FOTR UK Hobby retail box

[Guest]

[steveparrott]

What sort of price range are these ..

[ferdinand_the_yak]

haven't seen one for a while... the last few I saw were around $50

[savage727]

Unless you are a collector pass on them as they are inferior in image and quality to the original Topps sets.  There are no auto cards in them either!!

[Roz]

inferior in image to the original Topps sets

eh?

Where did you get that from? They are identical but they don't have the foil on them!!!

We bought a FOTR base set on ebay but was then offered a set from a friend - we put the friends in our binder and then kep t the US one in the box it came in - so we have both versions but as it happens the UK one has pride of place in our binder - there's no image quality loss!

[savage727]

The gold foil makes these cards look so much better than the Merlin ones Roz plus you do not get any auto cards in the box.  I purchased a box from a distributor here and was very disappointed because it was not stated in the description that auto cards were not included plus the fact that the Merlin ones did not have the glazed surface of the Topps ones.

[Roz]

We didn't buy any boxes so that's probably why we like them - along with the fact that they came from a friend so that makes them sentimentally cool - but we do have the gold ones too.

They were from Fat Jon - (his choice of name not mine) it was Ed Van Halen (and his family) who was between Jon and Mandy and us in the Serkis queue at Collectormania 4 - ahhh happy times.

[savage727]

Sounds like a great time there!  Like I said if you have the choice go with the Topps product.  Even the 3 special sets that recently came out from Cards Inc. I believe,  were not of the Topps quality in card stock or surface treatment unfortunately.  Nor was the image selection what I was hoping for - many repeats from earlier sets.  

[Roz]

We didn't get those - I assumed they were reprints of the Ozzie Cadbury cards - which we have the FOTR set of - and (sorry FTY) but they aren't the quality of the Topps sets either!!!

Having said that maybe Cards Inc have upgraded their equipment as the Harry Potter set is very nicely made - unless it was secretly made by artbox - I'll probably get in trouble for saying that but we are simply discussing quality issues here - and if the LOTR cards were made for cards inc by Topps then there shouldn't be quality issues. But then again Merlin have been making stickers in the UK for years - so maybe merlin themselves made them (I haven't got a clue if cards inc even had a hand in the FOTR set - probably not - I wasn't around in theis scene back then).

The tough thing is FOTR topps sets are getting harder to find - what do they go for on ebay these days?

[ferdinand_the_yak]

I remember I was looking for one early this year and got it for 10 pounds BIN (thanks Roz ) But they are slowly rising I think as they get rarer and rarer. NOw that the LOTR series is finished, I think the card supply will dry up.

[savage727]

I have no idea as I have not seen any recently in the areas I keep tabs on.

[Roz]

Yeah - we had seen them go for around £35 ish - then I saw the BIN for a tenner and got straight on the email - but I think that was a bargain at the time.