Promo Review - Topps Collector Cards and Game Cards

Donated by Banter Toys, who are the distributors of these in Australia, and should be out now at places like Newsagents, ToysRUs stores, some Toyworlds, and some other locations.
This review will be moved to the Review section after a couple weeks. It is just highlighting these products in return for giving us these samples for free.

With that disclaimer out of the way, since these are free and I'll be giving them away later (in some sort of competition), I may not be as critical as I would be if I had bought these... because I'm not one for buying much merchandise. (it's expensive enough just buying the toys)

I'm not sure what the Retail Prices of these are, as I don't think anyone has reported it yet, but I'm guessing $2-3 for the Game Cards and $3-5 for the Collector Cards.

More information on these two Card sets, and other Licensed Transformers products being distributed by Banter, can be seen here.


First up, the Game cards.

Banter sent me ten packs, which are nice shiny foil to catch your eye... in the recognisable fourth Movie style.
No chewing gum inside though. :p I guess that shows how long it has been since I last had anything to do with blind-packed trading cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b998.jpg

Each pack has five cards, and it wasn't until I opened up the last pack that I came across an added insert with instructions on how to use the cards. (I was thinking that there was probably just a website address for the instructions that I'd need to mention, but here you can see what you are likely to get yourself if you start collecting these)

It is a bit confusing for me to understand, but probably makes sense to those who have played these types of battle card games (each person uses their own deck to compete, so the more chase cards or powerful cards you collect, the better chance you have at winning).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/b999.jpg

.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c000.jpg

The cards themselves are nice enough to collect as collector cards, but are only single-sided, and need to include battle stats, so aren't able to contain anything else other than an image.
There are four groups of cards, and three types of cards.
The groups are - Autobots, Decepticons, Humans, Power-boost.
The types are - regular, foil, rainbow foil.

These are Autobot cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c001.jpg

Decepticon and Human cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c002.jpg

Power-up cards, foil cards, and rainbow foil cards (looks the same as foil cards until you look at them from an angle).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c003.jpg

The backs of the cards, showing the groups.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c004.jpg

On the back of the packs, it says that there are "over 170 cards" to collect. (not sure why they couldn't quote the exact number of cards, as you'd never know for sure if you managed to collect them all)
One mirror foil card in every two packs (on average). One rainbow foil card in every five packs (on average).
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c005.jpg

Of the 50 cards I got, which is almost a third of the cards, I didn't end up getting any duplicates... which is a nice start, but I'm not about to start buying up 50-odd packs to collect them all.


Secondly, the Collector Cards.

The ten packs they sent me were in a Point-Of-Sale box, which is a nice little bonus to keep them in... if I decide to collect the set.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c006.jpg

Each pack has ten cards that are double sided, IF they don't have any Souvenir Movie parts in the pack.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c007.jpg

Odds listed on the back of the packs...
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c014.jpg

Optimus truck panel (the shiny blue or red parts) - 1 in every 7 packs. (noted on the back of each one as xxxx/8070... so you can work out the approximate total number of trading cards Topps produced if that ratio is accurate)
Cade Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs (probably individually numbered as well)
Shane Dyson clothing piece - 1 in every 50 packs
Tessa Yeager clothing piece - 1 in every 100 packs (probably less because she wore less clothing, or, more of her outfits were "kept" by production staff after the movie ;) )
Optimus Truck tail light piece - 1 in every 150 packs. (This one is really odd, as I'd much rather have some of the signature/unique shiny truck panel parts than a piece of red glass that could be anyone's tail light... this is the rarest item, but the least interesting of the five.)

The packs also note that, If your pack has a truck panel or clothing piece, it will not have 10 cards in it. The truck panel is encased in a solid block that is the thickness of 10 cards, so no other cards will be in the pack (making it easy to find if you have sensitive fingers... like those hunting down Lego mini-figures in their blind bags).
The clothing pieces are not as thick, but are noted as taking up the space of 5 cards (so comes with 5 regular cards)... while the Optimus tail-light pieces are said to come with 1 or 2 regular cards because it must be almost as thick as the panel pieces.

Most of the cards are movie scenes from all four movies, in plot order (the card numbers). They have a lot of detail and info on the cards, so if you are a fan of the movies so far, this is a nice set to own and read. (they aren't half-assed efforts by people with partial knowledge of Transformers)
Only complaint I have though is one that may just be my bad luck - not a lot of movie scene cards with robot action. As you can see below on almost half of the movie scene cards, they mostly feature humans. But as I said, this could just be my bad luck with these ones, and the rest are all robot scenes.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c008.jpg

From about 140 to 150 are non-foil character cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c009.jpg

And from about 150 to 170 are the rainbow foil cards.
Looks like they have 30 character cards, but could only do 20 of them as Rainbow foil, in order to adhere to the ratio of one per pack of 10. That spoils the set of 30 character cards if a third are not as nice as the majority of them.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c010.jpg

The backs of the rainbow foil cards.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c011.jpg

Before I started opening the packs I read the back which noted the odds of Truck panel parts, and that it would replace all 10 cards in a pack... so I had a feel to see if any of the ten packs had one, and if I could pick it. I was only expecting one, but managed to identify two by feel.
One blue and one red.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c012.jpg

It was actually quite exciting... and have now been placed with the Movie toys in my collection.
It's like owning part of Optimus Prime... the real Optimus Prime (which I've actually touched in person at this year's BotCon - the surviving Optimus Truck that is).
On the back is a printed number to verify that it is of a limited number... in this case, there are 8,070 Optimus Truck panel parts out there to find.
http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/c013.jpg

After getting two of them, I'm now quite tempted to find some more to collect, and maybe even a clothing piece or two as well if I'm lucky.

And just like the Game cards, I didn't get any duplicates out of the remaining eight packs, totalling 80 of the 170 cards... having me thinking about collecting the rest of them, even though I hate blind collecting, as you have to spend a lot more than what you would for a complete set.

I'd much rather pay a little extra for a complete set, than spending 3 or 4 times as much chasing up the few illusive cards that are always hard to find.


To sum up...
Game Cards - only go for them if you play those Battle Card type games.
Collector Cards - worth collecting if you have the money and patience to collect them all... or just to collect some parts of real Movie Props.

Great Write up on the cards, i do like the look of the movie cards and the truck pieces

cant wait to get my hands on them

They do look nice and some of the prop parts would be a great edition to anyone's collection, but I have been down the blind pack card collecting road before and hence can't/won't justify spending the money...

You were pretty lucky to get no doubles Griffin...wonder if the supplier rigged it for you :p:rolleyes:

The collector cards are pretty cool, might buy a bunch of boosters if they become super cheap :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by griffin

Donated by Banter Toys, who are the distributors of these in Australia, and should be out now at places like Newsagents, ToysRUs stores, some Toyworlds

I'm not sure what the Retail Prices of these are, as I don't think anyone has reported it yet, but I'm guessing $2-3 for the Game Cards and $3-5 for the Collector Cards.

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The CCG Cards are $2.50 per pack from Newsagents
at toys r us they come in a pack of 3 for $7.40 odd

as for the Collector cards have yet to see these at retail but i had an email from banter saying they were $15.00 a box. not sure if that is correct tho i am waiting on a confirmation reply

I had imagined that the Collector Cards would cost more since they were more interesting and have more work put into them. If they end up being $1.50-$2 for 10 cards, that would make them better value than the Game cards which are only 5 cards that are about $2.50.
If the Collector Cards do end up being that cheap, it will make it easier to decide to collect a set.

so i finally got a clarification of the price of the collector cards. $15.00 Per Packet!!!! that is 150.00 for a box of cards you do not get a complete base set in making it and insane price and no value

even if they are aiming it at high end the base cards are to bland and normal to justify that price sure the Memorbilia card is nice put for other highend products of that value you also get autographs and short print cards that add value to the purchase

that is approximatly $450 to get the base set. with some pretty rainbow inserts and a couple of Memoribila sets..

that is rediculous

That IS ridiculous. I was expecting maybe $5 per pack. There is no way they will sell movie cards at $15 per pack... and I'd be surprised if too many newsagents risk buying 10-pack boxes.
If that is the actual price, I won't be trying to collect a set. I was starting to get a bit keen on collecting the rest of the set... but considering my luck on tracking down missing cards, I'd be paying over $500 for a set of cards that are only Movie themed.

I wonder if they are so expensive because of the truck and clothing bits...
(which are easy to identify in the packs)

i have no problem with topps producing a "high end" card set at least have value for money,

what i do have a problem with is producing an average at best set with some memoribilia cards and trying to pass it off as high end.

At least they could of had Autographs Sketches and a better designed base set.

Disapointed as i really liked those memoribila cards

I got the impression that the DOTM cards were better, with autograph cards and rare stuff that people were demanding high prices on ebay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by griffin

I got the impression that the DOTM cards were better, with autograph cards and rare stuff that people were demanding high prices on ebay.

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Yeah that set had some nice stuff or even Optimum Collection from Breygent they even had a Leonard Nimoy/Sentinel Prime Autograph which fetches between 300-600 on eBay and you can pick up a box of that for around $60-$70 and get and auto and/or memoribila card per box with the chance of a relic tyre piece

Much better set at a much better price

Looks like I'm confusing the two DOTM trading card sets... the ones with autograph cards (72 cards plus autograph cards) that were also given out at SDCC and demanding huge prices on ebay, and, the heavily discounted ones at BBTS that have 252 cards (now down to US$60 for a Master Case, and on ebay by an Australian for AU$500 who must be trying to flip the cheap BBTS carton as they copied and pasted the exact text and images).

I thought it was just the one set of cards... as I was considering getting the Master Carton now that it is at $60 as I thought it would have at least a few rarities like autograph cards in it... but it is not that set.
And reading a review of the BBTS ones make them seem rather plain for a set of trading cards... with a lot of ordinary picture cards (no story or info) and just shiny cards as the chase items.
I think I'll skip it now... despite how tempting that price is getting. (even with shipping, which is only $33)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by griffin

Looks like I'm confusing the two DOTM trading card sets... the ones with autograph cards (72 cards plus autograph cards) that were also given out at SDCC and demanding huge prices on ebay, and, the heavily discounted ones at BBTS that have 252 cards (now down to US$60 for a Master Case, and on ebay by an Australian for AU$500 who must be trying to flip the cheap BBTS carton as they copied and pasted the exact text and images).

I thought it was just the one set of cards... as I was considering getting the Master Carton now that it is at $60 as I thought it would have at least a few rarities like autograph cards in it... but it is not that set.
And reading a review of the BBTS ones make them seem rather plain for a set of trading cards... with a lot of ordinary picture cards (no story or info) and just shiny cards as the chase items.
I think I'll skip it now... despite how tempting that price is getting. (even with shipping, which is only $33)

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yeah Optimum Colelction if by far the superior set and i still need to track down a R Taylor Auto and a Ratchet Auto but it is a much better set and value for money

Wow, $15 a pack! I'll be skipping them for now. Or until the price drops somehow :D

I managed to pick up a couple of the memorabilia cards which makes it a lot cheaper then dropping 150 per box.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...psfa300ad7.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...pscf371e9f.jpg

I think the Tessa yeager will be pretty hard to come by or even the tail light piece.

I was going to ask where you got them, but I had a look on ebay (which is hard to search for these, as people call them all sorts of weird names, and there are hundreds of older card sets out there).... and I see a lot of UK sellers with that series of cards (including this person selling 10 Optimus cards, separately).

They must have been cheaper over there, as this UK person is selling a box of 10 packs for US$87. (then again, they could have felt and removed the prop-packs, and making up a box of 10 off regular card packs to sell for less).

Is ebay where you got them, or was it somewhere local, because this Australian card store is selling on ebay too, so Banter must have found some customers in Australia.

There is a HK seller with a Tessa card for auction, with half a day to go, which was the .

Auctions of the Optimus card are selling for US$10-20, which I imagine was not earning people as much as they were hoping for movie prop bits, as it probably would have cost them about US$10 to buy it in a pack.
BIN does better, as one sold for US$50... but I imagine all those others being auctions were by people falsely thinking it would sell for more than $50 (since the autograph cards from the last movie card set demands big bucks).

There are so many different coloured Optimus cards there... more than I imagined. I have a blue one and a red one thinking that they are the two colours of Optimus, but now I see a range of blues, some with more than one colour on it, and even a black and a white one listed. (which makes sense, if they used up the entire shell of the truck, and not just the more recognisable coloured parts - as a fan I'd prefer a red or blue part than a black or white one)

Griff they have all come from eBay Shane Dyson was from that Aussie Seller the primes from UK, I am Currently Bidding on another prime card that has three colours in it and a chad Yeager also in the UK.

I have asked Banter on twitter if they hit retail but no responses yet.

I want to get at least one of each of the memorabilia cards but without the distribution here eBay is the only place. They may flood the market on clearance in a year or so..

The product is over priced for what it is so I imagine some value getting lost along the way. Tessa Yeager at 500 Pieces is probably the one that is worth the value.