50

Packs of 5 an 8 are available from our webshop and from our studio.

They’re now available as singles too, if you only want specific cards.

We’re printing each card as an archival giclee print, which has a value in itself.

The actual artwork is A7 size.

Opposite the artwork is the information about it. In theory this could be cut off so that you just have the A7 artwork on its own. But we recommend leaving them whole as they are.

The cards may come to have a collective value, a bit like baseball trading cards do.

Each card will be embossed on the information side with the Peradam logo stamp to show it’s a genuine part of this project.

It’s a not-for-profit project, but the cards are for sale at an amount that covers everyone’s base costs. All profit will be donated to the Black Swan Arts Save Our Swan campaign.

Black Swan Arts is a community-hub for the arts in Frome supporting artists, young and vulnerable people. It’s been at the heart of Frome’s art scene over the past 40 years, without which this town would probably not be the arty vibrant place it is today. With funding cuts and hiked overheads, the centre is under threat of closure.

Our company has had a close relationship to the centre for our 10 year history, and we hope that we can continue to work alongside each other for the next decade and more.

There are two collections, the main collection is the Studio Collection - these are the blue cards that feature 40 artists we’ve worked with over the years, all of whom have had an impact on us.

The Exquisite Ten is a play on the NBA Exquisite Collection of baseball trading cards. Our Exquisite 10 represent ten artists who’ve had a particular impact or represent a formative moment in our history. These are the pink cards.

There are a special shiny versions of each of the 10 - printed on Metallic Gloss paper with the non artwork half of the card laminated with holographic film.

The Exquisite 10 have special edition cards - similar to the ‘shinies’ you could find in a football sticker album (one from the 90’s at least). These are rare. Some will be in the envelopes, others were only obtainable by solving puzzles and clues (this part of the project is over, but a few shinies are for sale on our webshop.)

The “full” shinies (code S) are printed on Metallic Gloss paper, a photo paper with a metallic sheen. We’ve laminated the non artwork side of the card with a holographic film too. We’ve not laminated the artwork side to retain the archival nature of the print - the holographic film is probably not acid free.

We’re also creating half shiny “parallel cards” for the Studio Collection to make things more exciting. A parallel card (code P) will be a print onto the 100% cotton paper we’re using for the Studio Collection with the information half of the card being laminated in holographic film. These half shiny parallel cards are much rarer than the base Studio Collection cards.

Some of the cards have Collectors Codes on them, these formed part of the puzzles to find the rarer cards earlier in the process.

All cards are now released

We didn’t plan exactly how many we’d release, we tried to keep things random. Here are some stats now that the project is over.

According to my spreadsheet we released an average of 33 cards for each artist from Vol I and 24 cards for each artist from Vol II.

The most common card overall is #27 Kay Dilley (40 released) from Vol I. The most common from Vol II is #47 Hayley Cove (30 released).

The rarest card overall is #01 Terry Jones (1 released).

The rarest Parallels (half shinies) are #P39 Lotte Scott, #P46 Simon Kyte, #P48 Gary Cook (only 1 of each have been released so far).

These figures don’t include the sets released to the artists or our own sets (and I may have forgotten to note some down towards the end - even so, is a fairly accurate representation of the release figures).

We may release more cards in the future, but for now no further reprints are taking place.

The cards are larger than normal trading cards, so you won’t be able to use standard trading card albums to display and store your collection.

Our cards are A6 size in total, which means postcard collector albums can be used to display and store your collection.

There are a total of 90 cards that can be collected, including 10 full shiny versions of The Exquisite Ten, and a shiny parallel/ half shiny version of each of the Studio Collection cards.

The Exquisite Ten cards are printed on various different paper stocks, depending on what paper that artist usually prints on.

The Studio Collection are mostly on our standard 100% cotton archival 300gsm paper.

Very select Studio Collection cards were printed on different stock where that artist is known for printing on a particular stock, or the stock forms an important part of that artist’s work.

Studio Collection cards are bordered in blue. Exquisite Ten Collection cards are bordered in pink. Our original Mount brand and logo colours were pink and blue, so that’s what the colours represent.

Shinies are printed on Metallic photorag 340gsm, with a holographic film laminating the information half of the card but not covering the artwork itself.

All cards are embossed with the Peradam logo mark on the information half of the card.

Each card has a number from 01 - 50. (Cards with an additional code S are the full shinies from the Exquisite 10 Collection, and code P are the half shiny parallel cards from the Studio Collection)

Collectors are free to swap cards to enable faster collecting and offload duplicates.