In 1983 Topps released a set of trading cards based on popular video games of the era. Here’s an advert:
As it turns out, two of the games mentioned in the marketing – Centipede and Q-Bert – were not even in the final set, called Video City. Here’s the single unopened pack I recently purchased for about $8:
It was in remarkably good condition considering the age, and the wax seal was also unbroken. When I opened it, I was pleased to see the stick of gum hadn’t adhered to any of the cards. Wherever they’d been, they were stored well!
Each pack contains 3 scratch-off game cards like these:
The instructions are on the back:
The packs also contain three sheets of stickers:
The game cards are lacklustre, but I’m very impressed with how vibrant the stickers are. They’d look great on postcards…
There were several video game themed trading card sets in the early 80s, including Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dragons Lair (!) and Zelda. Although released by a few different companies they mostly all followed the same format of stickers and game cards. I’ve been trying to get a pack of some of these sets (especially Dragon’s Lair) a while with no luck. If you ever see one, keep me in mind 🙂