The Good: Good image, Necessary for collectors, Quite rare, Collectible value
The Bad: Unimpressive cloth swatch, Vastly overpriced.
The Basics: A vastly overpriced trading card, the Twilight PW3 Alice Cullen card featuring part of Ashley Greene's set-worn costume is far too expensive to recommend at this time.
Let it be noted right off the bat that I am a big fan of Ashley Greene in her role as Alice Cullen in the Twilight movies. I think she is talented and her sprightly character of Alice is one of the bright spots of the cinematic Twilight movies. But when discussing the Twilight trading cards (reviewed here!), she is understandably underrepresented. The reason for that is simple: Twilight was not an Alice-intensive movie. Instead, she has been given bigger and bigger roles with each Twilight film and while that has been good for fans of Alice Cullen and Ashley Greene, it does not retroactively make her Twilight time more than it was.
I mention this at the outset because I cannot recommend the PW3 Ashley Greene Alice Cullen Pieceworks card. The reason is simple: it is vastly overpriced for what it is. There is no good reason I can find for the card to be hovering just under the value of the card for the female lead, especially when Greene's card is less rare than the Kristen Stewart card. Only the most obsessed card collectors ought to be hunting this card; there are more affordable cards of Alice Cullen and Ashley Greene in the newer sets of Twilight Saga cards.
When the film Twilight (reviewed here!) was released, Inkworks won the license and began producing exceptionally limited trading cards. With their Twilight trading card series, most of the main characters were granted Pieceworks cards, including Ashley Greene as Alice Cullen.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Pieceworks cards are costume cards and the PW-3 Alice Cullen card is no exception. What this means is that the physical card is a little more than twice as thick as the standard trading cards. Inkworks took a set-worn costume, in this case Ashley Greene's blue sweatshirt jacket, chopped it up and embedded it in between the two card halves. This means that Greene's original jacket from Twilight no longer exists, save in the pieces in cards. This is the closest most people will get to an actual set-worn costume from Twilight and given that Alice Cullen has become an increasingly more popular character, there is some reason to the card rising in value, just not to the extent its price represents.
The PW3 Alice Cullen Piecework card features a nice shot of Ashley Greene in her shirt and jacket from an unspecified scene in Twilight, which is my other problem with the expense of the card. It is not like the outfit was an iconic Alice outfit, so collectors seem to be artificially inflating the value of the card based more on the concept than the execution. Every swatch I have seen is a pretty bland blue cloth piece that could have come from virtually any sweatshirt.
The back of the card assures the recipient of the authenticity of the Pieceworks card. It states that the PW3 features a piece of Ashley Greene's Alice Cullen jacket costume and that is pretty much the standard for a costume card of this style.
The value of the card makes it a great investment for those lucky enough to pull one from a pack of Twilight cards. However, considering the PW-3 is one of the more common Twilight Pieceworks cards, the fact that its value has become near-impossible to find at reasonable prices is ludicrous. Most will have to buy it and it is priced prohibitively high for any but the most serious collectors. Given that Pieceworks cards are found only one per box in the Twilight cards, most will pay ridiculous prices for this.
Ultimately, the enduring value of this card does not seem to be there. In this case, the patient collector is likely to be the smartest one. Wait. In a few years, the value is likely to drop. If you're still interested in it then, buy it at the deflated price. Most collectors will keep it safe until you're ready.
For other Twilight costume cards, please check out my reviews of:
PW1 Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan)
PW7 Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black)
PW8 Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen)
4/10
For other card reviews, please visit my index page on the subject!
© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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