Lets take a look at my all time favorite Star Trek trading card series, the Skybox Star Trek Master Series featuring original art compositions from some of the genre's top illustrators.
These cards were released back in 1993, and to this date I don't think we've gotten another trading card series with art as beautiful as these. I used to try and buy 2 or 3 packages of these every time I went to my local comic book shop back in the day.
Some of the artists whose work is included in this set had been illustrating Star Trek posters and novel covers for many years and they truly know how to capture the essence of our favorite characters, aliens, and ships. Artists like Sonia Hilios, Keith Birdsong, and even Trek production illustrator and FX guru Dan Curry all contributed paintings for this set. These are just beautiful to look at. There is so much detail in each image that you could just stare at them for hours.
Usually one has to spend a lot of money buying limited edition prints or lithos to get this level of quality in Star Trek art, but this set was the perfect way of bringing high end Star Trek art to every fan. Skybox did an amazing job at putting these together. During the many years they had the Star Trek license they put out some amazing card sets, much better in my opinion than what Rittenhouse Archives puts out these days.
SkyBox International Inc. was a trading card manufacturing company founded back in 1989 as Impel Marketing, the company became SkyBox not long after. In 1991 they picked up the license to produce Star Trek trading cards. Skybox, which was later bought by Fleer, continued to produce Star Trek card sets until the year 2000, when their license expired.
Since these cards were produced back in 1993 the set only features art from the first 6 motion pictures and The Original Series, The Next Generation, and DS9. There was a second series produced the following year, I'll share my thoughts on that one as well as my favorite images in a future post. It would be great to see a new series of art cards in the same style released today so it could include art from all the Star Trek shows and films produced since these Skybox sets were released. Now lets take a look at a couple more of my favorite images from the Star Trek Master Series 1.
Thanks for an awesome post on these incredible cards! I have most of them, but not all, and you are right in that they are one of the best sets ever... because of the artwork, and not being merely photos. Many of them would make awesome prints for framing!
ReplyDeleteI have been looking for info on these cards forever (off and on, to be honest) - this is a great post. I have 2 unopened (the shrink wrap says "SkyBox Factory Sealed") boxes of these cards, 1 from '93 and 1 from '94. Do you know any place I could find a value on these? DO you think a collector would be interested in them?
ReplyDeleteThe boxes show up on Ebay from time to time and go for anywhere between 10 and 20 dollars. Skybox overproduced the first series so those are easier to find.
ReplyDeleteI have the entire set, except for card #39, titled 'Evolution'. Arrgh!
ReplyDeleteThe art pieces are incredible, What a great group of artists made this images, amazing it was part of Trading Cards and not for huge art books. But I still think that Star Trek over uses the blue Viagra pill color
ReplyDeletei agree these are very nice...i have the whole set of these and many other whole sets that im trying to sale if anyone is interested let me know or if you know of a place to sell them other than ebay lol... facebook-bigmacc07@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteI have 20 of the original paintings that were used to make the cards. I will be selling some of them. Let me know if interested
ReplyDeleteHi there,I enjoy reading through your article post.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to write a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuationAll the best for all your blogging efforts.
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