Non-sports Trading Card - Sketch Cards

Sketch Cards

Further information: Artist trading cards

A sketch card displays original artwork on a standard-size trading card, usually measuring 2.5" (65mm) x 3.5" (90mm). These cards, with black-and-white or color original art, have been randomly inserted into various trading card sets since the 1990s. One of the first sets to include this type of chase card insert was the 1993 Simpsons set by SkyBox International that had 400 redemptions for an "Art DeBart Card."

The sketch card insert has been most common in non-sport trading card sets like Lord of the Rings: Evolution, Star Wars: Clone Wars and Scooby Doo: Mysteries & Monsters. A few sport sets have also adopted the idea like the 2005 Topps Gallery Baseball. One of the all-time most popular sets was the 1998 Marvel Creator's Collection by Fleer. They called their sketch cards "sketchagraph" cards. The set was popular because it used the artistic skills of hundreds of different artists who were allowed to draw any character in the Marvel Comics universe.

Sketch card inserts have usually come one-per-box of trading cards, but some sets like Hulk by Topps came one in 12 boxes, and Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces by Topps come two per box. Some companies even offer oversize (3x5 inch) sketch cards as case premiums like Fathom by Dynamic Forces.


A few of the titles that sketch cards go by include:

  • sketchagraph (Fleer/Skybox)
  • sketchafex (Rittenhouse Archives)
  • art de bart" (Fleer/Skybox)

Read more about this topic:  Non-sports Trading Card

Famous quotes containing the words sketch and/or cards:

    “We criticize a man or a book most sharply when we sketch out their ideal.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn’t order any credit cards! We don’t spend what we don’t have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?”
    —Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)