Tuesday, July 17, 2012

2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary Trading Cards Box Break Recap And Review


The task of turning a beloved series of films, 22 movies over a 50 year period with box office receipts of over five billion dollars, into a single set of trading cards is daunting.  Leave it to Rittenhouse Archives to take this challenge head on and produce a fantastic set of cards that are so entertaining, you will want to collect every single one, base set to inserts to special hits.  If you are a card collector that likes their martinis shaken, not stirred, 2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary Trading Cards will satisfy your every Bond desire.  And no, you won’t find David Niven anywhere near this set, a smart omission.

This set falls under our classification of trading cards.  Hobby Boxes contain 24 – 5 card packs and feature three autograph cards per box.

As you can see from some of the cards we pulled from our box, this set has it all.


Base Set - Actors that have played Bond
Sean Connery, front and back

George Lazenby, Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig

Base Set - All 22 movies
Dr. No, From Russia With Love

Goldfinger, Thunderball

You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamond Are Forever

Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy

A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill

GoldenEye. Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough

Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solice

Base Parallel
Sean Connery, Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Charles Gray - Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Daniela Bianchi - Tatiana Romanova, Sophie Marceau - Elektra King, Olga Kurylenko - Camile

Dr. No Throwback Movie Cards
Bomd with M, front and back

James Bond, Sylvia Trench, Dr. No

Bond and Honey Ryder on the beach, A Spider in Bond's bed

Gold Plaque - Movie Tribute, Poster & Credits
You Only Live Twice, front and back

Live And Let Die, front and back

Bond... James Bond
Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan

007 Gold Gallery
Kristina Wayborn as Magda, Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier 

The Hits - Autographs
Cristina Contes - Die Another Day, Vijay Amritraj - Octopussy

Peter Fontaine - For Your Eyes Only

Overall Look
As you can see from the base set, Rittenhouse Archives has taken the “golden anniversary” and produced a fabulous result.  The design of these cards is superior with fantastic embossed gold foil, strong card stock and excellent write-ups on the back.  Photo selection is really good too.  The Dr. No throwback cards are another stellar design that feels retro with a smart choice of cardboard stock, period font selection and great black & white photography.  Something I would have loved to pull but didn’t is one of the three James Bond Shadowbox cards which look wonderful.

Quality and Variety of the Checklist
It is all here.  All 22 Movies, all 6 Bond actors.  The Bond... James Bond and Gold Gallery inserts work really well to highlight favorite characters and actors from the series of films.

Do the hits hold up?
Short of Pierce Brosnan, the autograph checklist is confined to the kitschier bond characters, which is fine.  A lot of these autographs you won’t find anywhere else and getting bigger names to sign probably who have taken this out of the trading card category and into premium cards, which would be a mistake because these cards work much better as trading cards.

Will you want to collect them all? 
You will want every single one of them.  Each box should yield a base set but you will need several boxes to put together a complete Dr. No set, as well as the inset sets.  


Rating
5 out of 5

2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary is a fantastic and worthy tribute.

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