Guardians of the Galaxy Vol2 Trading Cards - Retail

As I mentioned in Tuesday's post about the GotG Hobby cards, companies will also make a series of "retail" trading cards. Normally, they release the same base set of cards to mass market outlets with lower chances of pulling hits but at a lower price which makes it more affordable to get the base set of cards. But not here. The cards you get at retail are completely different than the hobby cards.

Why would you make trading cards for one of the biggest summer movies and limit them to WalMart? The stores in my area are the absolute worst if you're looking for cards that are not sports or gaming related. And to put more salt in the wound, there were also promo cards released which are different still from the hobby or retail versions. Basically, there are three different sets of cards!

I don't have any of the promo cards because to get them, you had to buy a pack of underwear or t-shirts. $10-$15 for a 4 cards is not exactly cost efficient. Although individual non-insert promos are going for $3-5 each now.

The 50(!) card promo set has different inserts like blue or gold foils, die-cut cards, chrome-cut (think shiny silver), and super lucky people get a Dave Bautista or Stan Lee autograph! The promo cards have a WP before the number for Walmart Promo. These use a different layout than the hobby/retail cards, opting for a borderless look.

Promo cards (Image from Cardboard Connection)

Then we come to the regular, non-hobby, non-promo retail set. I haven't been able to find a checklist for these so I have no idea how many are in this set. The retail cards are numbered with the prefix RB for...retail box, I guess?

Retail cards

From the few packs I've managed to find, these seem to be character focused. The re-use of art (top row) almost makes me think these are aimed at a slightly younger audience. There are cards that look like they should be stickers (bottom left and right) and also blue foils that really make the images pop.

From what I've been able to gather online, the retail set also has their own hits.

Image from eBay

Honestly, I think these look better than the hobby wardrobe cards, such a cool way to do it.

The good news is, while researching the cards on eBay, it looks like the prices of a complete hobby set are coming down so I may be able to get them after all. It's just not as much fun buying it all at once as it is opening packs though.