Joy Of A Completed Set: Archer Sketch Cards -- Jen Montes and Her Fantastic Work Is The Last Piece of The Puzzle!!

Today's piece of artsy goodness completes a journey that has spanned 10-ish years, three Presidents, five jobs, and a ton of time and energy and effort and money. It's been an incredibly rewarding project full of fun and anxiousness and amazing artwork. The journey has consistently reminded me how wonderful 14 seasons of Archer was and will continue to be with every re-watching I do. These sketches are cornerstones of my entire collection and will never leave me.

Season 4, Episode 3 -- "Legs"

THE JOURNEY IS COMPLETE!!

While today's featured sketch is from the last artist I needed in order to have one of each of the 58 talented individuals to contribute to the set, I will continue to seek out new pieces for my Archer Sketch PC. The above Krieger came from the same longtime dealer who has sold me dozens of the sketch cards I own; he sold me the April Babcock from last month. He let me know he had access to both and I could reach out when I was ready. I did not wait long to claim them and in the end spent exactly $0 out of pocket to pick both of them up.

Jen Montes, now Jen Garcia, is the phenomenal artist responsible for this gorgeous piece of cardboard. She only had about 12 sketches in the entire product and with that limited of a selection my chances of ever landing one were very slim, particularly as time went on and it became clear just how rare her work was. Had I bought one of her sketch cards 10 years ago, it almost certainly would have been under $100 and even that would have been high. Under $50 would have been the expected price -- and I spent way more than that in 2024.

The price was well worth it though, and not simply because it completes the artist run, but because her work is incredible and I may never see another one again. Add on the joy of it being a Krieger piece and I am even more thrilled with what my patience yielded in the long, long, long run.

And with that, my Archer Sketch Card Project is complete! I will still pick up awesome sketch cards when they present themselves or when the price is right. If I can one day find a way to photograph one from each artist in a big wrap-up picture, I will most definitely do so with glee.

Oddball Mike Trout Slabbed Tickets

While I have not been collecting tickets with the same fervor I did a couple of years ago, I still have plenty from that time period to scan in, write up, and share. I still enjoy tickets immensely but without my PSA employee discount to slab them for a reasonable fee, I have moved away from chasing them.

I will get them all documented and displayed despite my shift. Today's tickets are season ticket stock variations of a ticket I posted almost a year ago. Mike Trout signed with the Angels and took his first batting practice session as a member of the franchise way back on July the 2nd in 2009.

These are extremely low POP mostly because who would think to get this slabbed? Well, this weird guy decided it would be a good use of funds and I do not regret the decision to slab a handful of these fun oddities.

They are most welcome in my Millville Meteor PC.

April Babcock's Incredible Archer Sketch!

This post is a long time in the making and it's about the quickest I've ever decided to buy a pricier piece of cardboard. I had been planning and planning for this day for years, knowing that if and when it arrived I could not hesitate and I would simply need to fork over the cash and lock it up before it had a chance to scurry away. When you've been working on a project for a decade or so, money becomes no object at the tail end of the chase if the project means anything to you beyond something to pass the time.

My Archer Sketch Card Quest certainly is more than just a fun way to pass the time. The set is my favorite non-sport set of all-time and one of my absolute favorite sets of any kind, period. The sketch cards are absolute beauties and it's a true treat to have a little piece of the portfolios of some of the talented and dedicated artists who worked on the show.

A few of the artists from the show only crafted a dozen or so sketches, making them insanely tough chases in a product that yielded about 3,600 total sketches. That would mean 0.003% of the available sketches came from each of these "higher-end" artists, so finding them -- let alone acquiring one -- is near impossible.

April Babcock is one of those super tough virtuosos of the drawing world. She was a Character Designer and Illustrator on somewhere between 13 and 44 episodes of the show, depending upon which internet resource you trust. Her style was very unique and I had hoped and prayed (to the cardboard gods) that one day I would track down that needle in a haystack.

The sketch featuring my favorite character, Krieger, made it all the more imperative that I did not wait and jumped on this opportunity from my long-time source of all things Archer. April references Season 4's "Viscous Coupling" (Episode 5) in her artistic rendering of the good Doctor's tentacle porn escapades watching Fisherman's Wife II: The Re-Tentacling with his virtual girlfriend. 

Come On Buddy

Let's kick off March with Part 2 of my recent Archer 1 of 1 Sketch Card pickup. This beauty immediately stood out as not only 50% off, but also as a brand new character for my PC that I don't see depicted often and thus desperately needed.

Season 6, Episode 10: Reignition Sequence 

Boris, right-hand man of whomever is running the KGB at any given time, joins the collection after a decade of alluding me. I am just now learning after all of these years that my favorite character, Krieger, shares a voice actor with occasionally shows up Boris. I adore Lucky Yates as it is, so this is just an awesome find!

Boris does appear in bed in Reignition Sequence, and while this sketch takes some liberties with his attire, it's a close enough reference point. Boris does, however, dance around with a nighty/negligee at one point earlier in the series.

Jayson Kretzer is the artist and as I don't see his work often, snatching this one and adding another piece of his creative mind is an added bonus.

Finally Securing A Jim Thorpe!!

Picking up a playing-era item -- something, anything -- of Jim Thorpe has always been an in the background goal of my vintage collecting heart. It's never been a goal I have put a particularly large amount of energy and effort into. If I'm being frank, I've never really put any energy and effort into it. I was recently able to finally cross that desire off of my long-term needs list by happenstance when the below crossed by my eBay screen and I jumped at the chance.

I've been buying and posting a lot of Spalding Baseball Guide Pages as they are affordable, oddball, and often allow a bunch of players to be acquired at once. It's the perfect combination of qualities for my collecting tastes and I went back to the well once more for this Thorpe.

Pairing the multi-sport generational athletic talent with John McGraw, Fred "Boner" Merkle, Red Faber, and others, this is the perfect piece to scratch my need for a Wa-Tho-Huk itch. While there is significant damage to the left-hand side, Jim's image and name are completely untouched.

It's a wonderful addition to my vintage collection.