Ghostbusters Trading Cards

Lost in all the hoopla of the new lines of toys, junk food, and the limited time re-release of Ecto Cooler (which I still haven't found by the way) in conjunction with the new Ghostbusters movie, are these ... Ghostbusters trading cards! I've seen other box breaks online and I realized then that I had to get my hands on these.  I managed to get my hands on a box from DA Card World courtesy of my aunt who ordered a box for me since all the local shops were either out of stock or only had a few packs left. Normally I don't partake in non-sports products but these looked too awesome to pass up.

Packaging/Layout

The design of the box and of the packs is really cool. The box has that Slimer green color and the packs have a shiny foil design going on with a dark outline of all the Ghostbusters shooting their proton streams into the dark sky.. The breakdown is 5 cards per pack with 24 packs per box. While a "hits" (autographs, replica patch cards, slime cards, sketch cards, etc) are not guaranteed, most of these have been averaging about 2-3 of these per box. 

Base Set

The base set is 54 cards which makes it perfect to fit in a binder. You get a full base set in a box with a few duplicates thrown in. As you can probably tell the set chronicles the original film. The cards are nice and have a slick front. The backs give a brief paragraph about the scene or character pictured on the front. I was going to go through the base set and chat about my favorites but in the interest of space, I'll just show off the whole set.

Inserts

There are five major insert sets along with some foil parallels and in this box I got all five complete sets. Each one is pretty unique and fun.

Behind the Scenes: This is probably my least favorite of the batch, mainly because I'm not really into all the behind the scenes stuff of movies and TV. There are some interesting trivia bits on the backs of some of these, for example, did you know the monster on the card on the top left was supposed to be the monster in the library? It was cut because it was deemed too scary. The design on these reminds me of something from the 80s with the green and yellow.

Character Bios: Only seven cards in this set. Each one gives a brief background of the seven main characters in the film. Pretty self explanatory and the design is very clean.

Quote Cards: This is probably my favorite of all the insert sets. The designs are really fun but there are a few here that I wouldn't have included such as the "mass hysteria" quote and the "she's a dog" card. Otherwise, these are great and I'm happy that Winston's line of "Ray, when somone asks you if you're a God, you say yes!" got included.

Sing For Your Specter: Not sure how this fits in but according to the back of the cards it's an original comic two artists came up with for the set. It's interesting and fun for people into comics I guess but not really something I'm into. I do like the art in this though.

Tricks and Traps: So this is cool. I really dig this picture that the nine cards in this set make as it really encompasses a lot of what makes the original film great. All four original Ghosbusters, plus Ecto-1, Stay-Puft, and Slimber. The only nitpick I have about this is that the cards aren't numbered in the right order so you have to mix and match until you form the picture.

Foil Parallels: These are just parallel foil versions of base cards and insert cards, nothing more. It'd be really cool to get the Tricks and Traps set in foil to go along with the regular set.

Hits

As I mentioned in the open, there are no guaranteed hits per box but in most breaks I've seen, hits are averaging about 2-3 per box. Autograph cards are 1:30 packs, which falls just outside the realm of the 24 pack box. I got three hits in my box, including an autograph and a really hard pull. Other hits in the product can include slime cards and animation cel cards.

First up is this 1/1 sketch card. I'm not sure who drew it as the artist signature on the back is completely illegible but knowing that it's a 1/1 makes it really neat. You can feel the felt on the front and you can see on the back where some of the ink bled through. Each sketch card in the product is a 1/1 and if you pull one, it's definitely something very unique.

Autographs come 1 in every 30 packs so I was actually expecting not as I usually either get gipped or I get hits of players I really don't care about in my history of breaking boxes. I'm guessing this is from Ghostbusters 2, which I haven't seen in a long, long time but judging by eBay prices, it's one of the better autographs in the set. Obviously I would have preferred Dan Aykroyd but this will do.

Here's a card I really wanted when I saw it on the checklist. Apparently these replica patch cards are a hard pull so in that case I consider myself lucky. These are pretty simple, no frills cards and when I pulled it out of the pack, there was only one other card in the pack with it. I'm not complaining, it's still one of the marquee names.

If you're into the classic Ghostbusters films and cartoons, then this is definitely a product to check out. Like I said, I'm not really into the whole non-sports cards scene but I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan and I couldn't pass these up. Grab a box of these, I guarantee you won't be disappointed.