State of the Hobby - Rittenhouse Archives

scifihobby.com Today
issue: vol 1, issue 1
Table of Contents:

Written by: Kevin Bennett of K & J Non-Sports Cards (1-800-581-9097)

The first few months of 2002 have been steady, largely due to a lack of product since the beginning of the year. The release schedule for the remainder of the year will definitely make up for any lack of product up to now. This should make the market as a whole become much more active. Autographs and costume cards are driving the market, because there are no quality inserts produced by card companies and regular sets are over printed. Inserts have become die cut or foil stamped regular cards or foil cards inserted with the same profile ( 9 cards insert set, 6 card insert set, 1 card insert ) for every release, no imagination or innovation thus no real demand for supposed special cards. Hopefully someone will produce a DIFFERENT card with a different profile and the insert will become a card to chase again.

Past – ( From 6 months ago back )

Farscape (Rittenhouse Archives) is still in great demand, that includes the Season 1 & 2 releases as well as the In Motion product
Xena Products both the Topps and Rittenhouse Archives releases still sell very well, this includes sets, inserts and autographs
Other notable products still selling actively are Star Trek any releases, Buffy, Angel and Stargate SG-1.

Present – ( 6 months ago to now )

Lord of The Rings (Topps) is still very hot , I sell every autograph that I can pick up. Too bad there wasn’t more to this product than just the autographs.
Star Trek 35th Anniversary continues to sell well.
Other product that are moving well are the Topps releases Spider-Man The Movie and Star Wars The Clone Wars.

Future
I have had several calls about the James Bond 007 and right behind that as far as interest goes it Star Trek Enterprise. I see these releases as the 2 biggest Non-Sports Card products of this year. Not too far behind these two would be the next Lord of The Ring release, it would be right up there with the other two but we all know Topps doesn’t put enough items in the boxes to make them very interesting.

THE SOAP BOX
One of my biggest gripes with the Non-Sports cards market right now is the total lack of interest in the regular set. They are over produced and as a result are consistently dumped at the larger show. I would like to see the return of the regular set. This can be done quite easily by putting fewer cards per pack and fewer packs per box, in addition making the sets larger ( No more 72 , 81, or 90 card sets, maybe 150 to 200 card sets). The result would be sets that would actually be difficult to complete and thus have some value to them. You would have to open more than one box to complete a regular set and single cards would once again be chased to finish the set. I believe the rule should be no more available sets than boxes produced. What do you think ?

K & J Non-Sports Cards specializes in master sets of all Sci-Fi and TV related products, plus we maintain one of the best inventories of inserts and autographs around. We are here to answer your questions and especially to take your orders, please give us a call at 1-800-581-9097.