For years, Rittenhouse Archives quietly produced some of the best sets in the trading card hobby while chronicling HBO’s critically acclaimed hit show “Game of Thrones.”
And five years after the “Game of Thrones” series finale aired, Rittenhouse is aiming to replicate that run with more tales from Westeros.
Releasing Thursday, trading cards for “House of the Dragon” arrive with a full lineup of autographs as well as a number of inserts that Rittenhouse hopes will win over the most passionate fans of the series. Hobby Boxes will come with 24 five-card packs and one autograph and two relic cards per box, on average.
Following the same formula from its “Game of Thrones” sets, Thursday’s release will match the narratives from Season 1 (Rittenhouse must work a season behind), while following House Targaryen and the conflicts surrounding potential heirs to the Iron Throne.
“We often describe ourselves as mad scientists,” Rittenhouse president Steven Charendoff told cllct. “We sort of go into the laboratory, and we just start cooking up stuff. … At the end of the day, it’s got to feel right to me as a collector. I want to make products that I would want to collect, and I think that’s been part of the secret to our success.”
According to Charendoff, the formula for creating a successful movie or TV trading card set can be much more straightforward than a sports set in some aspects. The show inherently provides a narrative that moves from episode to episode and themes that aren’t hard to follow. There are also far fewer characters to consider for cards, with a show such as “House of the Dragon” featuring a few dozen key names or fewer while a specific sport might have hundreds to choose from.
Rittenhouse also must rely on HBO to deliver photos for the set, so the assets made available can heavily determine the direction the product goes.
But while high-level concepts might be easier, narrowing in on the finer details is the challenge, with collectors consuming entertainment products much differently than sports fans.
Though set collecting has become far less common among sports card hobbyists, the concept is thriving with entertainment collectors. In fact, many fans purchasing movie and TV products are set builders, and shaping the product to match that need is critical.
Unlike a baseball or basketball product, you also won’t find entertainment releases on the shelves of a Target or Walmart often. A collector buying “House of the Dragon” cards won’t spontaneously scoop them up as they head toward a checkout line.
Collectors are buying entertainment sets deliberately, so while some card manufacturers aim for mass appeal to grow the category as much as possible, Rittenhouse must take a different approach.
“We're always catering and thinking about the most die-hard, discerning, critical-thinking fans of these shows,” Charendoff said. “We want to deliver something that satisfies them, because our philosophy has always been to satisfy those people first, and you'll satisfy everybody. You can't do it the other way around.”
Creating the chases required to win over the most hard-core “House of the Dragon” fans is where Rittenhouse thrives, and that starts with deep autograph checklists. This set includes stars Paddy Considine (King Viserys I Targaryen), Emma D’Arcy (Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen), Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) and Olivia Cooke (Queen Alicent Hightower) among others.
Rittenhouse works directly with celebrities to secure its autograph deals, and over the course of its 25-year history, Charendoff estimates the company has done between 3,000 and 4,000 total. Those direct deals also help deliver on-card autographs — Rittenhouse avoids sticker autographs — and coordinate a number of interesting inscriptions.
Charendoff says that “99 times out of 100” celebrities have been willing to accommodate autographs and inscriptions, and many have even expressed extreme gratitude to be included at all. While many star athletes begin signing autographs in high school or earlier, signing opportunities for actors and actresses are far less common outside of organized events.
“I remember (one actor) called me and said ‘This may be the greatest day of my life. I’m going to be on a baseball card. I feel like I’m Mickey Mantle,’” Charendoff recalled from one former signer. “We get a lot of that. It’s really fun and gratifying to get that kind of response, whereas I’ve never had an experience like that with an athlete.”
Outside of autographs and inscriptions, inserts and other subsets are where Rittenhouse can show off its creativity. Not every member of the design team is a super fan of every show the company produces cards for, but they all watch every episode — and at least one member is typically an expert in the subject matter.
HBO doesn’t deliver plot points ahead of time, so Rittenhouse has to watch shows just like regular fans, though the team crafts ideas for sets as themes and concepts emerge. Ideally, cards for the previous season will be released as the next season runs, and interest is highest.
Keeping up with the show in real time allows Rittenhouse to tap into the most appropriate way to display popular themes that super fans will appreciate. Previous “Game of Thrones” releases utilized a variety of card materials and ink colors to create some of the set’s most popular cards — the Gold Icons set of metal cards and Gold Ink Autographs that utilized a gold pen against a dark background were among the fan favorites.
For “House of the Dragon: Season One,” Rittenhouse planned a number of fire-themed sets that pay homage to House Targaryen and the show’s lineup of dragons.
Artist JJ Lendl, best known for his work with brands like Star Wars, Star Trek and The X-Files, produced a lineup of posters for each episode that are numbered to just 25. Rittenhouse also commissioned a number of hand-drawn 1/1 sketch cards from a variety of artists.
“From a production standpoint, not everything is just straight ink on paper,” Charendoff said. “Some cards are printed on metal, some are oil stamping, some are printed on plastic or shadow boxes. That’s really where the artistic part of this comes in. It’s taking that knowledge from the show, taking knowledge from what the die-hard fan is looking for and what the die-hard fan will think is cool.”
From autographs and inserts to a number of third-party commissions, Rittenhouse plans to pack each product with as much value as possible. Rittenhouse builds the best set it can, Charendoff says, and then worries about how to make it work financially later — something he knows some people might believe is a backward way of thinking.
“Nobody needs trading cards to live,” Charendoff said. “It’s not food. It’s not shelter. It’s not clothing. People buy these products because it makes them happy, so the first order of business, to me, is how to make people happy. We’ll work out the budget part of it, the financial part of it, after the fact.”
So far, that plan has worked. Rittenhouse has produced memorable sets such as “Game of Thrones” and “Iron Man,” among others, that have become incredibly popular. Autographs from stars such as Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) and Marvel star Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) have regularly fetched thousands on the secondary market with dozens of other signers commanding $500 or more.
"I want (Rittenhouse products) to be something that I want to collect,” Charendoff said. “I want to be able to go to a convention 10 years from now and see those cards that I’m making today in some dealer’s display case with big dollars marked. And you know, I think in a lot of instances, we’ve achieved that.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.