Harry Potter Artbox Autographs

[Dacubs2]

Originally Posted by the27guy

I got a huge collection in today. So much fun going through it.

For several of the sets, “Lenticular Cards” were issued via case topper. I made a video for the Chamber of Secrets Lenticular cards and shared on my IG today at the link below.

Check them out here. 300 of each made. And they’re super cheap!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C31QS...Ewc3UyZzdveTB0

Thats cool

[boxof]

I've got a good bit more of the low numbered sdcc pics that I saved, but wanted to spread them out a little bit to make things more fun. Here are a few more.

[boxof]

Originally Posted by the27guy

I’ve never seen some of these images before. Thanks for sharing.

If interested, check out post #2 from this thread. Not all of the yakshack forum is still accessible but a lot is.

I love the SDCC stuff but personally stick to the main main products. I see the appeal tho. Great cards.

Yes, thank you for the link. It was a great resource and I'm glad we still have access to at least some of it. The SDCC stuff is really cool but probably out of my price range. I am currently working on acquiring more prop cards.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by the27guy

I got a huge collection in today. So much fun going through it.

For several of the sets, “Lenticular Cards” were issued via case topper. I made a video for the Chamber of Secrets Lenticular cards and shared on my IG today at the link below.

Check them out here. 300 of each made. And they’re super cheap!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C31QS...Ewc3UyZzdveTB0

Ha that Basilisk is great. Those lenticulars were done really well.

I nerd out on the set completionist items like case/box toppers and promos. Most of the focus in HP Artbox is on the autos and relics, but this stuff is right up my alley. Still have to pick up most of the case toppers. Another tough aspect of mini-master set collecting is all the film cel insert sets out there.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by boxof

I've got a good bit more of the low numbered sdcc pics that I saved, but wanted to spread them out a little bit to make things more fun. Here are a few more.

I’m amazed by these SDCC relics. That Krum relic (what even is that…walking stick?) is incredibly 3-dimensional, guessing only possible because not pack inserted, and instead available at the con.

[Alwayscards24]

I'm a buyer if anyone has any of these sdccs. References available

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by Alwayscards24

I'm a buyer if anyone has any of these sdccs. References available

Me too. And any super rare props.

[bkcardcollector]

Originally Posted by the27guy

Me too. And any super rare props.

do you have any references :P

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by bkcardcollector

do you have any references :P

I might be able to find a few.


I made this last night. Any thoughts? Especially if I left off anything that you think should be on the list.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4HZ2...NpMDZrdGIxcw==

[bkcardcollector]

nice, cool video, amazing facts, i think my favorite would be a coin, it is whole

[Buckbeak]

Awesome video and pretty solid top 10 choices.

Some of my other prop favorites would be:

Luna Lovegood's spectacles
Dumbledore's Army sign up form
Norbert's Egg
Buckbeaks Feather
Letter to Sirius Black
Peter Pettigrew's Dagger
Bone Used to Resurrect Voldemort
Umbridge's Special Quill
Professor Lupin's Wand

As you can tell, there's too many to pick from!

Originally Posted by the27guy

I might be able to find a few.


I made this last night. Any thoughts? Especially if I left off anything that you think should be on the list.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4HZ2...NpMDZrdGIxcw==

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by Buckbeak

Awesome video and pretty solid top 10 choices.

Some of my other prop favorites would be:

Luna Lovegood's spectacles
Dumbledore's Army sign up form
Norbert's Egg
Buckbeaks Feather
Letter to Sirius Black
Peter Pettigrew's Dagger
Bone Used to Resurrect Voldemort
Umbridge's Special Quill
Professor Lupin's Wand

As you can tell, there's too many to pick from!

Gosh. There really are.

This is a great list.

I didn’t know about the Dumbledore’s army sign up form!

And my goodness 3D II might be a top 3 product for props! lupins wand, Pettigrew’s dagger and Umbridge’s special quill all came out of there!! Wow!

Luna’s glasses is absolutely on my list but people keep listing it too cheap for BIN on ebay! Bah!

[the27guy]

I’m in an IG group where we’re talking about images of the rare prop cards.

Other than the images from Anna’s website, does anyone here have images of the really rare props? The SDCC ones are awesome too. But especially looking for the main issue stuff from the movie sets SS, COS, etc.

-any of the wands /28
-platform 9 3/4 ticket
-any of the coins /40

[boxof]

here's a few I've saved over the years.

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by boxof

here's a few I've saved over the years.

Thank you so much for this. All are great but I don’t think this image of the ticket was available anywhere online. That gives me images of 4 of the 40.

Thanks again.

[the27guy]

We have a question in the HP Artbox IG chat that I am hoping one of you can help with.

https://nslists.com/hpmovie1.htm

Per this info we know the following about the Sorcerors Stone product.

- 8,000 boxes were made.
- 10 boxes are in a case
- the 9 3/4 ticket is an incentive card.
- 50 cases were required to be purchased to get a ticket card.

But 50 cases x 10 boxes is 500 total boxes. And 8,000 divided by 500 is only 16.

But the card is numbered to 40…. So where’d the rest go?

- Edit - could it be that it was a 50 case incentive across ALL Harry Potter artbox products?

[BobCollects]

Holy cow, a 50 case incentive? That’s crazy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scifi Cards]

Happens all the time.

Leftovers go many places:
> Samples to the Studio (They usually get multiple master sets)
> Held back for QA, and eventually given away at SDCC
> Some probably went out the back door too.

[DynaEtch]

I agree with all the above, particularly about having them at SDCC which artbox seemed to always be pretty heavily involved in, going off stories. Anecdotes about them having unusual relic cards there, which would fit the dealer incentive cards (I have never been to SDCC myself, but some on this board have, during the time).

I am pretty sure that the dealer incentive would be just for this HP artbox Sorcerer's release (a dealer can correct me if Im wrong). One question I would have is the card really /40, since we dont have a pic of the back of it. Nslists is usually *very* accurate, but is not impervious to errors, and with something this rare, I guess it's a possibility as an outside chance. It would help to have some hard evidence that it is really /40. Two things that have me question are the 25 case incentive cards in this set are also /40 (you'd think 50 case would be less), and if that pic of the ticket is accurate, just roughly eyeballing it, not sure you could get 40 pieces of that size from it (unless multiple tickets were used for the prop, that's always a possibility). There is also a comment on nslists for a dealer incentive for a different set, PoA, that mentions a black cloak worn by Rupert Grint (500, only 130 produced)- presumably numbered /500 but only 130 actually produced.

But the dealer incentives for Sorcerer's stone dont match up with the print run for any of the tiers:
10 case: 205 (only 80 possible)
25 case: 120 total (only 32 possible)
50 case: 40 (16 possible)

So if the ticket really is /40, which I will assume based on nslists, then there was probably just a surplus held back, along with the surplus of the other tiers. For the reasons Scifi gives.

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I agree with all the above, particularly about having them at SDCC which artbox seemed to always be pretty heavily involved in, going off stories. Anecdotes about them having unusual relic cards there, which would fit the dealer incentive cards (I have never been to SDCC myself, but some on this board have, during the time).

I am pretty sure that the dealer incentive would be just for this HP artbox Sorcerer's release (a dealer can correct me if Im wrong). One question I would have is the card really /40, since we dont have a pic of the back of it. Nslists is usually *very* accurate, but is not impervious to errors, and with something this rare, I guess it's a possibility as an outside chance. It would help to have some hard evidence that it is really /40. Two things that have me question are the 25 case incentive cards in this set are also /40 (you'd think 50 case would be less), and if that pic of the ticket is accurate, just roughly eyeballing it, not sure you could get 40 pieces of that size from it (unless multiple tickets were used for the prop, that's always a possibility). There is also a comment on nslists for a dealer incentive for a different set, PoA, that mentions a black cloak worn by Rupert Grint (500, only 130 produced)- presumably numbered /500 but only 130 actually produced.

But the dealer incentives for Sorcerer's stone dont match up with the print run for any of the tiers:
10 case: 205 (only 80 possible)
25 case: 120 total (only 32 possible)
50 case: 40 (16 possible)

So if the ticket really is /40, which I will assume based on nslists, then there was probably just a surplus held back, along with the surplus of the other tiers. For the reasons Scifi gives.

This is a fantastic post. Thank you for thinking through this with me.

I agree with everything you said. The only thing that I’m just not as sure on is the case incentives not carrying over from other products. 50 is such a huge number! 500 boxes for JUST Sorcerers Stone ?!

It just feels like it could make so much more sense across all 16 or 17 products or even across 1-2 years worth.


To answer you about the quantity, they are numbered on the back. They’re exactly like any of the other prop cards. Most big collectors look at them the same way as they do the rare autos or rare props at this point. They’re on the same checklists etc, and they look identical on the front and the back to a card that you’d expect to get out of a pack. So the serial number is there.

But did they really make 40 (even though they’re numbered to 40?) I don’t know.

I’ve done enough research at this point though to make me suspicious that there really were 40 cards made. There is virtually nothing out there.

I had a friend message me with “the images of the old yak shack forum” of the card. It gave us one new copy and one we already had. We have images of 4 copies. Four!!!

worthpoint still has a ton of images of HP Artbox. It has zero of the ticket.

eBay’s 3 year tool has the one that was from the old yakshack site.

Yakshack gave us one more.

I have a friend who owns one.

And the site that Anna thankfully gave us has one. https://annao14.tripod.com/id10.html

That is it. I’m sure there are more. But more than 12-15? I could be wrong, but I just don’t believe it. I know some big collectors are private and they could just have them in their collections with no images out there, but we’ve really scoured the resources available. To only get four!?

Check out this image from my IG. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qZdGTM...tlbGs0YXVpazlp

The good news is that if we get more images, we can see if any overlap with those that we have thus far!

And what’s also fun is we can do this for all the significant documents used. I think we should do that. Hopefully it brings some images to light.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by the27guy

To answer you about the quantity, they are numbered on the back. They’re exactly like any of the other prop cards. Most big collectors look at them the same way as they do the rare autos or rare props at this point. They’re on the same checklists etc, and they look identical on the front and the back to a card that you’d expect to get out of a pack. So the serial number is there.

But did they really make 40 (even though they’re numbered to 40?) I don’t know.

I’ve done enough research at this point though to make me suspicious that there really were 40 cards made. There is virtually nothing out there.

I had a friend message me with “the images of the old yak shack forum” of the card. It gave us one new copy and one we already had. We have images of 4 copies. Four!!!

worthpoint still has a ton of images of HP Artbox. It has zero of the ticket.

eBay’s 3 year tool has the one that was from the old yakshack site.

Yakshack gave us one more.

I have a friend who owns one.

Gotcha, I wasnt aware we had hard evidence the card was even numbered /40 on back since I didnt see any pics of the back, but if your friend owns one, that settles that it's at least numbered to 40.

I agree, looking at the reconstruction of the ticket on IG from the 4 pieces, no way 40 are coming from that. Multiple tickets used for the prop would be the only way out of that I think.

It's a doozy for sure, why there are so few examples to be seen. But that seems to be the case with a lot of these rare HP relics, not just this. How many Basilisk fangs or Letters from Hogwarts from CoS come to market, or pretty much any of those relics above. Even the triple auto, of which there may be upwards of 100, is so rare to come to market. A lot of high end HP artbox is deeply buried in collections I think.

It's crazy youd have to buy more than 6% of the run to get the incentive. The amount of these actually earned would have to be far less than even 16, as 16 is if the whole run was exhausted by dealers earning 50 caser incentives. It could even be just few at most.

*If* artbox held a bunch back for other purposes, then who knows. It's conceivable there could be far less than 40 out there even if they printed 40, as maybe destroyed surplus, lost when they went out of business, or lost when given to the Studio by people maybe not familiar with cards or collecting...it's been two decades.

I would be curious if you find out any info regarding them from ex-artbox people. This has to be up there in the top prop cards of the whole series.

[BobCollects]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

*If* artbox held a bunch back for other purposes, then who knows. It's conceivable there could be far less than 40 out there even if they printed 40, as maybe destroyed surplus, lost when they went out of business, or lost when given to the Studio by people maybe not familiar with cards or collecting...it's been two decades.

Does anyone know what happened to Artbox? Did the company go bankrupt or just close up shop? Was there a liquidation like when Inkworks folded and thousands of cards were sold off? If someone bought up a ton of Artbox inventory, there may be a box with a bunch of these /40 ticket incentive cards sitting in a closet or a storage unit somewhere.

These discussions are always fascinating to me even though there are so many unanswered questions.

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Gotcha, I wasnt aware we had hard evidence the card was even numbered /40 on back since I didnt see any pics of the back, but if your friend owns one, that settles that it's at least numbered to 40.

I agree, looking at the reconstruction of the ticket on IG from the 4 pieces, no way 40 are coming from that. Multiple tickets used for the prop would be the only way out of that I think.

It's a doozy for sure, why there are so few examples to be seen. But that seems to be the case with a lot of these rare HP relics, not just this. How many Basilisk fangs or Letters from Hogwarts from CoS come to market, or pretty much any of those relics above. Even the triple auto, of which there may be upwards of 100, is so rare to come to market. A lot of high end HP artbox is deeply buried in collections I think.

It's crazy youd have to buy more than 6% of the run to get the incentive. The amount of these actually earned would have to be far less than even 16, as 16 is if the whole run was exhausted by dealers earning 50 caser incentives. It could even be just few at most.

*If* artbox held a bunch back for other purposes, then who knows. It's conceivable there could be far less than 40 out there even if they printed 40, as maybe destroyed surplus, lost when they went out of business, or lost when given to the Studio by people maybe not familiar with cards or collecting...it's been two decades.

I would be curious if you find out any info regarding them from ex-artbox people. This has to be up there in the top prop cards of the whole series.

I got some information yesterday from a long time collector of someone on LinkedIn who might have info. I reached out. But no response yet.

I hear you with your point about maybe the cards are just in collections and the triple auto. Could be. You’re right.

But at some point, the value knocks some of these items loose from collections. That’s what you’d expect.

[the27guy]

Originally Posted by BobCollects

Does anyone know what happened to Artbox? Did the company go bankrupt or just close up shop? Was there a liquidation like when Inkworks folded and thousands of cards were sold off? If someone bought up a ton of Artbox inventory, there may be a box with a bunch of these /40 ticket incentive cards sitting in a closet or a storage unit somewhere.

These discussions are always fascinating to me even though there are so many unanswered questions.

I think they’re still open but not as a card producer. At least that’s what I gathered on LinkedIn. I may be mistake though.

Edit - exactly right on the box of ticket cards. It’s possible. Just like most redemption type cards.

But since the last ticket sold for close to $6k, it’s a good bet that someone would have found that box and profited since then if it was known. So either it doesn’t exist or it does and no one knows it.

[galar]

As far as the case incentives, remember cases were not as expensive as they are today, so dealers were more likely to be able to reach them. Also, Potter was a pretty popular brand so cases were easier to sell and it was still profitable to open and sell singles back then.

Also if you were not there, you cannot imagine how awesome the Artbox booth was at SDCC. I didn't buy anything the first time I saw them, but once I understood what they were doing, I went to their booth every year till they stopped. For the most part, you could buy mystery bags from their booth. Each bag would have like a hobby box or two, a binder or two, a collated base set or two, and a mystery pack of cards. In those packs you could get autos/props/costumes from anything that had been produced. They sold like 100-200 bags a day. One year, each day they had 2 (I believe it was the quad) autos hidden in each allotment of bags for the day (a friend of mine got one). I am pretty sure one year they had the triple auto available in the bags. Eventually I think they ran out of old stock and started inserting relic/prop/autos made specially for SDCC (that's where a lot of those costume sets and autos came from). They also they sold boxes, sets and binders at their booth as well as other items made especially for SDCC. Jeff's nslist shows the special items that were available each year. Anyway it has been quite a while but this is the best that I can recall from SDCC.