of us to carry it and ensure that this set is the success it deserves to be, paving the way for more Football related products from Topps in the future!

Introducing… The Squiggle Squad

Perhaps one of the more annoying aspects of the Hobby, particularly for autograph collectors (but we all can emote in some small way), is the growing trend amongst professional athletes to seemingly not take enough care and time when signing their certified autographed cards!

However, I can appreciate that the growing demands on the time for these people can be pretty huge, so to indulge in a monotonous ‘mass-signing’ task must be pretty soul destroying at times, and any conceivable way to speed things up is pretty much a necessity!

As a result we see the effects of what I call ‘BArely LegibLe Signature Syndrome’ or BALLS (for the purpose of a cheap laugh)!

Now I’m not tarnishing ALL ballplayers with the same brush as there are dozens of excellent signers out there, especially amongst the older players. There are some HOFer signatures that border on the downright exquisite, and there are a number of current signers could do well to learn a few things from these great gentlemen of the game when it comes to gracing Baseball cards with their own John Hancocks!

So it’s with the ‘corner-cutters’ in mind, those Baseball players who appear to suffer an acute case of BALLS, that I dedicate the 1st Annual Squiggle Squad Awards!

I know that everyone will have their own favourites, some of which will differ greatly to the ones here, but I’ve put mine down by position (which unfortunately meant I had to exclude Jason Heyward, whose auto is bad enough to warrant a special mention despite his absence from the list)!

Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, I give you ‘The Squiggle Squad’!

Catcher
Wilin Rosario

First Base
Paul Goldschmidt

Second Base
Dustin Pedroia

Third Base
Brett Lawrie

Shortstop
Ian Desmond

Left Field
Carl Crawford

Centre Field
Jon Jay

Right Field
Wil Myers

Starter
Tony Cingrani

Closer
Jim Johnson

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You know, you’ve just gotta love that Wil Myers, haven’t you? And as a Cardinals fan – “Jon Jay!! You should be ashamed of yourself!!”

A huge congratulations to all the worthy recipients! You’re all a great credit to the world of crappy certified autograph signing!!

As I noted above, there are dozens of other potential winners of these ‘prestigious’ awards! If you’ve got a favourite then why not send it in with a link to the card and I’ll look at posting some more at some point in the future!

How To Improve The Hobby

No, just relax. This isn’t me having another ‘soapbox’ moment about the current ‘state’ of the card collecting Hobby!

I can’t even take the credit for these posts, I’m simply just the messenger on this occasion! So instead I’ll hand you over to Sport Card Collectors who have put together a series of articles that look at different aspects of the Hobby and examines what works; what doesn’t; and IF it doesn’t, what can be done to make things better.

Rather than casting disparaging and overly negative remarks against the card companies and other hobbyists, what we actually get are a series of nicely thought through posts that seek to build rather than pull down! There are only four different articles and I’ve put the links to each one below.

Please, please, please take the time to read them and leave any comments as you see fit and follow Sport Card Collectors on Twitter @SportsCardCollec

Thanks for your time!

How To Improve The Hobby Part 1: Redemptions

How To Improve The Hobby Part 2: Target “Ole Fashioned Collectors”

How To Improve The Hobby Part 3: Target Hobby’s Future

How To Improve The Hobby Part 4: Customer Service

An Allen & Ginter’s Trade

Continuing our ongoing A&G theme I just wanted to let you know of a recent trade I completed with a fellow UK collector and Cardinals fan, Jeff Vernon!

Jeff ordered four boxes of Ginter and bust them all last Friday, I’ve put a link to his review in the A&G Review Hub (Jeff’s Collection’s) or you can click here to have a look. There was a nice selection of cards from the looks of things, including a Shelby Miller mini framed auto and a redemption for a Don Mattingly mini framed auto! Not too shabby!!

So I had a look at his ‘Wants List’ and sent him some singles from 2013 Archives, and in return I got the following –

Madison Bumgarner Mini Framed Jersey Relic

I know that these mini relics really divide opinion, especially around the design of the borders. And while it’s true that they’ve lost some of their colour and sparkle over the last few years, I really have to admit to loving this year’s border design. Particularly the ‘art deco’ themed one that encases the Bumgarner above.

So this was a no-brainer! Nice looking card and the my daughter’s almost end up pissing themselves laughing whenever they hear the name ‘Bumgarner’! Kids, eh?

And as an aside you can pop over to Night Owl Cards for a great examination of the A&G mini frames over the last few years!

‘People on Bicycles’ Mini Insert

I’ve written at length about my love of the non-Baseball minis that have littered Ginter throughout the years! And despite the fact that I’ve already tried to (unsuccessfully) put a few of these sets together before I still like the idea of having another stab at them.

There’s just something so – I dunno – collectable about them!!

Paul Goldschmidt Mini Framed Autograph

While it looks as if that the D’Backs young slugger is the latest in a long line of illegible signers (I’ve decided to christen them ‘The Squiggle Squad’) I was really happy to get hold of this! Goldschmidt is a beast and this card is definitely a keeper!!

Back in late 2010, just as I’d just returned to the Hobby, I bought a retail box of 2010 Allen & Ginter’s! It was something of an impulse buy at the time but it did pay dividends as I pulled a Clayton Kershaw mini framed auto. Unfortunately I eBayed it not long after and I’ve come to regret that decision for obvious reasons.

So from this point forward any auto’s that I get like this, even if they aren’t Cardinals players, I’ll be keeping hold of, thank you very much!!

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So overall I was very happy with these three cards (along with the few extra singles that he threw in)! I did try and pry the Mattingly redemption off him but no joy 🙂

So many thanks for the cards Jeff! Lets hope we can do it again soon!!

2014 Topps Series 1 Baseball Preview

And finally here it is!! The one we’ve all been waiting for!

Usually the first to arrive on our collecting doorsteps, for 2014 year Topps has messed around with their release schedule, a schedule that will first see Tribute AND Heritage hit before the flagship product!

But wait no longer, good reader!! Details of 2014 Topps Baseball are upon us!

2014 Topps Baseball Sell Sheet

As always I’ve linked in the sell sheet so just click on the above to get all the juicy details for what Topps have got in store for us! And remember – THE FUTURE IS NOW!!

So, lets see what we’ve got:

• A 330-card base set – Check
• One per Hobby box relic/autograph (three per Jumbo box) – Check
• Manufactured ‘commemorative’ relics – Check
• Retro-styled minis – Check
• Far too many parallels for a player collector to reasonably expect to get their hands on – Check
• A plethora of inserts that mainly exist to make up the numbers and bulk out the product – Check

OK! On the surface things look pretty much the same as 2013 (and 2012)! There are a couple items that have got my attention these being the clear acetate base parallels and the introduction of Strata to its first Baseball release! And the minis look great as always!

But overall I’m struggling with next year’s release a little. Firstly it’s too ‘samey’ as the last couple of years. Aside from the two inserts I mentioned above next year’s release is a carbon copy of this year’s. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, I guess!

The second issue I have is with the base card!

Basically I’m not a big fan. I loved the 2013 version as soon as I saw it, but this one? Really not sold yet! You never know, it might grow on me! Maybe it’s just the horrible position of the team name down the right-hand side of the card?

Who knows? Let me know what the rest of you guys think!

2014 Topps Baseball – Hit or Miss??

Allen & Ginter’s ‘Lid-Gate’

Has the dust settled yet?

Unless you’ve been living under a large, Baseball card shaped rock for the last couple of days you can’t have failed to have heard a few rumblings coming from the world of 2013 Allen & Ginter’s!

Around 10.00pm (GMT) last Saturday evening I was tapping away on the laptop, keeping an eye on Twitter and generally minding my own business when these tweets appeared courtesy of case-breaker extraordinaire, Brent Williams –

 

What was this? Breaking hobby news? And here I was witnessing it first hand?? Very exciting.

In all honesty, due to my geographical location, I often end up reading about this sort of thing the following day! But actually being there as it started to spread out over the internet was pretty cool (I tell you, it really doesn’t take that much to make me happy)!

Anyway back to Brent, and what exactly had he found? Well, while using his empty boxes as packaging to send out all his pre-sold sets he chanced upon a sealed card tucked away in the A&G box lid, a card that he’d accidentally scored into!

On further inspection Brent found that the sealed card was a glossy parallel of the Mark Scutaro base card and as was numbered 1/1 on the back!! WTF?!?!?!

Brent tweeted his findings and things then got moving pretty quickly as more of these 1/1’s started to turn up. Brent went back to the 350+ boxes he had opened (I forget the exact number but it was bloody huge) and searched through all the lids on those, turning up two more sealed 1/1’s in the form of James Shields and Mo Rivera.

Chris Olds of Beckett Media had just the one box that he’d done a Box Buster video for just days earlier and found a Starlin Castro 1/1 tucked in his lid!

Lucky bugger!!

And back on the internet someone’s found a Carlton Fisk, a Matt Moore! A few hours later someone will have listed the Mike Trout 1/1 on eBay for a penny shy of $2,000!! Topher over at Crackin’ Wax ran a charity case-break on Sunday night and pulled a Babe Ruth glossy in one of his boxes! Nice!!!

As word started to get out about this find, outrage began to spread amongst certain sectors of the Hobby. Collectors and dealers were up in arms, keen to point out how once again they’d been shafted over by the great evil that is Topps! How could they not tell us?? How many of these precious 1/1s have been lost during the first few days after A&G’s release??

To be fair Topps did drop us a hint on Twitter on the day of the release, albeit something of a cryptic one –

As I sit and write this now, after just a few days, it’s already starting to feel like old news and it will only be a matter of time before it all blows over completely!

And what will we end up taking away from all of this?

Well, personally I’ve got to tip my hat to Topps on this one!! Here I am, on the outside looking in, and I still can’t hide the beaming smile across my face! This whole thing has been an absolute stroke of genius by Topps! Someone mentioned on Twitter (apologies but I forget who) that this was the closest you’ll get to having an Easter Egg inside a sports card product, and they’re exactly right! I’ll say it again – a complete stroke of genius!!

Topps played an absolute blinder!

I can completely appreciate how and why certain people feel aggrieved by what’s occurred here, but come on! Realistically all people are pissed off about is the fact that they might have missed out on an added hit, a little something extra that Topps put into this year’s product, that they weren’t able to quickly flip and turn into cash!

It’s not about the preservation of these rare 1/1 glossy gems – it’s all about the missed opportunity to make an extra few bucks! Player collector’s may well weep and lament the (potential) passing of part of their collecting dreams but we’ll never truly know how many of these cards have gone missing or have been destroyed simply because we didn’t know they were there. And that just adds to the legend!!

Imagine if Brent hadn’t stumbled over that Scutaro while cutting up that box lid! It might be the case that these ‘hidden treasures’ remained just that – hidden treasures, never seeing the light of day and the world goes on turning as normal!

I can’t help but feel that there’s a certain poetry in this events, a certain ‘something’ that fits perfectly what Allen & Ginter’s is all about – something fun and different!

Just a few days ago I was commenting on the look of some of next year’s Topps Baseball products, saying that there seems to be a certain malaise around the sets these days, a certain lack of innovation around their products! And then all of a sudden they go and spring this one on us!

Good on yer Topps! Just by having the stones to do something different you’ve earned the respect of this collector all over again! Aside from being a great looking set, nobody is going to forget 2013 Allen & Ginter’s in a hurry!

The Ultimate Allen & Ginter’s Non-Baseball Mini Checklist

OK then folks! I’m really starting to think I should have done a ‘Ginter Week’ theme!!

One of the things that I love about Allen & Ginter’s, year in year out, are the minis.

And no, I’m not talking about the Baseball minis (although they are pretty cool – A&G does THE best minis!!), what I am talking about are the several different sets of non-Baseball minis that get randomly inserted each year.

I just love the eclectic mix of subjects that goes into these sets – ranging from Greek Gods to famous Haunted Houses, from Politicians and World Leaders to Endangered Animals, there really is something for everyone, and these small sets really bring out the collector in me.

Just under a year ago I did have a stab at putting some of these sets together, and I was moderately successful with around 15 full sets, but other things ended up getting in the way and I ended up selling them on eBay! As with most items that I invest time in putting together, only to eventually get rid of before moving on to something else, I’ve since come to regret this decision!

But that’s how it goes I guess! Anyway, while putting my aborted collection together I did collate a list of ALL the non-Baseball mini sets that had appeared in A&G since it’s first release back in 2006 (although the non-Baseball mini inserts didn’t actually feature until 2007). I’m not sure if anyone has ever done this before, so here they are for your reference and viewing pleasure!

Note: I’ve not included the ‘One of a Kind’ minis that were inserted throughout Rip Cards in the 2013 A&G release. Since some of those minis have already surfaced on eBat I’ll probably leave those for another post!

I will post some more images in due course, just to fill the list out! And be warned – it’s a pretty loooong list!

2007 Flags

1 Algeria
2 Argentina
3 Australia
4 Austria
5 Belgium
6 Brazil
7 Bulgaria
8 Canada
9 Chile
10 China
11 Colombia
12 Costa Rica
13 Denmark
14 Dominican Republic
15 Ecuador
16 Egypt
17 Ryan France
18 Germany
19 Greece
20 Greenland
21 Honduras
22 Iceland
23 India
24 Indonesia
25 Ireland
26 Israel
27 Italy
28 Ivory Coast
29 Jamaica
30 Japan
31 Kenya
32 Mexico
33 Morocco
34 Netherlands
35 Nigeria
36 Norway
37 Panama

38 Peru
39 Philippines
40 Portugal
41 Puerto Rico
42 Russian Federation
43 Spain
44 Switzerland
45 Taiwan
46 Thailand
47 Turkey
48 United Arab Emirates
49 United Kingdom
50 United States of America

2007 Roman Emperors

1 Julius Caesar
2 Caesar Augustus
3 Tiberius
4 Caligula
5 Claudius
6 Nero
7 John Titus
8 Hadrian
9 Marcus Aurelius
10 Septimus Severus

2007 World’s Deadliest Snakes

1 Arizona Coral Snake
2 Copperhead
3 Black Mamba

4 King Cobra
5 Cottonmouth

2008 World Leaders

WL1 Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
WL2 Kevin Rudd
WL3 Guy Verhofstadt
WL4 Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
WL5 Stephen Harper
WL6 Michelle Bachelet Jeria
WL7 Oscar Arias Sanchez
WL8 Mirek Topolanek
WL9 Anders Fogh Rasmussen
WL10 Leonel Fernandez Reyna
WL11 Mohamed Hosni Mubarak
WL12 Tarja Halonen
WL13 Nicolas Sarkozy
WL14 Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh
WL15 Angela Merkel
WL16 Konstandinos Karamanlis
WL17 Benedict XVI
WL18 Geir H. Haarde
WL19 Manmohan Singh
WL20 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
WL21 Bertie Ahern
WL22 Ehud Olmert
WL23 Bruce Golding
WL24 Yasuo Fukuda
WL25 Mwai Kibaki
WL26 Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa
WL27 Sanjaa Bayar
WL28 Armando Guebuza
WL29 Girija Prasad Koirala
WL30 Jan Peter Balkenede
WL31 Helen Clark
WL32 Jens Stoltenberg
WL33 Qaboos bin Said al-Said
WL34 Alan Garcia Perez
WL35 Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
WL36 Donald Tusk
WL37 Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
WL38 Robert Fico
WL39 Thabo Mbeki
WL40 Lee Myung-bak
WL41 Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
WL42 Fredrik Reinfeldt
WL43 Pascal Couchepin
WL44 Jakaya Kikwete
WL45 Samak Sundavavej
WL46 Tenzin Gyatso
WL47 Patrick Manning
WL48 Gordon Brown

WL49 George W. Bush
WL50 Nguyen Tan Dung

2008 World’s Deadliest Sharks

WDS1 Great White Shark
WDS2 Tiger Shark
WDS3 Bull Shark
WDS4 Oceanic Whitetip Shark
WDS5 Mako Shark

2008 Ancient Icons

A1 Gilgamesh
A2 Marduk
A3 Beowulf
A4 Poseidon
A5 The Sphinx
A6 Tutankhamen
A7 Alexander the Great
A8 Cleopatra
A9 Sun Tzu
A10 Quetzalcoatl
A11 Isis
A12 Hercules
A13 King Arthur
A14 Miyamoto Musashi
A15 Genghis Khan
A16 Zeus
A17 Achilles
A18 Confucius
A19 Attila the Hun
A20 Romulus & Remus

2008 Baseball Icons

BI1 Cy Young
BI2 Walter Johnson
BI3 Jackie Robinson
BI4 Thurman Munson
BI5 Mel Ott
BI6 Honus Wagner

BI7 Pee Wee Reese
BI8 Tris Speaker
BI9 Christy Mathewson
BI10 Ty Cobb
BI11 Johnny Mize
BI12 Jimmie Foxx
BI13 Lou Gehrig
BI14 Roy Campanella
BI15 George Sisler
BI16 Rogers Hornsby
BI17 Babe Ruth

2008 Team Orange

TO1 Cornelius Franks
TO2 Mittens McCluskey
TO3 Capt. WP Mantooth
TO4 Wheelbarrow Walker
TO5 Archibald Clinker
TO6 Minty Beans
TO7 Francisco Fiasco
TO8 Thurgood Cartwright IV
TO9 Enzo DiStubbs
TO10 Sir Wagonwheel Stevens

2009 National Heroes

NH1 George Washington
NH2 Haile Selassie
NH3 Toussaint Louverture
NH4 Rigas Feraios
NH5 Yi Sun-sin
NH6 Giuseppe Garibaldi
NH7 Juan Santamaria
NH8 Tecun Uman
NH9 Jon Sigurosson
NH10 Mohandas Gandhi
NH11 Simon Bolivar
NH12 Alexander Nevsky
NH13 Lim Bo Seng
NH14 Sun Yat-sen
NH15 Tiradentes
NH16 Chiang Kai-Shek
NH17 William I
NH18 Severyn Nalyvaiko
NH19 Vasil Levski
NH20 Tadeusz Kosciuszko
NH21 Andranik Toros Ozanian
NH22 William Wallace
NH23 Oda Nobunaga
NH24 Milos Obilic
NH25 Niels Ebbeson
NH26 Jose Rizal
NH27 Alfonso Ugarte
NH28 Mustafa Ataturk
NH29 Nelson Mandela
NH30 El Cid
NH31 Achieng Oneko
NH32 Winston Churchill
NH33 Skanderbeg
NH34 General Jose de San Martin
NH35 Janos Damjanich
NH36 Joan of Arc
NH37 Abd al-Qadir
NH38 David Ben-Gurion
NH39 Benito Juarez
NH40 Marcus Garvey

2009 Creatures of Legend, Myth And Terror

LMT1 Bigfoot
LMT2 The Loch Ness Monster
LMT3 Grendel
LMT4 Unicorn
LMT5 The Invisible Man
LMT6 Kraken
LMT7 Medusa
LMT8 Sphinx
LMT9 Minotaur
LMT10 Dragon
LMT11 Leviathan
LMT12 Cyclops
LMT13 Vampire

LMT14 Griffin
LMT15 Chupacabra
LMT16 Cerberus
LMT17 Hydra
LMT18 Werewolf
LMT19 Fairy
LMT20 Yeti

2009 World’s Greatest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks and Bamboozles

HHB1 Charles Ponzi
HHB2 Alabama Changes Value of Pi
HHB3 The Runaway Bride
HHB4 Idaho
HHB5 The Turk
HHB6 Enron
HHB7 Anna Anderson
HHB8 Ferdinand Waldo Demara
HHB9 San Serriffe
HHB10 D.B. Cooper
HHB11 Wisconsin State Capitol Collapses
HHB12 Victor Lusting
HHB13 The War of the Worlds
HHB14 George Parker
HHB15 The Bathtub Hoax
HHB16 The Cottingley Fairies
HHB17 James Reavis
HHB18 The Piltdown Man
HHB19 The Cardiff Giant
HHB20 Cold Fusion

2009 Inventions of the Future

FI1 Aeromobile

FI2 Clock Defier
FI3 Protecto-Bubble
FI4 Here-To-There-O-Matic
FI5 Mental Movies

2009 Extinct Animals

EA1 Velociraptor
EA2 Dodo
EA3 Xerces Blue
EA4 Labrador Duck
EA5 Eastern Elk

2010 Sailors of the Seven Seas Checklist

SSS1 Christopher Columbus
SSS2 Sir Francis Drake
SSS3 Sir Walter Raleigh
SSS4 Vasco Nunez de Balboa
SSS5 Vasquez de Coronado
SSS6 Hernando de Cortes
SSS7 Hernando de Soto
SSS8 Henry Hudson
SSS9 Francisco Pizarro
SSS10 Juan Ponce de Leon

2010 World’s Greatest Wordsmiths

WGWS1 Homer
WGWS2 William Shakespeare
WGWS3 Washington Irving
WGWS4 Miguel de Cervantes
WGWS5 Fyodor Dostoevsky
WGWS6 Victor Hugo
WGWS7 Shen Kuo
WGWS8 John Milton
WGWS9 Dante Alighieri
WGWS10 Edgar Allan Poe
WGWS11 Marcus Aurelius
WGWS12 Virgil
WGWS13 John Bunyan
WGWS14 Plato
WGWS15 Confucius

2010 National Animals

NA1 Cougar
NA2 Cuban Crocodile
NA3 Falcon
NA4 Cheetah
NA5 Cow
NA6 Kangaroo
NA7 Ostrich
NA8 Chihuahua
NA9 Jaguar
NA10 Bull
NA11 Harpy Eagle
NA12 Markhor
NA13 African Elephant
NA14 Barbary Macaque
NA15 Giant Panda
NA16 Leopard
NA17 Camel
NA18 Beaver
NA19 Alpaca
NA20 Lion
NA21 Lynx
NA22 Stag
NA23 Elk
NA24 Condor
NA25 Wisent
NA26 Gray Wolf
NA27 Gallic Rooster
NA28 Sable Antelope
NA29 Flamingo
NA30 Koi
NA31 Ashy-faced Owl
NA32 Bulldog
NA33 Brown Bear
NA34 White-tailed Deer
NA35 Russian Bear
NA36 Dolphin
NA37 Komodo Dragon
NA38 Llama
NA39 Sheep
NA40 King Cobra
NA41 Green-and-black Streamertail
NA42 Carabao
NA43 Water Buffalo
NA44 Israeli Gazelle
NA45 Italian Wolf
NA46 Ring Tailed Lemur
NA47 Tiger
NA48 Dalmatian
NA49 Zebra
NA50 Bald Eagle

2010 Monsters of the Mesozoic

MM1 Tyrannosaurus Rex
MM2 Triceratops
MM3 Stegosaurus
MM4 Velociraptor
MM5 Allosaurus
MM6 Megalosaurus
MM7 Spinosaurus
MM8 Ankylosaurus
MM9 Apatosaurus
MM10 Brachiosaurus
MM11 Diplodocus
MM12 Iguanodon
MM13 Pachycephalosaurus
MM14 Pentaceratops
MM15 Protoceratops
MM16 Ultrasaurus
MM17 Dilophosaurus
MM18 Supersaurus
MM19 Nomingia
MM20 Oviraptor
MM21 Bambiraptor
MM22 Protarchaeopteryx
MM23 Carcharodontosaurus
MM24 Carnotaurus
MM25 Giganotosaurus

2010 World’s Biggest

NOTE: The first five cards in this set are seeded all ALL retail packs (i.e. retail boxes, Blasters, and gravity-feeded looseys). Cards #WB6-#WB25 are exclusive to gravity-feeded looseys

WB1 Animal (Blue Whale)
WB2 Skyscraper (Burj Khalifa)
WB3 Castle (Prague Castle)
WB4 Tree (General Sherman)
WB5 Mountain (Mount Everest)
WB6 Desert (Antarctica)
WB7 Hot Desert (The Sahara)
WB8 Waterfall (Angel Falls)
WB9 Tropical Rain Forest (The Amazon)
WB10 Active Geyser (Steamboat Geyser)
WB11 Bridge (Lake Pontchartrain Causeway)
WB12 River (The Nile)
WB13 Country (Russia)
WB14 Dam (Three Gorges Dam)
WB15 Diamond (The Golden Jubilee)
WB16 Land Canivore (The Polar Bear)
WB17 Land Animal (African Elephant)
WB18 Primate (Eastern Lowland Gorilla)
WB19 Spider (Goliath Birdeater)
WB20 World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things
WB21 Particle Accelerator (Large Hadron Collider)
WB22 Meteor Shower (The Lenoids)
WB23 Man Made Crater (Sedan Crater)
WB24 Book (Kuthodaw Pagoda)
WB25 Statue (Spring Temple Buddha)

2010 Creatures of Legend, Myth & Joy

CLMJ1 Santa Claus

CLMJ2 The Easter Bunny
CLMJ3 The Tooth Fairy
CLMJ4 Goldilocks
CLMJ5 Little Red Riding Hood
CLMJ6 Paul Bunyan
CLMJ7 Jack (and the Beanstalk)
CLMJ8 Peter Pan
CLMJ9 Three Little Pigs
* CLMJ10 The Little Engine that Could (There were plans to release this card but it was never produced)

2010 Lords of Olympus

LO1 Zeus
LO2 Poseidon
LO3 Hades
LO4 Hera
LO5 Athena
LO6 Apollo
LO7 Aphrodite
LO8 Hermes
LO9 Artemis
LO10 Gaea
LO11 Uranus
LO12 Cronos
LO13 Prometheus
LO14 Phoebe
LO15 Demeter
LO16 Persephone
LO17 Dionysus
LO18 Eros
LO19 Helios
LO20 Thanatos
LO21 Pan
LO22 Nemesis
LO23 The Fates
LO24 The Muses
LO25 Atlas

2010 World’s Saltiest Sailors

WSS1 Edward Blackbeard Teach
WSS2 Ned Low
WSS3 Calico Jack Rackham
WSS4 Stede Bonnet
WSS5 Bartholomew Black Bart Roberts
WSS6 Captain Kidd
WSS7 Sir Henry Morgan
WSS8 Edward England
WSS9 Thomas Tew
WSS10 Charles Vane

2011 Fortunes for the Taking

FFT1 The Oak Island Money Pit
FFT2 Captian Kidd’s Treasure
FFT3 The Beale Ciphers
FFT4 The Amber Room
FFT5 The Devonshire Treasure of Cocos Island
FFT6 Blackbeard’s Treasure
FFT7 The Treasure of Lima
FFT8 Montezuma’s Treasure
FFT9 Butch Cassidy’s Loot
FFT10 The Lost French Gold to Ohio

2011 Flora of the World

FOW-1 Black-Eyed Susan
FOW-2 Spurred Snapdragon

FOW-3 Shirley Poppy
FOW-4 Mexican Hat
FOW-5 Sweet Alyssum

2011 Animals in Peril

AP1 Siberian Tiger
AP2 Mountain Gorilla
AP3 Arakan Forest Turtle
AP4 Darwin’s Fox
AP5 Gharial
AP6 Vaquita
AP7 Dhole
AP8 Blue Whale
AP9 Bonobo
AP10 Ethiopian Wolf
AP11 Giant Panda
AP12 Snow Leopard
AP13 African Wild Dog
AP14 Indian Rhionceros
AP15 Philippine Eagle
AP16 Markhor
AP17 Orangutan
AP18 Grevy’s Zebra
AP19 Tasmanian Devil
AP20 Bengal Tiger
AP21 Whooping Crane
AP22 Sea Otter
AP23 Red Wolf
AP24 Key Deer
AP25 Black-Footed Ferret
AP26 Amur Leopard
AP27 Anderson’s Salamander
AP28 Greater Bamboo Lemur
AP29 Hawaiian Monk Seal
AP30 Kakapo

2011 Portraits in Penultimacy

PP1 Antonio Meucci
PP2 Mike Gellner
PP3 Dr. Watson
PP4 Igor
PP5 The Hare
PP6 Tonto
PP7 Antonio Salieri
PP8 Sancho Panza
PP9 Thomas E. Dewey
PP10 Toto
World’s Most Mysterious Figures

2011 World’s Most Mysterious Figures

WMF1 Rasputin
WMF2 The Poe Toaster
WMF3 Kasper Hauser
WMF4 Fulcanelli
WMF5 D.B. Cooper
WMF6 The Count of St. Germain
WMF7 The Man in the Iron Mask
WMF8 Nostradamus
WMF9 The Babushka Lady
WMF10 Captain Charles Johnson

2011 Step Right Up!

SRU1 The Bed of Nails
SRU2 Fire Breathing
SRU3 Fire Eating
SRU4 The Flea Circus
SRU5 The Human Cannonball

SRU6 The Human Blockhead
SRU7 Snake Charming
SRU8 The Strongman
SRU9 Knife Throwing
SRU10 Tightrope Walking

2011 Uninvited Guests

UG1 Bachelor’s Grove Cemetary
UG2 The White House
UG3 Waverly Hills Sanatorium
UG4 The Villisca Axe Murder House
UG5 The Amityville Haunting
UG6 The Lemp Mansion
UG7 Alcatraz
UG8 The Winchester Mystery House
UG9 RMS Queen Mary
UG10 The Lizzie Borden House

2011 Fabulous Face Flocculence

FFF1 “The Lincoln” (Abraham Lincoln)
FFF2 “The Ironing Board”
FFF3 “The Conscientious Objector”
FFF4 “The Bib”
FFF5 “The Darwin” (Charles Darwin)

FFF6 “The Neckbeard”
FFF7 “The Goat-Patch”
FFF8 “Burnside’s Sideburns”
FFF9 “Thunderchops”
FFF10 “The Closer” (Brian Wilson)

2012 Guys in Hats

GH-1 The Bowler
GH-2 The Boater
GH-3 The Fedora
GH-4 The Fez
GH-5 The Pith Helmet
GH-6 The Top Hat
GH-7 The Mortarboard
GH-8 The Flat Cap
GH-9 The Garrison Hat
GH-10 The Bicorne

2012 Fashionable Ladies

FL-1 The First Lady
FL-2 The Flapper
FL-3 The Queen
FL-4 The Victorian
FL-5 The Bustle
FL-6 The Weekender
FL-7 The Bride
FL-8 The Sportswoman

FL-9 The Ingenue
FL-10 The Icon

2012 People of the Bible

PB-1 David
PB-2 Moses
PB-3 Abraham
PB-4 Job
PB-5 Jonah
PB-6 Daniel
PB-7 Mary Magdalene
PB-8 Peter
PB-9 Jesus
PB-10 Luke
PB-11 Adam & Eve
PB-12 Isaiah
PB-13 Joseph
PB-14 Mary
PB-15 John the Baptist

2012 Man’s Best Friend

MBF-1 Siberian Husky
MBF-2 Dalmatian
MBF-3 Golden Retriever
MBF-4 German Shepherd
MBF-5 Beagle
MBF-6 Dachshund
MBF-7 Yorkshire Terrier
MBF-8 Labrador Retriever
MBF-9 Boxer
MBF-10 Poodle
MBF-11 Chihuahua
MBF-12 Shih Tzu
MBF-13 Collie

MBF-14 Pug
MBF-15 Cocker Spaniel
MBF-16 Saint Bernard
MBF-17 Bulldog
MBF-18 Boston Terrier
MBF-19 Basset Hound
MBF-20 Shetland Sheepdog

2012 World’s Greatest Military Leaders

ML-1 Alexander the Great
ML-2 Simon Bolivar
ML-3 Oliver Cromwell
ML-4 Julius Caesar
ML-5 Cyrus the Great
ML-6 Hannibal Barca
ML-7 Napoleon Bonaparte
ML-8 George Washington
ML-9 Ulysses S. Grant
ML-10 Dwight D. Eisenhower
ML-11 Leonidas
ML-12 Charlemagne
ML-13 Saladin
ML-14 Duke of Wellington
ML-15 Horatio Nelson
ML-16 Frederick the Great
ML-17 Duke of Marlborough
ML-18 William Wallace
ML-19 Darius the Great
ML-20 Sun Tzu

2012 Giants of the Deep

GD-1 Humpback Whale
GD-2 Sperm Whale
GD-3 Blue Whale
GD-4 Narwhal
GD-5 Beluga
GD-6 Bowhead Whale
GD-7 Right Whale
GD-8 Fin Whale
GD-9 Orca
GD-10 Pilot Whale
GD-11 Pygmy Sperm Whale
GD-12 Minke Whale
GD-13 Gray Whale
GD-14 Bottlenose Whale
GD-15 Bryde’s Whale

2012 Musical Masters

MM-1 Johann Sebastian Bach
MM-2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
MM-3 Ludwig van Beethoven
MM-4 Richard Wagner
MM-5 Joseph Haydn
MM-6 Johannes Brahms
MM-7 Franz Schubert
MM-8 Georg Friedrich Handel
MM-9 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
MM-10 Sergei Prokofiev
MM-11 Antonin Dvorak
MM-12 Franz Liszt
MM-13 Frederic Chopin
MM-14 Igor Stravinsky
MM-15 Giuseppe Verdi
MM-16 Gustav Mahler

2012 Culinary Curiosities

CC1 Nutria
CC2 Haggis
CC3 Kopi Luwak
CC4 Casu Marzu
CC5 Rocky Mountain Oysters
CC6 Hakarl
CC7 Fugu
CC8 Sannakji
CC9 Balut
CC10 Muktuk

2013 The First Americans

TFA-ALG Algonquian
TFA-AP Apache
TFA-BNK Bannock
TFA-CHK Cherokee
TFA-CHY Cheyenne
TFA-CM Comanche
TFA-HPI Hopi
TFA-IRQ Iroquois
TFA-LK Lakota
TFA-NV Navajo
TFA-PUB Pueblo
TFA-PWN Pawnee
TFA-SX Sioux
TFA-WCT Wichita
TFA-ZN Zuni

2013 Inquiring Minds

IM-AR Aristotle
IM-AS Arthur Schopenhauer
IM-AUG St. Augustine
IM-FB Francis Bacon
IM-BS Baruch Spinoza
IM-EP Epicurus
IM-FN Friedrich Nietzsche
IM-GH Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
IM-HA Hannah Arendt
IM-JPS Jean-Paul Sartre
IM-KM Karl Marx
IM-NM Niccolo Machiavelli
IM-PTO Plato
IM-RD Rene Descartes
IM-SCR Socrates
IM-SDB Simone de Beauvoir
IM-ST Sun Tzu
IM-TA Thomas Aquinas
IM-TH Thomas Hobbes
IM-IK Immanuel Kant
IM-JL John Locke

2013 Famous Finds

FF-CA The Cave of Altamira
FF-CG Cairo Geniza
FF-DSS Dead Sea Scrolls
FF-KTT King Tut’s Tomb
FF-L Olduvai Gorge / Lucy
FF-NHL Nag Hammadi Library
FF-P Pompeii
FF-PS The Pilate Stone

FF-QSH The Tomb of the Qin Shi Huang
FF-RS Rosetta Stone

2013 Heavy Hangs the Head

HHH-ALX Alexander I
HHH-ATG Alexander the Great
HHH-AUG Augustus
HHH-CHR Charlemagne
HHH-CLE Cleopatra
HHH-CON Constantine
HHH-CTG Cyrus the Great
HHH-DK King David
HHH-EM Emperor Meiji
HHH-FA Ferdinand & Isabella
HHH-FRD Frederick II
HHH-GA Gustavus Adolphus
HHH-ITT Ivan the Terrible
HHH-JC Julius Caesar
HHH-KH King Henry VIII
HHH-KHN King Henry V
HHH-KJ King James
HHH-KL King Louis XIV
HHH-KR King Richard I
HHH-KW Krishnaraja Wadiyar III
HHH-NP Napoleon
HHH-PW Prince William
HHH-QB Queen Beatrix
HHH-QE Queen Elizabeth II
HHH-QSH Qin Shi Huang
HHH-QV Queen Victoria
HHH-RAM Ramses II
HHH-SLM Solomon
HHH-STM Suleiman the Magnificent
HHH-TUT Tutankhamun

2013 Codes, Ciphers, and Cryptographs

CCC-BC Beale Ciphers
CCC-DAG D’agapeyeff Cipher
CCC-DC Dorabella Cipher

CCC-IS Indus Script
CCC-KRY Kryptos
CCC-LA Linear A
CCC-PD The Phaistos Disc
CCC-SHE Shugborough Hall Inscription
CCC-VM The Voynich Manuscript
CCC-ZK Zodiac Killer

2013 Peacemakers

PM-AL Abraham Lincoln
PM-BC Bill Clinton
PM-DL Dalai Lama
PM-GND Gandhi
PM-GW George Washington
PM-HT Harriet Tubman
PM-JA Jane Addams
PM-JC Jimmy Carter
PM-MT Mother Teresa
PM-NM Nelson Mandela

2013 People on Bicycles

POB-A Amphibious
POB-BR Brief Respite
POB-M Messenger
POB-NH No Hands
POB-PF Penny-Farthing
POB-QT Quadracycle for Two
POB-TRI Triathlete
POB-TT Tricycle for Two
POB-T Tricycle
POB-WE Woodland Excursion

2013 All In A Day’s Work

AIDW-B Butcher
AIDW-C Clergy
AIDW-CW Construction Worker
AIDW-F Firefighter
AIDW-N Nurse
AIDW-PB Paper Boy
AIDW-P Pilot
AIDW-PO Police Officer
AIDW-S Soldier
AIDW-ST School Teacher