Ask anyone who grew up in the UK in the 80s who was into soccer, and they probably collected Panini football stickers. The first sticker album my brother and I filled was Football '85. We then completed the Mexico '86 book for the World Cup. Then my mum enforced a break on us. The last book we filled was Football '88. I did have sticker albums for Football '86, Football '87 and Football '89, but didn't complete them.
As an adult I collected and filled the World Cup 2014 and the Euro 2016 sticker albums. It may have been regression, but it was great fun swapping football stickers again.
I didn't realise that Topps did sticker books in the 80s for baseball until I started delving into the depths of Trading Card Database. Also, a little known fact about these "Topps" stickers is that they were actually manufactured by Panini, who had the right equipment for producing them! (Source: BaseballCardpedia)
Hence the link to my childhood football sticker collecting.
This was all triggered by one of the items in the envelope that recently arrived from Tim in Pennsylvania.
"Card" Number 614: Topps Stickers, 1984; #160
This sticker really reminds me of Football '85 because in the 80s, the Panini sticker albums had the English First Division with one player per sticker, then the teams and badges of the Second Division, and then at the back the players for the teams in the Scottish Premier Division. But the Scottish player stickers came like this - two stickers on the same sticker back. Although, unlike these, the Scottish stickers got stuck into the album next to each other.
The nostalgia is almost overwhelming.
Tony is sharing this sticker with "Disco Dan" Ford, who was in the penultimate year of his decade-long Major League career. The Orioles was his final ball club after starting out with the Twins and then playing for the Angels. He was an outfielder like Tony and won the World Series with the Orioles in 1983 - so considering he was an established player and had a World Series ring, it's a bit odd he only got a 'halfsie' sticker.
On the back it says the sticker was printed in Italy - another clue that this was produced by Panini under a subcontracting agreement. I particularly like the perpendicular baseball bat separating Tony and Dan's names. Another oddity is that the sticker-back suggest you collect the baseball cards, instead of completing your sticker collection. Maybe after they paid Panini for the print run, the stickers were less profitable for Topps, which is why they wanted collectors to buy the baseball cards instead.
I was into the stickers and sticker albums for 2 or 3 years as a kid, but never actually filled out an entire one. I think by the time Topps produced the Gwynn sticker, I had already started dedicating all of my hobby money to cards and given up on stickers. These days I'll add singles to my player collections when I find them.
ReplyDeleteI think filling a sticker book is harder than completing a set. The blank spaces exert a psychological pressure!
DeleteThe stickers were 2 to a "card" in some cases because the team pages in the book had players spots of 1/2 cards. I'll try and send you a video of this sticker album
ReplyDeleteThat sounds exactly like the soccer albums we had. Except the stickers were always placed next to each other.
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