A lot of people have been asking for a True Blood card set, unfortunately at this time the license is not going to be made available to any one. You can add True Blood to a long list of properties that as far as cardboard is concerned might as well not exist. Many companies and studios seem unwilling to license trading card products for a lot of varying reasons, (often they simply don’t feel it’s worth the time and effort) and that leaves collectors and companies without cards that consumers would have wanted. Up until recently that was just the way it was. 258 West Authentic (named for it’s street address) have set out to change this with a new and innovative plan.
Rather than license the TV show or film itself they went after each individual actor, licensing the rights to the person rather than the character. This has a lot of added benefits for card collectors and autograph hunters alike. The truth is, no matter how much we all want a show to make it they are often only a few rough ratings weeks away from cancellation. This means your expensive and great autograph of star X as character Y could soon be worth a lot less and little on the unfortunate side. Lets face a lot of collectors don’t really WANT a card from a cancelled program or a film that tanked….(exceptions always apply to that) I know a lot of card collectors who buy a card from a set they have no interest in simply because they like the actor, and this type of licensing can really help out in that respect because now regardless of the show you have the actor.
A great example of this would be the Zachary Quinto autograph cards. He was Sylar in Heroes and now more recently Spock in the rejuvenated Star Trek franchise. To purchase these cards your looking at $75.00 for Heroes and about $190.00 for Trek respectively, yet you can grab the same autograph from 258 for about $25.00, and the back of the over-sized card has a photo of the man himself signing the cards.
They produced on the card signatures for a lot of the Heroes cast which appealed to many folks who hate the new security label (sticker) autograph cards that have taken over the hobby. The cards from the cast of Heroes were over-sized, (twice the size of a regular 2.5X3.5 card) and that put a few people off however 258 are now bringing us the normal sized cards that are compatible with all the accessories most card hunters have in abundance.
That means we will be seeing the cast of some great shows and movies added to the cardboard collection.While 258 have been around for a while they seem to be moving into a higher gear and have released 4 cards featuring autographs from actors in the hit show True Blood, (I am told more are planned) and now they are soliciting for three great signatures from Supernatural actors.
The four signers involved with True Blood are Nelsan Ellis, Allan Hyde, Ashley Jones, and William Sanderson. Buying any of the cards from 258 means you also have a chance of obtaining some interesting intentional variants. Again in the non-sports side this is something new, a small percentage of the cards have been altered so rather than a white background signature area it is black and signed in silver, this gives these limited cards a great look. The Allan Hyde, Ashley Jones and William Sanderson cards are each limited to 240 Black pen on a White cards and 60 Silver pen on a black while the Nelsan Ellis is limited to 400 Black pen on White and 100 Silver pen on a black, I am told the card you get is random and this seems like such a basic idea it is surprising the bigger companies have not been using it in non-sports.
The next three autographs due out (as mentioned above) are from actors in the Supernatural show. The rights to produce Supernatural trading cards had been held by inkworks but when they went under the studio declined to re-license the show for the cardboard community, thankfully 258 have come in with some new products aimed at these existing fans. Actors already anounced include Misha Collins (Castiel), Rob Benedict (Chuck), and Julie McNiven (Anna Miltion).
Castiel Autograph available in June
Again it has to be stressed that these cards are of the actors and they have been in a number of other programs so these cards have a much larger appeal than anything aimed at just one program or film. These products could help cross the gap between card collectors and autograph collectors, which could in turn bring new fans to an ailing hobby that has been rocked with scandals. 258 want to change the way many people collect autograph cards and I think they have a shot at doing just that. Marco says he is aiming to bring out between three and five new cards every 6 weeks, which isn’t bad when you consider the prices he is charging, (under $35.00) and the authentication the cards have. Check out the 258 West website for updates and more information.