A Monster Attack

Last year I was able to track down a very reasonably priced 2014 Goodwin Champions Ghosts of WWI Monsters 3D card. I am a huge fan of lenticular cards and I just love what Upper Deck has done with them and I have been chasing a couple more of the cards with some luck. I have since added The Grim Reaper and Zombies with the Leprechaun and Headless Horsemen my next target cards.

One of the things that makes me laugh is the back stats; we find out that The Grim Reaper is 7’6” and weighs 310 pounds and we know that the zombies have 631,964 wins vs opponents.

The Ghosts March Along

I have finally added 2014 Goodwin Champions Ghosts of WWI Monsters 3D card to my collection. This is one of those cards that I have been hunting since it was released last year but the prices always were outside of my “reasonable” price range before one showed up at $9.99 opening bid with $4 shipping. Fortunately I was the only bidder and was able to add it to my collection.

The cards are lenticular cards with a nice depth making the card 3D and is quite beautiful in-hand. There are a couple more that I still want to add, the Grim Reaper, Leprechaun and Headless Horseman but this one was the first priority for me to add to my World War I collection.

Recent Pickups: 2014 Goodwin Champions Lute Olson Relic

What University of Arizona collection is complete without a Lute Olson tie relic card?

 

I picked this up a couple of days after 2014 Goodwin Champions went live, it cost me $5.74 shipped. Looking at the prices now for a multi-colored swatch like this and I got a deal. There is a patch version (#/50), which I think might be part of a jacket, but they are running closer to $15 shipped so I am holding out for a better price.

 

He has a couple of licensed autographs with Upper Deck and Leaf but this is Lute Olson’s first relic card so I am really happy that I have been able to add this to my personal collection.

A Week Later With 2014 UD Goodwin Champions

Last week 2014 UD Goodwin Champions was released and we are seeing some cool cards hitting the secondary market now. One thing can be said about the checklist, Upper Deck does their best to include a variety down the line from checklists to autographs and relics.

 

My favorites are the 3D Monster Cards, WWI Museum Collection relics and the Art for the Ages painted cards. They have all come out of the gates running with the Art cards demanding prices in the hundreds.

 

The 3D Monster Cards are made up of 60 cards which are broken up over four monster types; Classic Creatures like Vampire, Minotaur and the Grim Reaper. Giants like Cthulhu and Frost. Bizarre Beasts like Cycloptopus and Renegade Robot. Alien Menaces like Maritan and Doppelganger

 

My favorite though, which I will be hunting down, are the Ghosts of WWI and the Headless Horseman. I would love to build this entire set eventually but these two are the first ones I plan on getting. The 60 card set was created by three different artists and they autographed 25 special versions of each of the 60 cards. With them being limited to #/25 I do not have a plan to hunt these down but if I do find some of the cards relatively priced I would be happy to add them to my collection. Many of the 3D Monster cards can be had for under $10 with the autographs running $15-20 with most cards. I am hoping that prices will drop as more product is broken.

 

I am a WWI fanatic and with this being the 100^th Anniversary of the beginning of the Great War we have seen some nice additions to various checklists but the Goodwin Champions Museum Collection set is by far the most comprehensive WWI addition in many years even topping the 2011 Topps Heritage WWI relics. This set includes 41 different cards made up of various uniforms, helmet and hats relics but there are also dog tags, rank insignias, buckles, brooches and medals. I have had no luck procuring any of the Museum Collection relics from the past two releases (Civil War and Wild West) but I am intent on adding some of these beauties to my personal collection. Most of these are selling for $50 and up. Most of the uniform relics are probably going to settle in price to the $35-75 range as product is broken with the more unique items like the medal and broochs going for a signigicant amount more and possibly even closer to $750-1000 each.

 

Easily my favorite insert in the Goodwin sets, topping even the WWI Museum Collection this year, is the Art of the Ages painted cards. Each year talented artists reproduce some of the world’s most famous and beloved paintings on cards and they are amazing. This year’s 300 cards include famous artists such as Monet, Picasso, Cezanne, Da Vinci and Rembrandt. This year also includes my three favorite painters; Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh and Umberto Boccioni. It was Boccioni’s work that drew me in to the Futurism movement and I would love to add any of his paintings to my collection, not that I can afford any of these Art cards.

A Quick Peek At 2014 Goodwin Champions

In 2009 Upper Deck introduced their new Goodwin Champions Baseball set. The product was designed around the 1888 Goodwin Champions baseball set and while the product was a baseball set it contained some interesting additions like the popular Entomology cards (who doesn’t love bugs?) as well as Landmarks (cards containing pieces of well-known landmarks like a piece of the Golden Gate Bridge and sand from Omaha Beach) and DNA Hair Cut cards of famous Thoroughbred horses.

 

In 2010 Upper Deck lost their MLB license and a 2010 set was not released. The 2011 release went through growing pains as the product changed from a sports product to a historical/oddities type product. By the time that the 2012 release hit the shelves Upper Deck had complete the transition to a mixture of historical, sports and interesting elements. There were hand-painted art cards, museum collection pieces, manufactured patches and even pieces of meteorites. The theme for 2012 was the Civil War. The 2013 set followed suit with a Wild West theme and now in 2014 it will be World War I, one my favorite historical era.

 

This year there will be some big named athletes on the checklist like Tony Gwynn, Ken Griffey Jr, Lindsey Vonn and Joe Montana. There will be base cards, minis, parallels, relics and autographs. That is just the meat and potatoes of what to expect. There are plenty of side-dishes for collectors of all sorts.

 

There will be Origin of Species manufactured patches, Monster 3D cards, Art of the Ages painted cards and World War I Museum Collection cards.

 

I have been a fan of the Goodwin Champion releases, going back to the original baseball sets. Upper Deck took a tough punch when they lost their baseball license but they have done what they can with what they have. I know that there are plenty of collectors who are not big fans of non-sports cards in what originally was a sports card release but what they may not realize is that many of these old sets from the late 1800s were actually mixed releases.

 

Think about it this way, when the product comes out July 2^nd each box will run around $75 and you will pull 3 hits (auto, relic, manufactured patch, Museum Collection or painted cards), 10 mini cards and a fun break. According to Upper Deck’s Chris Carlin the autographs are all live there will not be any redemptions, a nice addition.

 

I look forward to the release, hopefully I can open a box this year.