Trading Card- Related News

• Through the Wormhole Cards

• Season Four Trading Cards

• Uncut Costume Card Sheet

• Season Three Trading Cards

• Season Two Trading Cards

• Farscape in Motion Trading Cards

• Farscape in Motion Preview Set

• 2002 Calendar

• Ships of Farscape

• SciFi Channel Special Edition

• Season One Trading Cards

• Postcards

Base card #128 from A Clockwork Nebari

Season Two Trading Cards  

This is actually the third large set of Farscape cards that Rittenhouse Archives has produced, following the Season One and Farscape in Motion sets. The layout of the base set is the same as the Season One set, with a picture from the episode on the front and a different picture on the back. Some of the pictures we’ve seen before in magazine articles or for sale by Creation Entertainment, but a lot of them are new. Each episode has three cards with a descriptive paragraph on the back and either a list of credits for the episode (one of the three) or a Farscape Files section. The numbering begins where the Season One set left off, going from 73 through 144. There are also three cast montage cards with a list of episodes on the back and three checklist cards.

There are several levels of insert cards, too. “Behind the Scenes with David Kemper” and “The Quotable Farscape” each have 22 cards, one per episode, and you’ll find one in every five packs. Some of the information on the “Behind the Scenes” cards is new, some isn’t. The “Quotable Farscape” set is fun, especially because some of the quotes are different than what was actually said in the episodes.

The quotable farscape #15 from Won't Get fooled again

The “Alien Life”  set has 12 different cards, AL1-AL12, inserted at a rate of 1:10 packs and covers a lot of the familiar species such as Sebaceans and Scarrans. They managed to mix up the Tavleks and the Sheyangs, though, swapping the pictures with each other.

The Costume Cards are the best part of the set. There are 13 different ones, two in each box, and they have a little swatch of actual costume material sandwiched inside the card. They follow the same format as the Season One and in Motion cards, with a picture of the character on the front next to the swatch. Some of the characters have more than one card (Crichton and Chiana have three each, Zhaan has two), the others have only one (Stark, Rygel, D'Argo, Scorpy and Crais).

They’ve continued with the autograph cards, too. Virginia Hey, Lani Tupu, Wayne Pygram and David Kemper each have one with the regular set inserted at a rate of 1:100 packs. There’s a Binder Exclusive signed by Chris Haywood (Maldis) and a case topper signed by David Wheeler (Durka). These also follow the format and numbering from the first two sets.

game card a

Not mentioned on the checklist are the contest cards. If you collect the whole set, you win a complete set of the 13 costume cards. Each card has a character picture on the front with a letter. If you spell out “WIN FARSCAPE CARDS”, you win, well, Farscape cards. The contest ends December 31, 2001 or “when all contest cards are distributed”. The letters sort of go along with the Character. Aeryn has an A, Rygel an R, Scorpius an S, Stark an I (for insane, probably). I can’t figure out why Zhaan has a W though, unless it’s for wilted. There are 50 prizes and the odds of winning are based on the “F” card, 1:6,400.

In my box I found two complete base sets (and three cards short of a third), 35 contest cards, seven “Behind the Scenes with David Kemper”, eight “The Quotable Farscape”, four “Alien Life” two costume cards and one autograph. None of the insert cards, with the exception of the contest cards, were repeats.

With so many of the on line stores out of business, your best bet for finding the cards is to go to Rittenhouse Archives web site and check out their Dealers page. A lot of them have their own web sites.    

Farscape in Motion Trading Cards  

After several delays, this set has finally made an appearance. It’s well worth waiting for, too. Talk about variety!  

Base card #8

First, there’s a 60 card base set that has motion scenes from Seasons One and Two. They seem to have solved the fuzziness problem that I noticed in the preview set because these cards are much clearer. Whoever was responsible for deciding which scenes to use for the cards must have had a lot of fun choosing. On card 8, Winona fizzles as John takes a shot at Varla and on card 9, the Nebari get even and yank John’s eyeballs out.  Aeryn does the “tongue thing” from WGFA on card 16, Zhaan disappears into the plants on card 30, and Maldis fries Tauvo on card 44. You can watch Crais scream in the Aurora Chair and (if you can stand it) you’ll see Scorpy and Natira in a tender moment. Rygel plays Tadek and Pilot plays the drums. And that just happens on the base set cards.

The first level of chase (bonus) cards is called “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”. There are 18 cards in this set, all motion, with one of the guest aliens on each card. My favorite is the Lorana card. As you tilt it back and forth, Lorana changes into Alex and back again. Teurac spitting fire is pretty cool, too. The second level is named “Ships in Motion” and has nine cards. The Peacekeeper Command Carrier firing its frag cannon is outstanding. “Close Encounters” is the next group and it also has nine cards. There’s a whole lot of kissing going on as you tilt these cards. The last group of nine cards is called “Portraits in Motion”. There’s a card for each of the Seasons One and Two regular cast. These cards are a bit harder to find with only one in every eight packs, but they’re worth looking for. All the cards I’ve mentioned so far follow the same basic format: a picture on the front seems to move due to a lens overlay and a brief but informative description on the back.  

Now for the really good stuff. There are six (seven if you count the one that comes only with the binder) Sound in Motion cards. These are little folders 5¼” x 3½” that have an in Motion™ picture on the front. When you open the folder you hear a phrase related to the picture. For example, card S6 has Crichton in THE outfit, chopping at T’raltixx’s cables and when you open the card you hear him shout “Humans are Superiooorrrr!” The sound isn’t movie theater quality, sometimes it’s a little “tinny” sounding, but you can always tell who’s talking and what they’re saying. And the cards are beautiful.

There are two different types of “Archive Collection Cards”, silver and gold. The cards themselves are basically the same: 5” x 7” with an outstanding picture of one of the crewmembers or ships on the front. Under the picture is a little medallion with a pair of numbers. The top number is the hand printed individual number of that card and the bottom number is the total quantity that was made of each card. And that’s the difference between the silver and gold sets. There are three different gold cards (Aeryn, Zhaan, and Chiana) and only 500 were printed of each. There are 12 different silver cards and 999 were printed of each one. Everyone from Crichton to Talyn is represented on these silver cards.

Continuing in the same format as their award-winning Season One set of costume cards, Rittenhouse has added four more to the set. They’ve even continued the numbering, beginning at C8 (Crichton’s leather coat), following with C9 (Aeryn’s leather coat), C10 (Zhaan’s blue dress) and C12 (Crichton’s black tee). I don’t know what happened to C11, maybe it’ll show up next time around.  

The last card is really rare, only being distributed as a “case topper”. If you bought an entire case of cards (8 boxes) you got a Claudia Black autograph card, again in the same format as the Season One set. This card comes in a hard plastic top-loader and has a gold Rittenhouse seal over the opening to preserve authenticity.

If you’ve read this far you can probably tell that I’m very enthusiastic about this set. Rittenhouse was sold out long before the cards were ready for distribution so you can’t buy them directly. I’ve seen them popping up on eBay for the past month as pre-sells and now that the cards are really available, you’ll probably be able to get them there. Rittenhouse Archives has a dealer locator at their web site with names, cities, phone numbers and links to web pages.. You can also see animated gifs of some of the cards.

The Farscape in Motion cards have those really cool pictures that seem to move when you tilt them back and forth. Moya begins a StarBurst, John and Aeryn move close then away, D’Argo waves his Qualta blade around. The cards are a little bit thicker than the regular cards due to the lenticular ridges that simulate the motion. They make the pictures a bit fuzzy, too. The backs have a little blurb about the picture (Moya’s card has a bunch of facts about StarBurst). As with all the Rittenhouse trading cards that I’ve seen, this one has beautiful coloring, especially on the back where there are no ridges.

This is a nine card preview set. The full set is due to be released in February 2001. They are available directly from Rittenhouse Archives for $24.99.

The 2002 version of the Farscape calendar follows the same format as the first: one large photo on top with two smaller photos and the actual calendar on the bottom. Each of the 13 months (there’s a bonus December 2001 page) follows a theme of sorts. January is Chiana, February is romance (sort of), May is Won’t Get Fooled Again, October is Crichton as the other two Crichtons from My Three Crichtons (Halloween, I guess), November is Crais. You get the idea.

All of the pictures are from Season Two, so there are a couple of great Zhaan months. One thing I noticed is that there are fewer pictures of guest aliens than there were last year, and most of them are in photos with the regular cast members. For the price, you get 13 12” x 12” pictures and 26 small ones. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Oh, and there’s a calendar in there, too.

I’ve found them at  Calendar Mart for $13.99 US and Direct Calendars $10.95 US. These prices don’t include shipping and handling (whatever that is).          

This is another small set of nine trading cards featuring the ships of Farscape. It includes Moya, Talyn, Farscape One, Moya’s transport pod, a Prowler, a Command Carrier, a Marauder, the Zelbinion and Staanz’s salvage ship. I found it a bit disappointing that they used the same picture on both sides of the cards. Some of the ships are a bit hard to see, too, especially Staanz’s, the Marauder, and the Zelbinion. The coloring on this set is a deep, rich teal with gold leaf lettering on the front. There’s a one paragraph description of the ship on the back.

These are available directly from Rittenhouse Archives for $15.00.

This is the first set of trading cards that I feel are not up to the standard that Rittenhouse established for the Farscape series. The set consists of six cards: Crichton, Aeryn, D'Argo, Zhaan, Crais, and Chiana. The character’s picture is on the front with their name at the top,  “Farscape” at bottom right, and a strange little symbol, different for each character, at bottom left. This is beautifully done. It’s the back of the card that I object to. Other than “Farscape”, the character’s name, and a couple of trademark and copyright thingies, there is no information.

So far the SciFi Channel store has featured a limited edition of 500 with Claudia Black’s signature. I think these are sold out because they’re no longer listed. Another 500 sets with Gigi Edgely’s autograph is currently being featured. Virginia Hey’s 500 are available too and, since the six cards feature people not puppets, I suppose they have the others waiting in the wings. Frankly, I’d love to get an autograph from Rygel, Pilot , Moya and Talyn, but the chances are pretty slim. Maybe next year.

These cards were only available through the SciFi store. Each set of six costs $24.95 + $7.95 shipping. (They must ship them in their own “special edition” airplane!) If you want to collect the whole set of signatures, you’ll have to buy another set of cards for each. I found a set with Gigi’s autograph on eBay that was at $41.00 and climbing, which makes the SciFi store price seem like a bargain. Almost

London Postcard Company has published a set of nine postcards. There is one group shot and one card each for Zhaan, Crichton, Aeryn, D'Argo, Pilot, Rygel, Chiana, and Crais. The pictures are set up so that the characters appear to be looking through a window. Each card has a different background, the individual’s name in the upper left, and a different symbol in the lower left. They're made of the usual heavy postcard cardboard and are 4 inches wide x 6 inches long. The pictures are so beautifully done that they seem more like “keepers” than “senders”.

There are several ways they can be purchased – individually, as a set of nine, and as a Collector Pack, which includes a set of nine and the nifty fold-out box shown at left.

They are available online at London Postcard Company:

Individual cards: 50 pence each (about 70¢)

Set of nine: £4.50 (about $6.35)

Collector Pack: £4.99 (about $7.00)

Postage runs at £2.50 (about $3.50) for 25 cards

The first set of trading cards from Rittenhouse Archives came out earlier this year. The 72 card base set consists of 3 cast montage cards, 3 cards for each episode of the first season, and 3 checklist cards. Each of the 66 episode cards has a picture of a scene from an episode on the front, the name of the ep in the lower left, and the Farscape logo in the lower right. The back of the card has the card’s number in the lower left, a small picture, and a short description of the episode. 

This blurb is divided into two parts: the top tells a bit of the episode’s story and the bottom has a little factoid, sometimes about a particular character or prop and sometimes a listing of the credits for the episode. These cards are first class all the way. The colors are bright, the cards are quite heavy, and there is a variety of subject matter for the pictures (including regular cast members, guest aliens, ships, and scenery). 

If you buy more than the base set of 72 cards, you may find some of the specialty cards such as “From the Archives” costume cards (1 per box) or autograph cards (about 1 in 650). The archives cards contain an actual piece of costume material from Crichton, Aeryn, Zhaan, D'Argo, Rygel, or Crais sandwiched between two pieces of card.

On the front is a photo of the character and the swatch of costume. The back has another photo and an authenticity statement. Only a total of 8,000 of these cards were made. You’re guaranteed to get one card per box (324 cards). The autograph cards feature, well, autographs. Ben Browder, Anthony Simcoe, Gigi Edgley, and Brian Henson each signed their individual cards. (Rockne O’Bannon also signed some cards, but his card only comes with a collectors album which is already sold out.) Some of the other available cards are Stars Cards, Season Two Preview Cards, and Behind the Scenes Cards.

Cards can be purchased online at the SciFi store, Another Universe (Fandom), and Rittenhouse Archives, who also has a long list on their website of shops that carry their cards. Or you can take your chances at eBay.com and run a search for exactly the card you’re missing. Boxes of cards (totalling 324 cards) cost about $70.00, and an 8 box case is $525.00. I haven’t seen the 9 card packs online in quite some time so you may have to search for them in a local shop. 

Farscape is owned by The Jim Henson Company, Hallmark Entertainment, Nine Network (Australia) and the Sci-Fi Channel. No copyright infringement is intended and no financial gain has been made by any of the staff of this web site.