Cryptozoic 2015 The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug Trading Cards Hobby Box | 24 Packs | Factory Sealed

A burglar, thirteen dwarves, a barrel ride down a cold river, and at the end of it a dragon who has been waiting a very long time to be woken. The middle film of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy is the one where the journey stops being an adventure and starts being a reckoning, and Cryptozoic built its card set around exactly that shift.

The 72-card base set draws its imagery straight from the film, and five chase sets branch off it: Character Biographies, Lake-town, Smaug, Triptych Collage, and a Movie Posters set finished with 3D lenticular embellishment. What lifts this release above most licensed film sets is the signing list. Twenty-seven people put pen to card, and it reads like a call sheet — Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, Lee Pace as Thranduil, Aidan Turner as Kili, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, Ken Stott as Balin, James Nesbitt as Bofur, Stephen Fry as the Master of Lake-town, Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown, Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn and Manu Bennett as Azog. Behind the camera, Andy Serkis signed as second unit director and Fran Walsh as writer. The full company of dwarves is present down to Bifur and Bombur.

Above the autographs sit the Fine Art cards: hand-drawn originals, each one of a kind, with no second copy anywhere. Released on 13 May 2015, this box is new and factory sealed.

Every box holds 24 packs of five cards.

What you are chasing:

• Autograph cards from most of the principal cast, across several designs
• Fine Art cards — hand-drawn, each numbered one of one
• Movie Posters with 3D lenticular embellishment
• Smaug, the chase set built around the encounter in the Lonely Mountain
• Lake-town, Character Biographies and a Triptych Collage set

Printed in English by Cryptozoic Entertainment. For a Tolkien collector, a signature hunter, or anyone who wants a sealed piece of Middle-earth on the shelf, this is one of the strongest signing lists any Hobbit set produced.