Retro « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Retro’ Category

90s-Era Trading Cards

Sunday, April 20th, 2025

Last year I purchased four old packs of trading cards. They’ve been aging for over six months now and it’s time to open them and see what’s inside…

Tools released these The Rocketeer cards in 1992 and they’re typical of most of their series from that era. The plastic wrapper had become brittle and disintegrated a bit upon opening.

The pack contained the eight photo cards shown above, and they’re all a bit dark and muddy to my eye. Interestingly I saw this film for the first time last year, didn’t think it was very good, and I would have had zero interest in these cards upon release even were I still buying cards then.

The backs of the cards are a little difficult to read due to lack of ink. All of them were like this; maybe it was a production error? As I’ve said before I prefer the synopsis extracts on the backs of sets like this, although for this film I wonder how many read them?

There was a single (non die-cut) sticker in the pack as well, and it’s this somewhat boring movie poster style art. The adhesive had completely failed after 33 years, and when I peeled it off it wouldn’t stick to anything.

Overall a by-the-books set for a somewhat mundane film. I don’t think too many were enthusiastic for these cards when they released.

I’ve not heard of ‘Star Pics’, the company who released these Alien 3 cards, also in 1992. This was a famously troubled film production, and the result divides fans to this day.

Much like the previous packs (and admittedly the film), the cards are muddy and quite ugly. They’re also thin and flimsy, which indicate a low budget product. The screenshots are a bit blurry, which is unfortunate considering they would have been the feature cards of the set.

The backs are ugly and hard to read, but they tell a first-person account of the events of the film. An interesting approach that I think works well, but I wish the design had been more suitable for the theme.

Like other early 90s sets there’s no chase cards, and the budget feel of the material is probably indicative of the publisher. But this set is notably worse than the original Topps Alien set from over a decade earlier, which shouldn’t have been the case.

From 1996, this is a pack of Independence Day cards from Topps. We’re in the chase card era now, and the wrappers says I have a 1 in 9 chance of a hologram card!

I didn’t get one. The above were the six cards in the pack, and you can see they’re in a 16:9 aspect ratio which Topps used for their ‘Widevision’ cards for several years back then.

This is a very poor set. The screenshots are all blurry and pixilated, which is unforgivable in a set that is focused around displaying the images at a larger size. Some of the cards even look like they were photographs of a screen, rather than taken from film stock. Awful.

Furthermore, every card in the pack had ‘edge wear’ along the bottoms, which was likely caused by the machines that cut them. This is of no matter to me now since they’re going directly into the recycling bin, but imagine paying a premium for these packs 29 years ago and finding all the cards were damaged?

A very disappointing product, and another example of how Topps had fallen by the mid 90s.

I got this 1990 Classic WWF pack for KLS about a year ago and today is Wrestlemania so it seemed a good day to finally open it. She’s got a large collection of wrestling cards but since Topps sets have become overpriced she no longer buys any new ones.

Every card in her pack was A-rank wrestling royalty, which is amazing considering the size of the set (>130 cards)! How are there no forgotten or C-rank guys here?

The answer was poor collation. In her 15 cards she actually got 1-14 (and 136), and since card sets like this usually put the ‘big guys’ at the front, she got all the biggest stars. This is objectively bad collation, but in this case it ended up giving her a dream pack 🙂

The photos and bios are good, and the cards sturdy and well cut. This is a high quality product, and I imagine was quite popular with wrestling fans 35 years ago. I’m curious about the other 120 cards, but considering the steep price of the individual packs these days (I paid $10) I’m sure we’ll never open another.

I’ve still got a few more packs stashed away aging in a closet, and three unopened boxes of 1980s era cards. Over the summer I’m sure I’ll finally open one of them 🙂

Posted in Collecting, Retro, Trading Cards | No Comments »

Japan Pickups: Games

Wednesday, January 15th, 2025

I’m using ‘games’ here to describe video games and ‘TRPGs’ (as tabletop games are called in Japan). This is the category in which I’m always hunting for items on my trips and this time I was very happy with my finds…

It’s been a while since I’ve found a new Japanese Fighting Fantasy book for my collection, so I was pleased to see this JP version of ‘Out Of The Pit‘, the FF Monster Manual. Unlike the western version, it’s published at the same size as a normal FF book and is therefore a chunky little volume. The cover is a little tattered, but it’s in otherwise excellent condition and included its obi and even an advertisement for the Japanese Warlock magazine.

Speaking of which, I bought ten more issues of Warlock, which I found once again at Mandarake in Akihabara (where do they keep getting these from?). These weren’t cheap, but with this addition I now have 75% of the entire run of this magazine, including the first and last (#63) issues.

Moving onto one of my other collections, I found the above three Wizardry games. The leftmost had eluded me for years and was surprisingly inexpensive (about $30) but I didn’t even know Summoner had a PS2 version and didn’t hesitate to pay through the nose for it (~$100) when I found it in Nagano on Christmas Day. The last is the JP physical edition of the recent Wizardry 1 remake. Alas I was unable to find the special edition of this release, which comes with a lot of bonuses. One day I will…

This is a remarkable guidebook for all three Game Boy Color remakes of Wizardry 1 – 3. I’ve got many Japanese Wizardry game guides in my collection now, but this may be the best I’ve yet seen.

It starts with some lovely colour pages detailing the history of each game…

And then goes into detail about the specifics of the GBC versions of each title, including monsters, items and maps. Most of the book is in colour as well.

Each game gets its own section and as a result the book is fairly lengthy. The GBC versions of these games are rare and (very) expensive these days, so this book would have a limited audience. But I have all three games and will one day play them again and when I do this ‘bible’ will be extremely useful!

The above is the 1991 revised edition of the Wizardry TRPG rules for the tabletop game based on the video game series. I have read that the Wizardry TRPG was immensely popular back in Japan back in the day – competing even with D&D – but this is the first time I’d found a basic rule book for sale.

It’s got all the usual sections common to RPG rulebooks, and I like that the character sheet resembles those in the video games. I wonder what this game is like to play?

Speaking of the TRPG, I also bought the above. The two on the left are adventures, and on the right is a gamesmasters screen! These date to a few years before the rulebook above, which suggest they were intended for the first edition rules (which I’ve never seen). These were expensive, and only a maniac would buy them if he couldn’t even read them…

The above was an incredible find, not only because I’d never heard of it but also because I have since read it is ‘extremely rare’! It’s a Wizardry card game named after the ultimate wizard spell ‘Tiltowait’!

The description said it was ‘opened but never played’ and while the flimsy cardboard box had seen better days the cards themselves don’t show any evidence of use so I’m guessing the description was accurate.

Amusingly this is a reskin of Uno using monsters and spells from Wizardry as card art. From the included rules it seems ‘Tiltowait’ is the Draw 4 equivalent and other spells (‘Haman’ etc.) correspond to the other effect cards in Uno, with a few additions such as counter and discard spells.

The last game pickups from the trip were the above Switch titles. All of these are compilations of arcade games – mostly shooters. Taito Milestones 3 was purchased not just because it includes Cadash but also all three Rastan games and both Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. It’s one of the very best arcade compilations I’ve seen! The game on the right is the special edition of Mushihimesama, the insect-themed Cave shooter.

Lots of treasures here, but alas my grails once again eluded me. The hunt will continue in future trips…

Posted in Blog, Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Japan, Otaku, Retro | Comments Closed

Bean Counting

Sunday, October 6th, 2024

I spent many hours this summer in the attic, emptying out boxes that had been sealed in some cases for decades, and disposing of lots of things that we didn’t need to keep anymore. I ended up reducing the attic storage by a factor of about 75%, which was very liberating. In a few years I’ll do another pass and likely toss out more.

The last step of this years clean-out was today, specifically taking care of this:

This is our Beanie Babies collection, purchased during the fad in the late 1990s.

A lot has been written about the Beanie Babies phenomena, but the quick history is that these little stuffed animals became popular in 1996 and very quickly it seemed everyone was collecting them. They were sold almost everywhere, created long lines and shopper hysteria when new ‘waves’ were released, and spurned an entire industry around them as people latched on to the idea they were not just toys, but investments that would one day make them rich. And then in 1999 the whole fad fell apart and by 2000 almost no one cared about them any more, and the world moved on.

We bought them for a few years, then put them in a box and forgot about them until now. Had you asked me how many we had I would have said a few dozen, so I was quite surprised to find we had 111 of the things:

It is surreal to think back on that era. People were legitimately insane for Beanie Babies (there’s at least two good documentaries about them), and in particular went crazy for the teddy bear types. I always found the bears repellant, but we somehow managed to get 9 of them:

People were selling some of the bears for hundreds of dollars in those days. Beanies were about 10% of all eBay sales during the height of the fad, and by 1998 the madness was worldwide. We never bought in to any of this, since it was abundantly obvious since with everyone buying them there wouldn’t be a sellers market in the future 🙂

Some of our Beanies are unusual – including one that isn’t even an animal – but these mostly come from the end of the fad when all the normal animals had already been made.

I don’t like any of these and can’t remember ever buying them. In fact both of us were surprised by some of the ones we own that we don’t find attractive in any way. I suppose we just bought them because they were inexpensive.

That said, one of ours has a $15 price tag on it!? It’s hard to believe we ever paid that and indeed I don’t recall every buying one on the secondary market (like a toy show) so this remains a mystery.

McDonald’s got in on the action as well with Happy Meal ‘Teenie Beanies’ toys several times during the craze. We have 18 of these, from the 1996, 1998 and 1999 series. As with the full sized beanies, these were extremely popular and sought after at the time. In 1996 the first series was the most successful Happy Meal promotion McDonald’s had ever had to that point!

As you can see the McDonald’s ones (on left) are about half the size of the normal toy (in the middle). At the right is a ‘Beanie Buddy’, and no I don’t know why we own that either.

A small few of ours have ‘tag protectors’ on them to keep the red cardboard tag on good condition. But we also had a pack of dozens of protectors that we never bothered putting on, which perhaps shows how much we valued this ‘investment’! Some collectors bought elaborate storage cases or even sealed them in lucite. It was important to keep the investments in tip top condition 🙂

So let’s talk money. In 1996 the suggested price of a Beanie was $5, and it seems this continued until at least 1998. We have one from 1999 with a $5.50 price tag, but that was probably just a store marking up due to demand. I think it’s reasonable therefore to estimate – at the low end – that we paid about $555 for our normal Beanies plus at least $36 more for the McDonald’s ones (Happy Meals were $2 in those days). The above photos therefore represent an ‘investment’ of about $591.

I’ll say again that some people truly thought these would make them rich one day, and such beliefs continue through the endless eBay auctions where sellers don’t understand the market died 25 years ago and never recovered.

The truth is Beanie Babies are worthless today. Every single one we have can be obtained for under $1 on eBay right now, and collections are selling for much less than $1 per Beanie. If you search you’ll find that the vast majority of auctions for these things don’t actually sell at all, since everyone has them in their attics and no one wants them! I’m sure there’s a few diehard collectors out there seeking holy grail error Beanies (and good luck to them), but it doesn’t change the fact that 99.99999% of the things now retain no value at all.

So our $591 we spent between 1996 and 1999 has now become… well maybe $50 if we successfully sold them on eBay, which is not what anyone would call an investment! But what if we’d ignored the Beanies entirely and spent our $591 back in 1999 on a true investment like the Dow Jones or Apple stock?

If we’d spent $591 on a DJIA mutual fund in December 1999 we’d have about $2458 worth of stock today.

If we’d spent $591 on APPL (Apple) stock in December 1999, we have about $171,800 in Apple stock (yes you read that correctly) today.

But we didn’t, and today we simply have worthless Beanies! We selected a ‘favourite’ each (the term is used lightly) – Legs the frog for KLS and a dubiously coloured Platypus for me – and put the remaining 16 kg of them into a different type of permanent storage:

Goodbye Beanie Babies. We’ll ~~never~~ forget you.

Posted in Blog, Collecting, Finance, History, Memories, Retro, Toys | 2 Comments »

Retro Wax Packs (Part 5)

Thursday, September 12th, 2024

Continuing the post from a couple of days ago, here’s four more ancient packs of trading cards…

Knight Rider (Donruss, 1982)

A few years ago I bought this entire series on DVD since Walmart had it for a silly low price. I haven’t yet opened it. But now at least I’ve opened a pack of these trading cards 🙂

Given this show was all about David Hasselhoff, it’s remarkable that I didn’t get a single card featuring him! And is that card in the top right the mysterious secondary girl character they wrote out after season one? As you can see the cards feature a lot of exciting KITT action, no doubt of interest to the kids that would have been the target customers.

The gum was permanently stuck to this card, and although it was rock hard it seemed less ruined by rot than the others I’ve opened recently.

The backs of all my cards are puzzle pieces, but the ones I got were so featureless it’s difficult to tell what it shows. Is that Michael Knight’s hand?

Overall a so-so set based on this single pack. I was a fan of the show at the time and probably bought have bought a pack had I seen them. I wonder if I did?

Fright Flicks (Topps, 1988)

This is an infamous card set featuring photos from many different horror films. Topps didn’t skimp on the gore and the set is depicts images of extreme gore that caused some of the films to be banned in the USA!

I had wanted a pack of this for years but it’s not easy to find today, and I paid almost $10 for this single pack. There are four pack designs and apparently the Freddy Krueger one is the most desirable today.

The cards in my pack nicely illustrate the variety of the set, with images from eight different films including some very obscure ones. How many of these do you recognize?

The gum was in near perfect condition and not stuck to the card. Of all the gum in these packs this was the one I would most likely have tried to eat were I inclined.

The cardbacks are unusual. They include the name of the film shown on the front, as well as a fictitious story of the supernatural. I think a summary of the film plot would have been better, but at least these ‘Did It Ever Happen’ stories are well written.

I got a diecut sticker with a nice shot of the Predator on it, and the back of only one of my cards was a puzzle piece. I checked and there are only 11 stickers in the set and I’d rank this one in the top three. Will I ever stick it?

This is a great set, and if I’d known about it at the time maybe I would have at least bought several packs… or maybe not since I was 16 and I’m sure trading cards were horribly uncool at that age!

Star Trek The Motion Picture (Topps, 1979)

I have dim memories of owning some of these cards as a child, even though I didn’t really understand this film when it came out. I like the purple pack design!

I love the design of these cards. As with most of Topps products of this era they show the influence of the Star Wats sets, but the white borders and dramatic font works well together. It’s interesting that one card (middle right) is a ‘behind the scenes’ photo, which were very rare in card sets in those days.

The gum was rotten and brittle but loose in the pack and hadn’t damaged any card. In the bin it went!

All but one of the backs of mine are puzzle pieces, and based on the borders there are at least four of them to assemble.

One card contains a (prophetic) Shatner quote. I wonder if any cards in the set contained a film synopsis?

The sticker is die-cut and a little boring, especially with the copyright info and number included (I would cut both off if I stuck this). There’s a lot of stickers in this set, and only a minority are spaceships. As it turns out I’ve owned one of the other stickers for years:

Isn’t it beautiful? I daresay Star Trek fans in 1979 probably bought these card packs in droves just to get the fantastic die-cut character stickers 🙂

This is a wonderful set, and I’d love to crack open an entire box. Given it’s collectibility though, I imagine that’s all but impossible these days.

Moonraker (Topps, 1979)

I’ve had this pack for over a decade, and it’s been aging carefully in a box. Finally it was time to break the wax seal and see what was inside!

Much like the Star Wars series, there’s no bad James Bond films. Lesser men may mumble about the qualities of Moonraker, but for this fan it’s always a cracking watch! The cards illustrate the film well, with the typical Topps design from those days.

I believe this is the oldest pack featured these past two posts, so it’s interesting the gum was intact, apparently not rotting, and arguably still edible. Should I have tried it?

The backs are a mix of puzzle pieces, a puzzle guide and a synopsis. I like the line art of Bond in the space suit.

And here’s my magnificent sticker. There were 22 in the set, only five die-cut, and only three of those featuring Bond so I got lucky (although this is arguably the worst of the Bond stickers).

Amusingly my pack even included this misprint card! Surely this is worth a pretty penny these days? I think I’ll sell it for a nice profit to Bernard 🙂

And that ends my recent opening of ancient card packs. I can’t think of any old wax era packs I haven’t yet opened here on the blog, so I doubt there will be a further update like these. However that doesn’t mean this series is entirely dead, since I may have a few other packs to open one day…

Posted in Retro, Trading Cards | 1 Comment »

Retro Wax Packs (Part 4)

Tuesday, September 10th, 2024

I’ve got some more retro packs of trading cards to open! Once again these are all from the wax era (the packs are sealed with wax), which means they’re (almost) all over 40 years old. I’ve had these for about a year, so let’s see what’s inside…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II (Topps, 1991)

These date from the last years of the wax pack era, and by now Topps has abandoned bubble gum. I’ve shown a few other series from this period before, and these cards are similar in design.

The cards all have nice shots from the film, surely of interest to young fans. As you can see the borders and basic design aren’t too different from the Star Wars series from over a decade earlier. Even in 1991 the cards were still printed on non-glossy cardstock, which I still prefer to this day.

The backs contain the usual story synopsis. To this day I’m not sure I’ve even seen this film. I probably should.

The pack includes a single sticker, which unfortunately is not die-cut. The back of the sticker is a puzzle piece, and with only one sticker per pack I imagine completing this puzzle was a costly task.

Overall it’s a decent product, although it’s from the post-80s era with the lesser quality stickers and too early for the flashy chase cards of the mid to late 90s. If you like TMNT, these would have been great.

Magnum (Donruss, 1983)

I watched this show when I was a kid (why?) and I loved trading cards even then. But I don’t remember ever knowing Magnum cards existed, and without any monsters or spaceships I probably wouldn’t have bought a pack even had I known!

The cards are great, and I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or not but of the eight in my pack more than half featured the ruggedly handsome face of Tom “I was almost Indiana Jones” Selleck himself.

The pack included a stick of gum, which had weirdly puffed up during the 41 years. It had a disturbing smell (of mold?) as well, and had strongly adhered to the card. I discarded both 🙂

The majority of cardbacks are puzzle pieces with just a single card containing a pithy thought from Magnum himself. Did kids enjoy this?

There were no stickers, and while the cards were well printed I doubt they would have appealed to anyone outside of the small group of card-collecting Magnum fans. I’m guessing it didn’t sell well.

Alien (Topps, 1979)

This is a somewhat ‘famous’ card set and I’d been after a pack for years. It wasn’t inexpensive, at about $8, but it was fun to finally open a pack again…

The cards are beautiful! Obviously following the Star Wars design template, these show off the movie extremely well, and would have been a wonderful collection for fans back in 1979. Remember these were the days before VHS, and cards like these would have been one of the only ways for people to see images from the film outside of the cinema.

The gum was rancid and moldy but hadn’t stuck to or damaged any cards. No, I didn’t eat it!

Most of the backs contain tantalizing snippets of puzzle art that I don’t recognize. Did Topps commission art for the puzzles since the movie poster was too simple and since Giger art would have been inappropriate?

The remainder of cardbacks contain a story summary. I like the egg border!

Here’s my die-cast sticker! Certainly not the best from the set, but charming regardless. I wonder if this actor has a copy of one of these to this day?

And one single card has an advert on the back.

These are fantastic. I recall opening one or two packs of this as a child, although I only remember sticking (with glue) a single card into my scrapbook. I wish I still owned that scrapbook; what a blog post it would have made! I’d love to find a box of this for a decent price, and complete the set 🙂