Valiant original Micro Prints

In mid-2016, Valiant Comics launched an adventurous initiative. They inserted 50 reproduction “micro prints” into various X-O Manowar comic books (one per comic). These micro prints were 4×6″ black-&-white trading cards, and it would take months to collect them all. For example, X-O Manowar issue #47 included seven different prints including art from talent like Sean Chen, Tom Fowler, Jeff Lemire, and Rafer Roberts. Then a different batch of prints would be included in X-O Manowar issue #48. This continued for at least five months (if not more).

What made this program exciting is that “original art” (4×6″ sketch cards) would be randomly inserted; replacing the micro print. These almost never surface on eBay anymore now that they are tucked away in people’s personal collections, but they are remarkable in their diversity and talent. — Now I would be remiss not to mention that there was a completely unrelated Valiant Preview Trading Card Set (by Rittenhouse Archives in 2013) that had traditional sketch cards. But these original micro prints included many well-established comic book creators that otherwise have not drawn sketch cards before; as well as a few SCAD Atlanta art school students.  


The odds of finding original art were never specifically announced, but one collector bought 50 issues and found 2 original micro prints. So it’s plausible to guess that originals were inserted between 1:25 – 1:50 comics. In my opinion, those would be pretty good odds and return on value considering that a modern box of trading cards might cost over $120 and yield only one sketch card.


A checklist of the 50 reproduction “micro prints” was assembled by fans, but the artists contributing to the original sketch cards was never announced. Note: at Wondercon 2016, the Valiant promotion was first announced and the Cary Nord sketch seen above was given out at a panel (instead of inserted in a bagged comic). Each of the inserted Original Micro Prints has a Valiant “stamp” on the back. — There are also Artist’s Editions (like Artist Proofs) given directly to the Artists, which have a sticker on the front, but not a stamp on the back.


As mentioned earlier, these are hard to track down on eBay because they are rare, but also because collectors struggle what to call them in the description. Are they sketch cards, original micro prints, or XO Manowar insert postcards? I could only find two on eBay past-or-present, and they sold $20-50. Valiant collectors are still hunting these down and you can expects some bidding competition regardless of how they are titled.


This isn’t the first time original art has been inserted into blind-bag comics. For example, Chip Zdarsky randomly inserted original art into his comic book, “Sex Criminals” (issue #11), but that was art from a single artist applied directly to the cover of the comic book; and most of it looks rushed. This Valiant Comics event might be the most ambitious initiative using the largest group of artists ever attempted in a free comic book art giveaway. It deserves a lot more credit and appreciation. Thanks; and happy collecting!

Sketch Card Royalty

An Armada is a fleet of warships. Transformers Armada is the last sketch card set from trading card manufacturer Fleer (released in 2003) before they began their bankruptcy selloff. [Here’s one of my old blog posts about the Fleer bankruptcy]. — Last month a Transformers Armada sketchagraph card came up for sale. What makes this so interesting? According to the text on the back side of the card, no more than 50 copies exist, making this one of the very rarest sketch cards ever made.


What makes this card even more scarce is that it was only available by redemption, and very few sketchagraphs were redeemed before Fleer’s bankruptcy selloff. I’d guess that less than 10 copies were sent to collectors before Fleer closed their doors. So what happened to the rest? Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s safe to assume they were sold as one lot to a single bidder at the bankruptcy auction. A person in attendance at the auction shares, “you had to bid on entire rooms full of stuff, not just individual items.” — So there’s a good chance the owner doesn’t even know what they are. The owner might have just acquired them as a small part of a larger purchase. But a known and released copy recently went up for auction on eBay, twenty years after it was first redeemed …


31 bids later, the auction ended at $942. — I think the price might have even gone higher if the auction was titled correctly (either “sketchagraph” singular, or “sketch card”‘). This might not be the highest priced sketch card sale this year, but it is almost certainly the most rare.

In this hobby. you might only see a collectible come to auction once. I’m constantly surprised how many trading cards go into personal collections and are never seen again. This is a white whale, and Ahab-collectors might be chasing a copy for another twenty years. Happy Collecting!

Licensor Approval is no joke

99% of collectors never noticed, but a small percentage of Cryptozoic Entertainment’s CZX Crisis on Infinite Earths sketch cards have some gold foil paint on them. That has to do with Licensor rules (in this case from Warner Brothers). The I.P. Licensor almost always sends along specific instructions for how their characters can be portrayed on sketch cards. For example: Wolverine can’t be smoking cigars, or Robin can’t look like the real life actor Burt Ward. — In the case of Cryptozoic Entertainment’s CZX Crisis on Infinite Earths, Warner Brothers was adamant that artist signatures should only be on the back of the sketch card. The front of the card was reserved for actor signatures only. It seems trivial, but sketch cards go through a scan-&-approval process. Someone from Warner Brothers had the power to reject any card for any reason.


When a card is rejected, everyone loses. The card manufacturer has one less insert card. The artist doesn’t get his/her artwork shared with the world. And then there’s the negotiation of payment. The artist should be paid for his/her work, but the manufacturer never got a finished product and already has sunk cost in printing & shipping. The whole thing is a mess. — So when Cryptozoic received a small batch of Crisis on Infinite Earths sketch cards with artist signatures on the front of the cards, the in-house art team began mitigation.


The solution was to paint over the signatures with gold foil. Artists were first notified by email, and then remediation began. The good news is that every artist also signed the back of the cards, so they got artistic credit. And technically the artists were forewarned in their initial contract & instructions that rejections would happen if the rules were not followed. This measure actually insured everything passed approvals and everyone got paid.


Corrective steps were doubly important on the actor-signed sketchagraph cards. In these cases there might be significant money tied up in the actor signatures and rejected cards could mean a larger financial loss. I would hate to think that the above Melissa Benoist sketchagraph was at risk of being destroyed. Note that there was already printed gold foil around the signing box, so the gold paint had to blend-in.


I found all of the above images on eBay, and this last one leaves me at a loss. — This is an intended sketchagraph card that never received a Grant Gustin signature. It looks like the artist didn’t even try to leave the signing box blank, so the only options for the manufacturer were to submit it as a standard sketch card or destroy it. I think everyone leans towards saving the sketch card when possible.

Following the rules is important. Otherwise the Licensor and Manufacturer have to make hard decisions that may impact the artists. — What do you think? … Did Cryptozoic Entertainment make the right call trying to save as many cards as possible? Happy Collecting!

It’s been 29 years …

I have a dozen obscure searches saved on my eBay app. If one of them sends me a push notification, it means something rare just got listed. I’ve had one search saved for years without ever getting pinged. I was convinced the item didn’t exist, and it was just an urban legend. Then a seller listed not one, but SEVEN of the elusive Mark Voger sketch cards. (For some background context of what these are: read this blog post).

The Defective Comics sketch cards by Active Marketing are arguably the oldest and first sketch cards. In fact, when you check the signed dates and printed indicia, it appears Groo was 1995, Bone was 1994, and both Simpsons and Defective Comics are dated 1993.

I hadn’t seen a single Defective Comics sketch card ever listed on eBay (and I’ve been active since 1998), but of course I can’t see everything. In fact, the first four Defective Comics sketch cards sold BIN for $50 each in January 2023 and got snatched up before I could claim one.

Then in February 2023, the seller decided to list three more Defective Comics sketch cards at auction (instead of BIN). — I was watching and bidding, but they eventually moved out of my budget.

I don’t think there’s any conspiracy that the seller has the whole quantity of 500 in their possession because the seller is also selling sealed boxes of the product. I also noticed that the numbering of the sketch cards isn’t sequential (the listed cards are #16, #136, #364, etc.) — I simply think that these sketch cards have been in storage for decades, and are only now surfacing after 29 years.

That’s one more trading card Urban Legend solved. Now I need to reconfigure my eBay saved searches and be even faster on the trigger in case another batch gets listed. Good luck, y’all.

The best (& worst) of 2022

I’ve been blog-MIA for a number of quasi-legitimate reasons, but I have to come out of retirement because I went down a rabbit hole of crazy eBay sales that need to be archived. So without further ado … the good, the bad, and the WTH of 2022 so far …

(#1.) I think this Stan Lee Sketchagraph is a legit sale price. Notice how the card under it (Bart Simpson drawn on LOTR stock then “authenticated” by Beckett) says Best Offer Accepted? — There’s no Best Offer on Stan The Man. I think someone bought it at the full asking price of $5000. — That’s a strong sale. What’s the past high water benchmark? I’m curious if we’re entering unseen territory on a Fleer Silver Age ’99.

(#2.) I’m sharing the front of this sketch card first. It’s some nice black-&-white linework, but the description gives me no hints about the artist. If it’s Joe Blow, this might only be worth $50.

Son of a gun!
Sal Buscema, who had a ten-year run as artist of The Incredible Hulk?! — The seller didn’t feel the need to share that? Even when there is a big honking sticker on the back with all of the relevant details? The previous owner purchased this card for $360 in 2016? — I wish the stock market doubled my money in six years!

(#3.) Speaking of burying the lead … the seller doesn’t want to advertise this is an ADAM HUGHES sketchagraph?! — Could you imagine the realized prices if these bombshells were listed correctly? — Artist name? Nah. — Character name? Nah. — Signed by the Actor? Nah … this is a “‘star wars galaxy sketch card” … please bid or just move along.

(#4.) Hooray, it was listed correctly. Forget that Darth Vader brought the “devils number” in bids, I’m just glad that Angel S Aviles is getting the respect his art deserves.

(#5.) Another deserved sales price, but it’s worthy of a little education. — Topps recycled card stock from 2001. They were about to loose the Marvel license to Upper Deck, and squeezed out an Incredible Hulk set in 2003. They didn’t have time to print new card stock, so they used the leftovers from 2001 Marvel Legends. This card is NOT Marvel Legends as the title suggest. Only Gus Vazquez drew for Marvel Legends … this is the 2003 Incredible Hulk set, and Marie Severin is the rarest artist in the set (at 1:4575 packs). — Someone got a gem.

(#6.) This is the least rarest card in the MCC98 set. — I understand that these Fleer Sketchagraphs are hard to come by, and Spider-Man is a fan-favorite character. But no one should be paying this for a Mariano Nicieza. — I don’t know what else to say except “please buy mine for $235 each.”

(#7.) It only gets weirder from here … sure, ask a professional baseball third baseman to draw a bat-&-ball. Yup, someone was willing to pay $305 for this. Note: you can buy his signed baseball card on eBay for $40-70, so they were definitely paying a premium just for the artwork.

(#8.) Ah, a little bit of controversy … Ethan Van Sciver has been a mainline comic book artist for two decades, but recently decided to do a lot of smack-talk on social media … the result is that he made a bunch of fans, and an equal number of enemies. His fans are willing to financially bankroll him, which is obvious by this sale (which was available directly from him).

(#9.) The controversy thickens … but, I don’t know what else to say about this.
Bill Crabb is an excellent artist. Donald Trump was a TV personality. But I don’t think Donald Trump was ever on Deep Space 9. There must have been an accidental mix-up. I hope the buyer doesn’t get mad when he realizes this isn’t a card of actor Avery Brooks.

(#10.) Number 10 is a banger.
You could have a NAR sketch for $2,125 … or for just DOUBLE the money, you could have a Gary Vaynerchuk doodle. Now, I’m not hating … I like Gary Vaynerchuk. And I know this has some kind of NFT tie-in or promotion, but even Micky Mantle and Pablo Picasso couldn’t get FIVE GRAND for a blue squiggle. Good for you, Gary Vee … you cracked the code and became the new P. T. Barnum.

Okay … I need a palate cleanser …

(Bonus #11.) Spongebob is now selling for $900 each.
I passed these up for $40 each when they came out. Ugh, I need a time machine. (These were inserted 1:151 Retail packs) …

(Bonus #12.) Disney Treasures.
Mickey Mouse as Tiny Tim, are you kidding me?
I’ve never seen any Upper Deck Disney sketch cards under $300 or so. These are the White Whales of my sketch card collection, but I can’t justify one at $1,400 each. — For now it will stay out of reach.

That’s all, folks. I’m going back into blog-hibernation, but you can always find me on Twitter @sketchcards. Thanks y’all. — Chris M.

Sketch Cards worth noticing

Hey, I know it’s been a good long while without a post. The truth is that I’ve been spending all my free time consulting with a major trading card company, and updating my Google photo-drive. But I’m still on eBay pretty regularly, and every once in a while find cards that make me stop and take notice. — There’s an old hobby saying that if you’ve been around the block a couple times, and then see something that you’ve never seen before, there’s a good chance you may never see it again. So, I took a couple pictures (or screenshots) and archived them here.

From what I can tell, this is a Topps Star Wars Card Trader promo sketch card from 2021 NYCC, drawn by Darrin Pepe. The eBay seller was Darrin Pepe, himself, so I’m not sure if “22/25” means 25 Artist Proofs, or a total print run of 25. None others have shown up on eBay so far. Did anyone else go to New York Comic Con, on October 7-10, 2021 and see these?

I’m sure we will see dozens of these soon, but this one was found on Facebook (and none have posted on eBay). Space Jam: A New Legacy is a PG movie that released in theaters and for streaming on Friday, July 16 2021, more than 25 years after the original classic featuring Michael Jordan. Now three months after the release, Upper Deck is working on a trading card set? Don’t get me wrong, I would love an officially licensed Bugs Bunny sketch. It just feels like the window of interest is closing quick.
I’ve seen these from time-to-time, but with the World Series starting next week, I have MLB on the brain. In 2016, Topps Wacky Packages had sketch cards that would poke fun of MLB licenses and team mascots? This seems wild to me. The “instructions” and “off-limits content” must have been a mile long.

I have no idea what Marvel Allure is, but it’s coming. Is this a high end set? Is this ePacks only? — The cat’s out of the bag, and all collectors can do is wait and see.

Last pic for today … I saw this at DragonCon (from an exhibiting artist) … there must me an “Into the Spider-Verse” set in the works. Does this mean we get Spider-Ham, and Spider-Man Noir? I have no idea if this is tied to the sequel movie to be released released on April 8, 2022 … but I love the idea of new characters on Marvel sketch cards.

That’s all for today. You can always find me on Twitter @sketchcards … Good luck, collectors.

3 sketch card facts for July 2021

… I can’t post as regularly as I would like right now, but when I find rare sketch card nuggets like these, I can’t help but archive them. So here’s three random sketch card stories worth putting in your back pocket …

(#1.) Colleen Doran is a treasure. Notable credits include: The Sandman, Wonder Woman, Legion of Superheroes, Teen Titans, and her space opera series, A Distant Soil. She has also drawn sketch card for Lord of the Rings Masterpieces & Indiana Jones Heritage. But what about her Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull cards? All her cards got lost in the mail more than a decade ago. Then they were recently found …

I have reached out to her on Twitter multiple times to ask what will happen to them (with no response). Here’s the crazy part … she has since deleted these tweets. Were the cards returned to Topps, or was she somehow threatened with a lawsuit? Were they sold privately? This might be the only saved image of these recently found cards, now lost again. This sounds like an actual plot of an Indiana Jones movie.

(#2.) A crazy-rare set of sports sketch cards came to market, and I was following along for the ride. A box of 2014 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Football Cards was not cheap (SRP was something like $500). Each box would yield (5) Autograph Cards Hard-Signed and (1) 2015 Rookie Base Card, and might also include a Quad Sketch Card Puzzle. By my math (thanks to Cardboard Connection) there was only 51 total Sketch Card quad-sets produced?

Okay, let me try to understand … there’s no single sketch cards, they ALL come in quad-puzzles, and one of the pieces was actually signed by the athlete represented on the cards? There are 17 different athletes, each drawn 3 times? — Well, I found a set for auction. Granted, this is probably the least-valuable subject and the cheapest these cards will ever sell for, but it helps me budget for the next time a set goes to auction.

(#3.) This final random story is something I need to do more research on … Dave Sim is a Canadian cartoonist and publisher, best known for his comic book Cerebus. In late 2020 Dave Sim launched a KickStarter to reprint Cerebus issue #1. Many of the reward tiers came with trading cards. Then I came across this on eBay:

… I lost out on the auction, but I have to assume this was part of the KickStarter based on the date inscribed. Were sketch cards one of the possible KickStarter rewards? How many were ever drawn? So I went digging on the internet and didn’t find a lot more information, but I did find one more sample:

… so these Cerebus sketch card are #9 in a series, but individually numbered up top. I think the first 8 in the set were standard promos available through the KickStarter project. Good luck if you’re a Cerebus fan. These looks like an incredibly rare find.

And there you go. Some cool sketch card nuggets I found in the last month digging around the internet. My goal is to archive as much information as I can find, and eventually collect one sample of every sketch card ever. Be safe & happy collecting, y’all. —

SAGE launches sketch cards

SAGE cards have been around since 1999, but that doesn’t mean there’s an easy-to-find history of the company. They have no website. They have no Facebook. Their only online presence is a Twitter account.

Technically, the company name is “SA•GE Collectibles” That’s because it was founded by two men: Robert Sadlak and Tom Geideman. Tom was a previous Upper Deck employee, and Robert was Director of Operations for ScoreBoard, Inc.

While they have released college-draft themed football sets for more than a decade, they started innovating last year during the pandemic. Debuting in 2020, SAGE included one-of-one Art Gallery Sketch cards from artist Gary Kezele. It looks like a total of 32 original art cards were commissioned and packed-out for the 2020 Sage Hit Premier Draft Low series, and 35 original art cards were commissioned and packed-out for 2020 Sage Hit Premier Draft High series. By my count there was only one official tweet about these cards:

SAGE reprinted some of these cards as one-per-box inserts, but they didn’t reprint all of them. 2020 Sage Hit Premier Draft Low series had 18 reprint cards (chosen from the 32 original art sketch cards). 2020 Sage Hit Premier Draft High series had 17 reprint cards (from the 35 original art sketch cards). So if you pull a sketch card, your odds are basically 50/50 that’s it has been reprinted vs never seen by collectors.

Then in 2021, SAGE decided to team-up with artist Gary Kezele again. It looks like 2021 Sage Hit Premier Draft Low series has 13 art gallery reproduction inserts, but no word on total original art count yet. Information seems to be only available as collectors assemble it. Below is a look at a 2021 original sketch card next to a reproduced insert. Note that the front is nearly identical, and the cards can only by differentiated by their backs.

With only 67 total original art sketch cards inserted across both 2020 releases, I would argue that SAGE sketch cards are some of the rarest (least-produced) sketch cards in any modern trading card set. Good luck to those chasing them!

Scanning every Sketch Card back ever

Hey y’all. — I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t posted a lot on here since December, but that’s because I’ve been experimenting with Photo Galleries on Google Photos (instead of WordPress). I think I like it more, and now I have a new goal …

I hope to scan the back of every sketch card that I own, then start hunting down sample copies of every sketch card that exists. Then with a little luck (and time), I can eventually start the virtual “Sketchcard Museum” that archives the history and a few samples of every official sketch card ever made.

Now this is just the start, and I’ll be adding 100’s more & editing for a few weeks … but here’s the link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/t86gykfZFph8XyB17

Non-Sports signed cards

I’m trying something new today. I have a ton of signed trading cards acquired at comic book conventions. I thought I would make this my ongoing gallery page. I have a lot to add later … but wanted to start somewhere. I think the easiest way is to do this in blocks of six cards. That way I can come back and add descriptions as needed. Away we go …

And the horizontal cards …

… more later … this is just a test …