In the 1970s and 80s, trading cards were packaged in waxed paper that was folded and heat-sealed. The term for such packaging is ‘wax packs’ and generally refers these days to any package of trading cards sold before 1991 (when the last wax pack was used). Importantly to me, all the cards of my youth were sold in wax packs, so these are very nostalgic for me.
Recently I bought a bunch of unopened wax packs from the 1980s, and over the next month or so I’m going to open and blog them all. Let’s start!
Robot Wars (Fleer, 1985)
This is a set of game cards, cashing in on transformers and scratch-off lottery tickets, and conceptually similar to the Super Mario and Zelda cards I have previously blogged.
The pack contains three game cards that no longer work since the scratch-off material has solidified (and I mean solidified; it’s like obsidian)! I expect children would have enjoyed these back in the day though. There’s also a sticker in the pack, but it’s in less-than-perfect condition due to a quirk of wax packs – the gum:
Almost every wax pack – and certainly all of them targeted at kids – contained a stick of gum. Over the 35+ years the gum has at worst become brittle and cracked to pieces or at worst become greasy and moldy. In most cases it’s just a solid inedible stick that has cemented itself to the card it was adjacent to. Removing it usually causes damage, as you can see above.
Incidentally there’s an internet rumour that this ancient gum has become poisonous and dangerous to eat. This is nonsense: it’s mostly just distasteful or extremely bitter. I’ve eaten some before, and I learned then never to eat it again 🙂
What about the ‘win a robot’ contest? Well it was a write-in, as detailed above. I wonder if anyone actually did this and won, and if so what happened to the robot?
Superman III (Topps, 1983)
This is the one with Richard Prior, and definitely not one of the better Superman flicks. But Topps, which had enjoyed in the years before massive success with the Star Wars cards, followed their formula and made a great set here.
The cards are nicely designed with good printing and a lot of action scene for the kids (from a film with a lot of ‘boring’ comedy scenes). The backs are nicely written too:
In addition the pack includes the usual sticker, and these were the days when Topps die-cut their stickers, which from a kid point of view made them just that bit better:
The gum in this pack hadn’t stuck as much to the card, and the pack itself was very easy to open, so I can show just what one of these wrappers looked like unsealed:
Unsurprisingly the wrappers themselves are collectible, and some of the rarer ones are worth big bucks these days in good condition.
Robocop 2 (Topps 1990)
We’re close to the end of the wax pack era, since 1990 was when Topps both moved to plastic and abandoned the gum. We’re also more than ten years after the first Star Wars set, but Topps was still following their standard formula here with Robocop 2:
The eagle-eyed amongst you will note scenes from the first film amongst these cards, and this is explained on the back with a little comment that the set ‘Includes highlights from Robocop’s first adventure‘.
Ah, the 1980’s, where companies didn’t think twice about releasing trading cards for kids based on ultra-violent R-rated films 🙂
Cyndi Lauper (Topps, 1985)
In 1985 Cynthia Lauper was 32 years old and at the peak of her fame. I wonder what it was like for her to open a pack of trading cards all about herself?
The cards themselves are just ok, with underwhelming photos and the usual Smash Hits level factoids on the back. For fans though, I expect these were a real treat.
The stickers are die-cut but a bit ugly (or maybe just very 1980s). That said I’d still love to stick one on a postcard now, but I know from experience that if you peel a 35+ year old Topps sticker off the backing it’ll never restick! As with most sets of that era the backs of the stickers can be used to form a large picture: a nice use for the card even if you remove the sticker.
The gum in here was very unusual. This is the first time I’ve seen a wrapped piece of gum in a wax pack, and it was branded as well! I’ve included the joke from the wrapper to give you a belly laugh…
Indiana Jones (Topps, 1984)
While generically named, these cards are based on Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, the second film in the series. This is the only pack I’m showing here today that I remember buying as a kid. And just as I’m sure I did then, I’m very impressed with these now.
The cards are wonderfully designed with great stills and the adventure style font compliments the pictures well. The backs all describe the action and preview the name of the next card (once again following the formula they perfected with the Star Wars sets):
Back in our Australian youth we often got the cards before the films, so almost everything in the movie was ‘spoiled’ for us. But it didn’t matter, and in some ways made the films even better since we were seeing the pics from the cards in motion. And afterwards, in an era without internet or video, our cards were a convenient way to relive the movies.
I bought two packs of these cards (and they weren’t cheap at $8 each, but unopened packs from Raiders are much harder to find and often more expensive) and in my second pack got the title card shown above.
The stickers from this set are amazing and once again I wish they still worked. I wonder what I did with the ones I got as a kid? The picture you can assemble from the sticker backs is shown at the right: and as a child if I collected the cards I would have made this and glued (yes glued) the cards onto cardboard to turn them into a sort of mini-poster!
What do you think of these sets? As I said there’ll be more in future weeks. I wonder what other treasures I managed to get my hands on…?
Along with the trading cards, you’ll recall we’d usually get the novelisation before the film appeared in Australian cinemas, too. There were MANY hits of the ’80s that I read before I saw them. I used to be fascinated by the little differences, which were sometimes due to late deviations from the script on which the book was based, and other times just the writer injecting their own ideas. There tended to be eight or so pages of movie stills in the middle of these novelisations. I’d look at them over and over, longing to see them come to life on the big screen.
It’s a shame you couldn’t buy your trading-card packs from a corner store, where they’d be kept in the glass display counter with the mixed lollies. “Can I please have 50c worth of Cobbers and two packs of footy cards?”
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the ‘Flash Gordon’ novelization is somewhat infamous for the… differences from the film. Let’s just say the author thought he was writing a very different type of book!
I wonder if corner shops with glass cabinets still exist? Wasn’t it great finding a ‘new’ one on a trip that had a cabinet stuffed with lolly boxes and trading cards (and sometimes little toys like cap guns)? I’ve probably mentioned it on here before but one time we visited a family friend and the shop just down the road from his house was laden with boxes of ROTJ trading cards. I remember running back to the house and asking for money so I could go back and sink it all into the cards. Even then, I probably only got enough for a few packs 🙂
Now I want to read the “Flash Gordon” novelisation! The “Back To The Future” one is notoriously gonzo. I recommend the page-by-page analysis of it done by comic writer Ryan North (“The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl”, etc.).
That store with all of the “Jedi” cards – what a goldmine. We’d monitor the boxes at our corner shop so closely, noting whenever packs were sold. Most of the time we knew exactly which neighbourhood kid had bought them.
Another thing those wonderful glass counters would sometimes contain is lower-end fireworks. Throw Downs, Welcome Springs, Crazy Jacks…