Sunday, April 28, 2013

Bond, James Bond!


I have always been a James Bond fan, besides the Star Wars trilogy there was nothing that grabbed my attention as a kid like a guy with a license to kill. This appreciation of a good spy flick has carried over in to my adult years.

I think bringing in Daniel Craig has brought new life in the series that lost some of the wind in it sails after a tough transition in the 1980-90s where we saw three actors play James Bond in a 10-year span, though Pierce Brosnan did do a decent job during his 4 film tenure as 007. I am actually watching Thunderball right now as I am writing this post; EPIX is doing a Bond Marathon this month so I am in heaven.

As a James Bond fan there is a large selection of collectibles, with 23 movies (25 if you count the 1967 spoof Casino Royale or the 1983 remake Never Say Never) to work with you have your choice of 6 James Bonds, 7 if you count David Niven in the spoof, a laundry list of Bond Villains and a dirty laundry list of Bond Girls. In the last couple of years Rittenhouse Archives has done an amazing job bringing the collectors closer to the films including hundreds of autographs and plenty of interesting and original relic/costume cards.

One of my favorite Bond pickups is from the 2007 Rittenhouse Complete James Bond release. The set included autographs and relics from the 21 Bond films that had been released at that time and I was hunting for cards related to Daniel Craig and the Playing Card relic and Dual Tux Costume card were my target, along with a Casino Chip relic which has still alluded me.

In one of the scenes in Casino Royale Bond is wearing a tux and he is bleeding, his shirt is covered in blood and this happens to be one of the shirts that Rittenhouse got to make their costume relic cards. The relic cards that included a piece of the bloody shirt were premium pieces and cost quite a bit more, currently there is a bloody shirt relic card sitting at $129.99 while a relatively non-bloody shirt is at $39.99. I actually ended up getting both cards for around $30 shipped so I was pretty fortunate. The cards came in a rigid holder with a Rittenhouse Archives seal closing it in, but I removed the card. I have no intent on selling them and what is the point of having a relic card if you can not touch the relic?

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