Hey gang,

Happy color-mixing day! I have a dream too, and it is something about keeping Vs. System alive and healthy until I turn 60. (Fifteen years for those keeping score at home.)

So I was tripping on a Dontrelle Willis game-used jersey patch card I won on ebay and I wondered if we really could get ultra-luxury product in the future.

Check this stuff out.

Retails at $120 per pack. FOUR cards.

It sells. Alot.

Who produces it with such amazing quality and consistency? Upper Deck.

Hmmm. Would you pay $60 a pack if you could pull a game-used Warren Ellis pencil? How about an original Jack Kirby sketch? (Yes, Upper Deck throws in Babe Ruth bats every once in a while.) Would an authenticated autographed EA Enemy be hot, or what?

And, if that kind of high-end product is viable, could it keep Vs. System afloat during the winter of our gaming discontent?

(For anyone who cannot follow the link to ebay, Upper Deck produces Ultimate Collection sets for each of the four major sports. Four packs per box, four cards per pack. Every card is numbered in a limited edition of 50 or lower. Every card is either an authenticated autograph or it includes a piece of game-used material. The big chase cards are unique, numbered 1/1. The baseball box in that auction usually sells for $300, for 16 cards.)

I'd say that the Gallery Packs were a variant of that ... it's solely a luxury/collector's item. It's also 5 cards per pack, and had the 'chase' URs.

The mispacks of cards not available elsewhere made for a bit more of a chase feel.

I don't know if they'd make it intentionally impossible for collector's to get a hold of certain cards by making them TOO exclusive. There's a fine line to toe ... the best is to make the cards rare enough to be expensive, but in a quantity large enough that people at least feel they COULD pull one, or that they could get a playset and thus purchase or try to collect multiple copies.

Selling 10 cards at 100 dollars a pop is better than selling 1 card for 500 dollars, for example.

Now ... they could make stuff that wasn't for Vs. system, that was in fact collector cards for comic book fans, such as the art cards you were suggesting, but that wouldn't really make them collector's art.

One thing to consider, if the cost of a card hits high enough ... would someone still play it? If a card is so expensive you put it/keep it under glass ... well, why bother making it a Vs. system card ... it's comic book memerobilia at that point. The Gallery Pack URs go for comparible prices to some other harder to get EAs, like judge prizes, etc ... and each still see play.

If a card is playable [both in, not so expensive as to make you not want to play it, and the card itself is something you'd play as a cheaper non-variant] people are more likely to want 4 than just 1. So, while a 500 dollar card might not see play in someone's deck, they might be willing to pack 4 125 dollar cards to 'show off'.

In the case of the Hellboy Essential, there is the randomly inserted signed lithograph ... which is cool. I could see them doing that in the future.

With the Gallery packs, they could mix it up a bit with their 'ultra rares' ... they could include 1 of a kind "original art" cards ... no border, no numbers, no card text ... an 'extremely' extended art card, perhaps with the artist's signature. Or perhaps signed versions of cards that exist in the set.

Heck, they could include cards from pro circuit winner's decks with their signature on them ... and include a piece of the sleeve from the winning deck ;) lol ...

Having a 1-in-144 packs redemption card for original art would be neat as beans. I loves me some original art. Actually, I'm finally getting my hands on some thanks to my Christmas/Birthday gift money.

Hmm, you mean something like the 100 randomly inserted Mike Mignola autographs in Hellboy EC? :cool:

I love your comparison of the Babe and the King! I have to say if they were putting in Jack Kirby or (insert fave artist here) sketches it would definitely up the ante. This would also most likely turn those products into much more collectible items for the comic community as a whole.

As was mentioned in another thread, signed artwork isn't the only product UDE could throw out randomly, but would probably be the most popular (assuming it included signed money rares). A different direction, more similar to the Babe's bat idea, would be replica gear. And yeah, I'd up the ante for all of the above.

I'm assuming Stu meant redemption cards for the Kirby sketches... I'd hate to see a wonderful piece of art cut into hundreds of little pieces like they do the "game worn/used" pieces.

"Hey look, I pulled a Kirby piece...Professor X's right eyeball from X-Men issue 2 page 10....er... wait...maybe that's Angel's eyeball...anyway...it's an original Kirby eye!!!"

No, no, and no. I'm not gonna say "no, that stuff isn't cool," because it is, but I'm not paying sixty bucks a frigging pack, or indeed more than the three to five bucks I pay per pack now.

I'd like to see some EA's with signitures of the artist and they could make them limited too With one signed by Stan Lee and Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson son or family member. Make a single card that you can only have one in your deck and only one person will pull it something SOOOOOO big that everyone will be trying to get there hands on it and make it's effect so retardedly strong that it ends the game like 8 drop that just says YOU WIN THE GAME NO MATTER WHAT.

Mebbe some movie memorabilia? How much would you pay for a piece of Jessica Alba's Sue Storm costume?

And what's hilarious is my mom thinks paying even $3-5 a pack is asinine but will sit there and pour $1,000 into a slot machine in Shreveport and get nothing to show for it.

Depends on which piece. I'm in for $100 packs if they include crotch swatches, unwashed.

You coined the term "crotch swatches", that's all I am saying. :eek:

And I got a new sig out of it for free. Cha-Ching!

I'm right there with you Stu God she is fine. M MM MM mmmmmmm yum.

See, I can't make comments like this anymore, ever since my best friend found out he is distantly related to her. Like a cousin twice removed, or something. He threatens to beat me up whenever I say she's hot.

And before anyone asks, no, I can't get you her number. I can't even get myself her number.

Just wait until you get a sniff in person. By the way, your avatar is a huge improvement. 20 rep in response.