25 February 2015

Pack of the Day 90: Topps Star Wars Masterwork Box Break: Pack 4 (of 4)


Here is the fourth and final pack of my box of Star Wars Masterwork trading cards, featuring five cards from Topps' super-premium Star Wars offering. So far the pulls have been decent but not spectacular, and while it's not the worst break of this stuff I've seen, it certainly hasn't blown me away with awesomeness. Let's see what Pack 4 does to that perception.


The base cards start things out well enough, with two of the more popular characters in the Star Wars canon, premiere bounty hunter Boba Fett and the swashbuckling smuggler / reluctant hero Han Solo. These are decent pulls, I suppose.


Next up is a Blue parallel of Wicket W. Warrick, one of the named Ewoks in the films. I've never really liked the Ewoks, but some people think they are cool / cute. I think they are creepy and their battle scenes make me think that the Empire should have put a little more effort into recruiting Stormtroopers.


Next up is a base Companions insert of Jango and Boba Fett. I like the daring choice to go with a purple border on this set. I could think of pairs from the films that I like more than Jango and Boba, but someone has to play the role of checklist-filler. With four cards out of the way, there's only one card left in the box, and it's...


 ...an okay but not great sketch of a Stormtrooper by Davide Fabbri, who did a buttload of variations on this sketch for the set. So the market is flooded with Sandtroopers, Snowtroopers, Scout Troopers, and Stormtroopers in approximately this same pose. Oh well, at least it's a sketch. Most of the boxes in this product carry two sketches, so this didn't really come as a surprise to me.


Fabbri didn't sign the backs of his cards, so the Artist Signature block on the card is blank. And with that, my box break of Star Wars Masterwork reaches its conclusion. How do I feel? I did better than I could have, but overall the box was decidedly ordinary and didn't quite live up to the price tag. I probably got more value out of the anticipation and daydreaming I did while waiting for the box to get to my mailbox. I'll be able to recoup some of the money I spent by selling a few items I pulled, and maybe that will be enough to fill out a couple of the insert sets and get representative items from some of the relic sets. That way I can build a mini-master set of sorts. I'd love to build the full base set, but those short-printed cards are tough to find, and they carry a premium.

4 comments:

  1. I really don't think the set is worth the price they are asking for it. You don't get enough cards, and the base cards aren't anything too different from what we've already gotten in years past. I tried to win a giveaway they did on Facebook but was unsuccessful so it looks like I will miss this set totally.

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    1. None of these high-end sets are worth it, unless you pull the big hits out of your allocation. The big-name autographs and sketches are selling for hundreds or thousands apiece, but if you didn't pull one of those you wind up taking a pretty big loss. You're probably better off buying singles or collated sets of the stuff you like. But there's always the chance that in the next box you'll pull that 1/1 Harrison Ford Wood Variant Autograph...

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    2. The thing for me is that I don't sell anything, ever. So if I am going to drop that kind of money, I need more than just a handful of cards. I don't enjoy buying singles, unless I need just a few cards to finish off a set. It's frustrating to me.

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  2. Wow... Boba, Han, and Wicket in the same pack? Love all three of those characters.

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