Back in 1994, when Wizards of the Coast still was a small company and Magic a less sophisticated product, some Wizards of the Coast employees were known to create their own Magic cards and hand them around within the company. Some of these cards were created by Cindy Vanous. While not being an employee herself, she had good connections to the company (Many of the artists and founders were part of her and husband regular poker game at the time). She created her cards by using original Magic backsides and glueing her own laser-printed fronts onto them. Very few copies have survived until today. Two of Cindy Vanous' cards, Painful Hedgehog and Urza's Lawn Ornament, also made an appearance in one of Wizards of the Coast's God Books right after the release of Antiquities. These God Books were binders which held one of each Magic card ever made. They were used mostly by customer service. To avoid risking theft of the steadily value-increasing cards, they were later on replaced by the Magic Encyclopedia book series. Drunken hummingbirds is a birthday card created by Margaret Organ-Kean whp was a freelancer artist for WotC. Only 4 cards were created. At least one more employee cards called Plot Device is known to exist. Two tokens are known to exist: Giant Wasp (one of the earliest known attempts to create tokens for MTG - Only 2 are known to exist) and Poison Snake, both were created in 1994. Both are stickers glued on Unlimited or Revised cards. InQuest #28 magazine and article "101 Magic Facts" Painful Hedgehog and Urza's Lawn Ornament in a God book. |
SET | NUM | CARDNAME | ARTIST | SOURCE | DATE | INFO | ||
001 | Forest Gump | John Misc. | Internal card created by ??? | 1994-? | YES | |||
002 | Drunken hummingbirds | Margaret Organ-Kean | Birthday card | 1995 | YES | |||
003 | Mishra's Buick | Cindy Vanous | Internal card created by Cindy Vanous | 1994-? | YES | |||
004 | Painful Hedgehogs | Cindy Vanous | Internal card created by Cindy Vanous | 1994-? | YES | |||
005 | Plot Device | Internal card created by ??? | Date unknown | |||||
006 | Urza's Lawn Ornament | Cindy Vanous | Internal card created by Cindy Vanous | 1994-? | YES | |||
SET | NUM | CARDNAME | ARTIST | SOURCE | DATE | INFO | ||
001 | NEED TO ADD SCAN Giant Wasp | Internal card created by ??? | 1994 | YES | ||||
002 | NEED TO ADD SCAN Poison Snake | Ted Trollman | Internal card created by ??? | 1994 | YES | |||