It would be my pleasure Daniel son!
1996 Heritage set - 60 cards
Released in 1996, this is without a doubt the most impressive card set ever made in Australia, and, in all honesty, perhaps worldwide. It was the brainchild of a man called Swan Richards, who was the head honcho of an organisation called The Crusaders, which are basically a cricketing past players organisation (old boys' club!), and was probably the only way that all of the cards could have been organised for signing such are their contacts. This was referred to as "Series 1", and consists of the oldest living Test cricketers at the time of production. There was an intention for a series 2 and series 3, however with the demise of Futera this (very sadly) never eventuated.
The set was limited to 500 sets, and consists of 60 cards, 58 of which are personally signed. Leo O'Brien was initially intended to be the #1 card, however he was gravely ill and passed away prior to completion and signing, therefore a header card was substituted for card #1. The other unsigned card is #11, Keith Miller, who was either unable or unwilling to sign.
Cards are on double thickness stock (960gsm board) and were all sent out to the players in the set for signing and subsequently returned to Futera. A good family friend of ours is Rex Sellers (card #56), and I personally saw the pile of cards at his house for signing back in late 1995.
The sets of 500 were released in 3 different forms - sets 1-50 came in a wooden box, some came fully framed and the remainder came in a green folder with "The Heritage Collection" stamped in gold on the front (as per the set I am selling). Each set is individually numbered on the back of each card.
There are a further 200 sets that are stamped "Player" / 500 on the back, 60 of which were given to each of the players who appeared in Series 1. I assume the rest went to the players who were intended to appear in series 2
and series 3 - I know Rex Sellers was going to get a set of series 2 and 3 for having signed in series 1. In the "Player" signed sets Leo O'Brien still appears as card #1, not the Header card as with the set numbered of 500.
There were also 100 promotional cards of all 60, which were unsigned and stamped on the back "PROMOTIONAL CARD ONLY" in bold black font. It is reported in the Futera File that only 48 full promotional sets exist.
By my calculations, of the 59 players featuring in Series 1, 19 have sinced passed away - Don Bradman, Bill Brown, Ern Toshack, Fred Freer, Geff Noblet, Jack Moroney, Ian Johnson, Doug Ring, Keith Miller, George Tribe, Ray Lindwall, Bill Johnston, Ken Meuleman, George Thoms, Jimmy De Courcy, Peter Burge, Ron Archer, Norman O'Neill and Neil Hawke.
At their release in 1996 this set was retailing for $1250, so it is hard to understand why the market has softened so much since then and sets seem to sell for around the $750-$800 mark, as this equates out to only around $13 a card!! I feel though that in the next 10 years it will double or triple in value, as there is nothing in the marketplace to match both the quality of production and the quality of players in this set - and, inevitably, more and more will be deceased as time goes by. 12 Invincibles alone in a signed card set is unprecedented and can never be repeated, and of course Bradman is the standout flagship of the series. It includes other past greats and well known media names such as Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry, Alan Davidson, Bob Simpson and Keith Stackpole to name but a few.
With the money being asked/expected these days for players to contribute to signing sessions (no money changed hands in the making of this set, players received a signed set in lieu of payment) it is difficult if not impossible to see anything like this being done in the future.
N.B. I should also mention that a large number of these sets have been broken up and sold, with the Bradman card routinely commanding around $300 on its own, so clearly there are far far less than 500 full sets remaining in the marketplace. I also have a handful of unsigned cards that are in fact numbered of 500, so it would appear there were not 500 full sets completed and compiled back in 1996.