A couple weeks ago I was back in Victoria doing a little visiting. I did a quick pop-in to my old local card shop to say hi and maybe grab a couple of packs. They do little baseball and I wasn’t feeling the hockey that day. I did notice a trio of packs of 5finity’s debut Archie March of Dimes Sketch Cards sitting near the cash register. They don’t do much non-sport outside of the odd release so I wasn’t surprised these were still there as the clientele doesn’t seem geared much toward the sketch cards. I asked how much and the owner said they were $30 each (about the same as eBay has them), but he let me have all three for $30 just to get the bulky packs out of his sight.
Although I wasn’t planning on spending that much, it seemed like a decent way to get some trade bait. Plus the two packs I busted last year were pretty fun. So I went for it. In case you’re unfamiliar with the set, each pack contains an Archie-themed sketch card. There’s some chase elements too, but they all revolve around sketch cards. There’s no base cards to be had. Each card is unique.
Here’s what I got:
The first pack has a dancing Little Veronica from JJ Harrison. It’s simple but has a good “cute” factor. Harrison did 24 cards for the set.
Pack two:
A colorful and slightly stylized Archie from Jeremy Treece, who sketched 32 cards.
Finally:
A basic head shot of Midge Klump by Dan Parent. Parent, who contributed 48 cards to the set, stuck with the distinct Archie Comics look on this one.
While nothing screams “Wow!” to me, I’m certainly pleased with each of the cards, especially given the deal that I got. This remains a fun set that went on to launch a whole new distribution model for smaller-scale non-sport releases.
