About the item: 


Released in Series I of the Premier Edition (1991) AD&D collector trading card set, this gold border 'Rare 2' card (only about 4,000 were made of this level of rare card whereas approximately 50,000 were made of the non-rare cards) features one of TSR's classic art images from their vintage years (from 1974 through 1991).  The card, which measures 2.5 by 3.5 inches, is professionally graded by CGC, the Certified Guaranty Company, and this card and the others I currently have listed are the first graded 1991 TSR cards to come to market. 

About CGC Graded Trading Cards:

As the preeminent grading service for comic books, CGC brings the same exacting standards to graded trading cards.  Encompassing the four key components of card condition -  centering, corners, edges, and surface, CGC’s card 20 point grading scale begins at 10 (either a 10 Perfect - with no flaws of any kind - OR a 10 Pristine, a card that is practically perfect) on down by .5's to a 1.  The card pictured is the card you will receive.  It is fresh from CGC and will be shipped with the utmost care.

General info about the set:


The 1991 TSR trading card set was released in the the early days of the chase card craze.  In what would become common practice for most trading card companies, manufactures inserted chase cards into random packs.  These chase cards were usually part of a "sub-set" and were harder to find than regular cards in the set.  TSR decided to follow suit. However, they did not include any sort of chase card "sub-set" like holograms or foil cards.  Instead, they decided that regular and randomly numbered cards from the base set would be made "rare."    So, out of the ultimately 750 cards that comprise the 1991 AD&D trading card set, ten cards were selected from each set to be very rare and twenty cards were selected to be somewhat rare.  


Series I was the most rare, including ten cards that only 3,000 were printed and twenty cards that only 4,000 were printed.  Series II featured the same, but with 10,000 and 13,000 of each level of rare card instead of 3,000 and 4,000.  In other words, it is only possible for there to be 3,000 hand-collated sets to exist.  Given that numerous people were never able to complete their sets due to the rarity of the 60 total cards, yet having some in their hands, it created a situation to where, though it is theoretically possible to have 3,000 sets hand-collated, the actual number is vastly lower.  In the over twenty-five years since this set was released, I have only seen two hand-collated sets.  TSR did release a factory set that include all the cards, but they have "silver" borders whereas the cards from the pack have "gold" borders.