2023 Upper Deck Marvel Masterpieces - Dan dos Santos

[DynaEtch]

Agreed, who wants to collect a green set (which would be very hard in the first place), with so many ones that don’t look green.

The greens are already at a disadvantage since they are new on the MM block and have no continuity with previous sets. You add this too it….green values won’t be good.

I like weird error anomalies as much as anyone, but it’s not an anomaly if they are all like that. Even if the thing was totally caused by the pack-out company, that doesn’t mean UD couldn’t correct the problem now for collectors.

[PurplesaurusRex]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

-UD contracts with other companies in production/pack-out, so that's where the green parallel error would have come from. He mentioned it was a green serial number on a gold foil signature card, but I dont think that can be correct since the errors are actually green numbers on true base cards.

At the end of the day UD's name is on the product, they need to take ownership for the mistake. The pool of buyers for this product is already limited since it's high end. If they don't fix this how many customers will stick around for the next set?

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by PurplesaurusRex

At the end of the day UD's name is on the product, they need to take ownership for the mistake. The pool of buyers for this product is already limited since it's high end. If they don't fix this how many customers will stick around for the next set?

They should just do a replacement exchange.

Fwiw, if they leave it as is, the value of one of these error greens probably isnt much different than what it would go for if it were really green.

Say you are a Daredevil collector (Daredevil is one of the ones affected): you will want whatever this card is for your character collection just the same...it's the distinct parallel /25 that is the important part for your collection (in some ways the actual color of the band is secondary to it just being another box to tick off on the checklist of ones you need). A similar thing could be argued for green set collectors (although there will be very few of these people out there)...they will need the card for their set, whether it has an error or not. It's possible for a common character it could even boost the value because the novelty.

But I still think UD should offer to correct it- have people send in the error, UD could destroy it and send them a corrected green. Interestingly this would have the side effect of creating a strategic game for owners of these: send it back....or dont send it back? If all the other 24 of 25 are sent back by people, then you will own the sole remaining error! In that case it should be quite valuable. So you play this guesstimating game of how many will end up sending theirs back....I sense many people actually wouldnt. And it gets convoluted. All the meantime making it more burdensome for the character collectors because now there are 2 variants of that one character's green to get (assuming not all 25 are turned in)

[Xazark]

The original art painting of the Spiderman card was sold earlier today in seconds from its listing for a cool $50k. Was higher than I thought it was going to list for, but turns out it was possibly too low to sell out that quickly. Couple of other art pieces were listed as well all of which are well out of my price range but it certainly appears that his art is resonating with the community.

[DynaEtch]

$50k geez. Excepting the 96 Masterpieces painting sales that were above that, this is new territory for Marvel card original art. That is double what the 94 Masterpieces Hildebrandt Wolverine painting sold for in the middle of the pandemic card craze, which is a mega iconic card.

This was the base card Spider-Man painting I take it? What is the Spider-man painting redemption in packs, the canvas art?

[exotechktx]

The two OA redemptions are Thor & Spidey canvas gallery. If I want to hit a single thing from this set, it'd be the Spidey for sure.

[Xazark]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

$50k geez. Excepting the 96 Masterpieces painting sales that were above that, this is new territory for Marvel card original art. That is double what the 94 Masterpieces Hildebrandt Wolverine painting sold for in the middle of the pandemic card craze, which is a mega iconic card.

This was the base card Spider-Man painting I take it? What is the Spider-man painting redemption in packs, the canvas art?

Yea it was the base card one with doc oct, aunt may etc.. all behind him as he puts on the mask. He did confirm on facebook a while back which paintings UD has for use as redemptions

[exotechktx]

Dan dos Santos released some content off his public facing website:

https://www.muddycolors.com/2023/10/...-masterpieces/

If you're into art at all, I also recommend his Patreon!

[MMguy]

Originally Posted by exotechktx

Dan dos Santos released some content off his public facing website:

https://www.muddycolors.com/2023/10/...-masterpieces/

If you're into art at all, I also recommend his Patreon!

Gorgeous art...

Silver Surfer looks so much better without the Holofoil border...

Why did they remove the arrows and blood from the Wolverine art???

That Venom card is magnificent; would love to see more cards from him, a Carnage and Punisher card would have been cool.

[exotechktx]

Yea, the silver surfer suffers from the holofoil design. Same for Kingpin.

You're in luck, because he DID do a carnage and punisher �� unfortunately the punisher was rejected due to him being a banned character, while it is speculated carnage is going to be an epack achievement (unless UD wholly messed up)

He did a Patreon-only live lecture on the entire series of paintings. Unfortunately it is Patreon only so I cannot share it �� But his Patreon is really worth it!

As for wolverine, a number of rules forced that change - among them, the characters' costume cannot be damaged in any way, and no visuals with blood/violence... crazy right?

[PurplesaurusRex]

Originally Posted by exotechktx

As for wolverine, a number of rules forced that change - among them, the characters' costume cannot be damaged in any way, and no visuals with blood/violence... crazy right?

Lol what? His suit is always torn and damaged in the comics!

[exotechktx]

Originally Posted by PurplesaurusRex

Lol what? His suit is always torn and damaged in the comics!

It's a licensing thing from Marvel to Upper Deck, not that Marvel can't produce such imagery themselves hehehe

[MMguy]

Originally Posted by exotechktx

Yea, the silver surfer suffers from the holofoil design. Same for Kingpin.

You're in luck, because he DID do a carnage and punisher �� unfortunately the punisher was rejected due to him being a banned character, while it is speculated carnage is going to be an epack achievement (unless UD wholly messed up)

He did a Patreon-only live lecture on the entire series of paintings. Unfortunately it is Patreon only so I cannot share it �� But his Patreon is really worth it!

As for wolverine, a number of rules forced that change - among them, the characters' costume cannot be damaged in any way, and no visuals with blood/violence... crazy right?

Does his Patreon have tiers or just a standard subscription and is it worth it?

What are ePack achievements? Excuse my ignorance.

I would love a Carnage and Punisher card (kind of lame that he is banned, he was part of the 2016 and 2020 sets).

[MMguy]

NVM I found his Patreon...and the Punisher art, that I think would have been on the cards, looks great. The Silver Surfer Defenders Comic Book art looks like it can be redeemed if pulled in a 2022 MM Box.

[exotechktx]

If you appreciate the art process, his Patreon is worth it many times over. His behind the scenes and longer lectures are all available and they're a great watch. If you only care about MM22, I imagine his Patreon is still worth it, at least in the meantime - you can cancel any time

ePack achieves or ePack exclusives are basically incentives for buying through ePack. Achievements are unlocked goodies tied behind checking off other collecting milestones - "Unlock this card once you collect an entire subset..." type of thing.

[DynaEtch]

You can get ePack achievement cards by collecting certain sets on epack, which you obtain from buying ePacks and trading on there. In masterpieces it’s usually something like: achievement for collecting the whole base tier 1 set, or tier 2 set, or tier 3 or 4 set, and then one for collecting all the tiers 1-4. Also the same thing for gold foils and what ifs. And maybe one for obtaining the all three tier 1-4 sets together. Stuff like that.

You can’t just buy the cards you need on COMC….you need to have the card in your inventory on your epack account (and once you take it off the site, be it shipping home to you, or transfer to comc, it can no longer count towards the achievements).

So basically they are exclusive cards- real, physical cards- that you can only get from collecting things on epack. It looks like Carnage and some of the other yet-to-be-used art could be achievements for this set, but don’t know for sure yet.

[Xazark]

Originally Posted by MMguy

Does his Patreon have tiers or just a standard subscription and is it worth it?

2 tiers - Fan and Collector, collectors get the opportunity to buy/bid on his original art pieces earlier than anyone else. As mentioned above if you like the art process, he is really good at explaining his process and how he creates the art he does, why he does it a certain way and other ways he has tried and doesn't like etc.. All good info. If you are interested in buying any pieces - cheapest one so far has been $3.3k I think and he mentioned that they start at $2k with some being significantly higher than that then it is a must have.

However if you are just interested in the background for MM and that sort of surrounding stuff then pick it up for a month or 2, read through / watch the stuff and see if its worth it to continue for yourself. He did give away some stuff a few months back, not sure if that is a regular occurrence or not.

[jdandns]

I'm not collecting any of these new ones since 2016 Jusko, but I have to say, this is the best of the MM sets since '96. These paintings stand up right alongside those from the 90's heyday of MM in terms of creativity and execution.

Bravo, dos Santos!

[MMguy]

ePack achievements sounds like a good idea, but what am I going to do with an extra base set?? All this to obtain 1 card?? Lol.

Such a bummer that UD messed up the Holofoil Set by using mostly the same art as the base set; the checklist that was released had listed other characters.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by MMguy

ePack achievements sounds like a good idea, but what am I going to do with an extra base set?? All this to obtain 1 card?? Lol.

Such a bummer that UD messed up the Holofoil Set by using mostly the same art as the base set; the checklist that was released had listed other characters.

If you dont want to deal with the epack collecting, you can just buy the achievements card by card when they eventually get dumped onto COMC. That's what I did with the previous MM achievements.

I agree about the holofoils. Bad set design.

[DynaEtch]

Some more reflections on this set.

I think the art is nice and Im a fan. When holding some in hand, the darkness/shadow is still there with lots of cards, more than I thought upthread- but it's improved over the recent MMs at least. Im almost convinced UD is actively going for that darker look with MM at this point based on the last 3 sets. I hope eventually it goes more towards an all bright set more like the 90s sets. This is a nit-picky point, but just a preference for a comic card set. I cant argue that the art isnt great.

While the art of the set is good...the execution was not. Referring to the rehashed art in holofoils, the green errors, the very off-center galleries, the excessive parallels, out of place Preserved Ambers, changing red galleries to common now and gold gallery to rare 1/1s (no consistency with earlier MM sets), and no mass-released promos for the set.

[DynaEtch]

The biggest thing that Im not a fan of are some trends Im seeing with this set though. I consider this the next major 'paradigm shifter' in MM. What I mean by this, there have been certain years that MM jumped the brand into higher levels of limitedness/exclusivity.

1995: Transition from the massive print runs of 1992-1994 to more limited sets in 95-96.

2016: First truly limited MM with numbered cards etc, setting the standard for new MM model.

2022: Boxes $900...whole 'nother level of exclusivity.

Now the boxes being so expensive is just the market and demand establishing prices....not like UD controls that aspect. But this is not a great trend imo...the product seems geared towards the influencer crowd, which seems to be opening most of it, as well as the small amount of people who are putting $10k+ into their nonsports card budgets (i.e. not average collectors whatsoever). Ok it's a high end set, I get that. But at the end you have a small group of maybe like 20-50 people who are doing most of the transactions related to this set, in buying/selling cards to each other. How is this going to play out for longer range interest in MM and the hobby.

Looking at the box break section here on BO....basically no 2022MM posted, since most typical nonsports collectors arent opening it. There wasnt even an article on it in the NSU magazines. MM has now gone essentially the opposite direction of being mainstream.

Not sure how to go about solving this...I just wonder about long-term prospects. Once some of the narrow group buying moves on to different things, who will be left to pay $1500-$3000 for some of these parallels. To make it more accessible, UD could jack up the print run, but some wont like that. It'll be interesting to see the epack price and if it's any cheaper, but it'll still be way outside the budget of regular collectors Im sure.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

The biggest thing that Im not a fan of are some trends Im seeing with this set though. I consider this the next major 'paradigm shifter' in MM. What I mean by this, there have been certain years that MM jumped the brand into higher levels of limitedness/exclusivity.

1995: Transition from the massive print runs of 1992-1994 to more limited sets in 95-96.

2016: First truly limited MM with numbered cards etc, setting the standard for new MM model.

2022: Boxes $900...whole 'nother level of exclusivity.

Now the boxes being so expensive is just the market and demand establishing prices....not like UD controls that aspect. But this is not a great trend imo...the product seems geared towards the influencer crowd, which seems to be opening most of it, as well as the small amount of people who are putting $10k+ into their nonsports card budgets (i.e. not average collectors whatsoever). Ok it's a high end set, I get that. But at the end you have a small group of maybe like 20-50 people who are doing most of the transactions related to this set, in buying/selling cards to each other. How is this going to play out for longer range interest in MM and the hobby.

Looking at the box break section here on BO....basically no 2022MM posted, since most typical nonsports collectors arent opening it. There wasnt even an article on it in the NSU magazines. MM has now gone essentially the opposite direction of being mainstream.

Not sure how to go about solving this...I just wonder about long-term prospects. Once some of the narrow group buying moves on to different things, who will be left to pay $1500-$3000 for some of these parallels. To make it more accessible, UD could jack up the print run, but some wont like that. It'll be interesting to see the epack price and if it's any cheaper, but it'll still be way outside the budget of regular collectors Im sure.

Like you said, MM has become upscaled and targeted to a very select market. The prices of '22 MM cards on eBay make no sense to me. Why are they way more than '16 MM? Is it just FOMO from buyers with large budgets? Honestly, if I'm Upper Deck, I'd raise prices even more. Paying $900 for a hobby box of MM is already ridiculous and it hasn't deterred certain buyers. If there is a segment of dumb money willing to pay any price, jack up the prices. It's too late to increase the print run and serve a larger share of the market. Might as well squeeze the remaining big fish.

With regards to the future of MM, I think you and I both know it's probably not good. It's becoming more and more exclusive. Collectors have been getting pushed out. You could buy plenty of nice MM cards prior to the pandemic without breaking the bank. Now you must spend several thousands to put together a nice collection.

[PurplesaurusRex]

I probably sound like a broken record at this point. You have fantastic original art and name brand recognition. This is the set to promote, to get into as many peoples hands as possible! They should printing these at the same level as Fleer Ultra Avengers with blaster boxes for retail. No one is going to care about all these parallels 10 years from now. They're wasting a huge opportunity here to draw more collectors in.

[Gambit C10]

Originally Posted by MMguy

ePack achievements sounds like a good idea, but what am I going to do with an extra base set?? All this to obtain 1 card?? Lol.

Such a bummer that UD messed up the Holofoil Set by using mostly the same art as the base set; the checklist that was released had listed other characters.

You can transfer the cards free of charge to COMC and sell them on the COMC site.

OR

Trade an entire set for a rare/valuable card or sketches to either keep or test your luck on COMC. These higher end cards may sell faster especially if you auction them off on COMC.