A non-sports trading card is a trading card featuring entertainment content on some subject of popular interest other than sports, designed for collecting. Produced in series, such cards could involve licensed properties from films or television. Other cards could be original creations, such as Topps humor cards or scenes from history.
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.
Contents |
The most well known are listed below, for additional, see List of collectible card games.
A sketch card displays original artwork on a standard-size trading card, usually measuring 2.5" (65mm) x 3.5" (90mm). These cards, with black-and-white or color original art, 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:
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 one 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 check or other document is secured into a specially produced card. Topps, Inkworks and others have used holographic or foil stickers, which are signed then affixed to the card. Collector opinions on these sticker cards has been mixed.
Some manufacturers, notably Topps, Inkworks and Rittenhouse Archive, have included 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. Some manufacturers insert them at the ratio of one or two 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 the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 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.