Robot Claw

Retro Wax Packs (Part 5)

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…

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Retro Wax Packs (Part 4)

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 🙂

Posted in Retro, Trading Cards | 1 Comment »

Robo Chan Man

September 8th, 2024

While I actively still buy and make model kits, I rarely blog them these days. This one is a bit different though, so let’s look at it:

It’s a Bandai kit from the early 1980s called ‘Robo Chan Man’. I believe this particular kit is based on a kids cartoon of the time, probably forgotten now.

I found this at an antique store in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t very expensive, and I was surprised it was intact and unmade after 40 years.

It’s a small and simple kit, but you can see it includes a screwdriver, screw and a pull-back motor.

The plastic is thicker and more brittle than what Bandai uses today, and it’s almost impossible to easily get rid of the cut lines when the pieces were removed from the runners. As you can see it’s also two-colour only, and while it is snap-together, it obviously needs painting to look ‘good’.

There’s the finished kit. It has very minimal articulation, and the girl (called ‘Patty’ apparently) is just a single solid figure.

With his legs up he can be pulled back and released, at which point he rolls around with surprising speed! I can’t show that here so I’ll illustrate with a photo of the manual:

It’s difficult to find information about this kit online, but it seems it was one of many including some based on larger properties like Gundam. Here’s a photo I found of five of them including the one I made:

I wonder how many of these kits still exist? Mine is made now, so there’s at least one less. It’s simple and unsophisticated but this was a fun look back at the early days of Bandai model kits 🙂

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Let’s Forge Narsil!

September 7th, 2024

There is a new type of craft toy where you make miniature items out of plastic and sometimes resin. Most of these are food based – and KLS has made a few – but recently one company brought out this Lord Of The Rings version. Inside the blind-packed plastic sphere is a kit to ‘forge’ a weapon from the Lord Of The Rings films.

That’s the contents, which include a few props and the tools and material to make the sword itself. You can see it comes with two hilts, which may be a hint the process isn’t trivial.

The blade is created by putting resin into a silicone mold. First you need to put a very fine opalescent powder in, and the process is a little slapdash. What’s the powder for? We don’t know, but our guess is to either help the blade not stick to the mold, or to give it a metallic texture since the resin is plastic?

The liquid resin comes in a tiny bottle and the kit includes this long nozzle to inject it into the mold.

This step was difficult since the mold is opaque and the resin is clear so it’s difficult to see how well it’s filling the mold, and whether air bubbles have been avoided. We did our best until it slightly overfilled.

Then you put a hilt on top and let it harden in light. The kit says 60 minutes is all that is needed but from experience – a near-failed model jelly kit – KLS decided to leave it for a day.

To be extra sure we put it under a UV lamp overnight!

The next day the blade slid out of the mold easily, but had an air bubble. Kristin did her best to fill it and we let it dry another day!

And after the second drying stage here it is! A tiny toothpick sized legendary blade with a missing tip 🙂

The blade bonded to the hilt well and took the detail of the mold nicely. It was a bit sticky so the final step was to rub it with some alcohol. While imperfect, I’d say overall it was a fair effort.

We attempted to make another one with the remaining material, but it was a fail and no photos were taken.

For an intro into resin molding I think these kits are pretty great, but they’re also messy and difficult and I can’t see the intended audience (children) having much success with them. It was fun for us though!

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Cat Stamps

August 24th, 2024

The other day I received a package from Sue containing over 100 cat stamps! I don’t know the details, but I believe she purchased them from an elderly man selling off his collection. She knew I’d blog these once received, and who am I to disappoint!

Before I begin a brief review: a ‘Cinderella’ is a stamp printed solely for philately, and never intended to be used for postage. These are rarely issued by a government entity; more often made by merchants to profiteer from collectors. Some of these stamps are official in the sense the printer obtains a contract from a country (who receives a portion of sales) but there are also a great deal of fake – illegal if you will – Cinderellas, and it can be difficult even for experts to determine which ones were legitimate and which fake. Some people despise Cinderellas as fake collectibles, but they have their place in philately especially for new collectors, and are still printed and issued today.

As you’ll see many – most? – of these stamps are Cinderellas. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worth perusal. So let me put my detective hat on and start investigating…

All five of the above are ‘illegal’ Cinderellas. The ‘State of Oman’ stamp was part of a series printed by a London ~~forger~~ businessman, the ‘Fujeira’ and ‘Manama’ stamps are fakes labeled with obsolete postal services that are now part of the U.A.E and the Sahara stamp printed by insurgents to raise funds! None of the postmarks are real, and simply printed as part of the stamp design. Cinderellas that are labeled as from African or Middle Eastern nations are extremely common, and these are typical examples.

Here’s another large collection of Cinderellas, this time from Benin (an African nation), Afghanistan and Mongolia (two countries who don’t spring to mind when you think of robust postal services). The Benin and Afghan stamps are catalogued as ‘illegal’ by the United Nations Postal Union (and possible printed by forgers in Hungary) and I suspect the same is true for the Mongolian stamps. Note how similar the postmarks are on the Benin and Afghan ‘stamps’? I speculate they were printed at the same time and place. The source material even looks similar!

Fake Cinderellas continue. The five cat photograph stamps labeled as from Niger were printed in France and have been decried by the UN as blatant counterfeits. Equatorial Guinea is infamous in the annals of fake philately, and these five cats seem to have been printed by a Spaniard and have no connection at all to the country. The last Niger stamp – the WWF Cheetah – is also of dubious origin based on the fake postmark, but I can’t find details online.

I’m not even remotely an expert on any of this, and relying heavily on information I have found online, and as a result I’m going to file all of the above in the ‘probably Cinderella’ category. I’m fairly sure the Cambodian stamps were not issued by the Cambodian postal service, but whether they are illegal or not I can’t discover. The same is true for all the others: Laos, Congo, Nicaragua, Chad, Guinea, Cuba, Azerbaijani and Somalia. On many of these the postmarks are obviously not real, but on others (such as Cuba) it’s a little difficult to tell.

Here we have some examples of what I believe are ‘official’ Cinderellas, which means they were issued either by or with the permission of a government to raise funds via philately. North Korean stamps are a famous example of this – vast quantities of stamps are printed as from North Korea despite it not having a recognized postal service. The Bulgarian ones I wasn’t sure of until I found photographs of examples online with identical postmarks, and Togo is a country known to issue all sorts of non-postal stamps purely for the collectors market.

This block of eight stamps bears the name of Grunay, a never-inhabited island far from the east coast of Scotland. This suggests these stamps are fakes issued by the controversial UK stamp dealer Clive Feigenbaum. These were probably issued in the 1970s and may have even been part of a failed tax scheme. These are the very definition of illegitimate stamps: you or I printing something at home and hand-perforating them would be as ‘real’ as these!

From this point onwards – with some exceptions which I’ll mention – I think the Cinderellas end. Which is to say my imperfect philatelic detective skills suggest that all the remaining are real stamps issued by governments. If you detect otherwise, please let me know 🙂

The top row are stamps from Romania, Vietnam, Hungary and Isle Of Man. The first three are postmarked but unused which suggests they were sold directly to collectors. The Isle Of Man one is real and was mailed on January 10, 1991. The second row are all real used stamps from Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Czechoslovakia. The last row has two Tanzanian stamps, and two Angolan. The larger of the Angolan stamps is an obvious Cinderella (the postmark is part of the image) but the other is legitimate. I don’t know if the Cinderella is ‘illegal’ or not.

Three Russian stamps and four Indian ones. I believe these are all authentic, but the postmarks on all the Russian ones seem unusually clear and well-aligned which is typical of Cinderellas. It’s also the case that a large amount of Russian fakes exist, often issued by small Russian states. Perhaps these are examples of that?

The top row are all Malaysian, and were issued in 1922 (the two tigers), 1957 and 1979. The $0.01 black tiger stamp is worth about… $0.01 today!

The Cheetah on the second row was issued in 1963 in Mauritania, and this is a wonderful unused example. The Kenya/Uganda/Tanganyika stamp is from 1938 and features the portrait of George VI.

The three on the bottom are the oldest in this pack Sue sent me. All were printed by France for their African territories (Middle Congo) in 1907. The one on the right bears a Cameroon overprint denoting it was for use in that territory.

And lastly but by no means leastly, five examples from Australia. The middle one is notable: a stamp depicting a Cheetah printed in 1994. Some objectors to Cinderellas say that stamps should by definition have some connection to the countries that print them, but Australia has no real connection to Cheetahs! These days countries print stamps of anything they like and the world keeps spinning (and indeed philately is dying), so maybe all those unusual and random Cinderellas aren’t so bad after all?

Before I end, let’s talk favourites. With so many to choose from it was a challenge to select the ones I liked best, but I finally narrowed it down to the above four. The meowing Manama cat stamp is vibrant and large and – even though it’s a Cinderella – would have looked great on a postcard! Similarly for the Azerbaijani Cinderella: I like the detail of the cat portrait. As for the ‘real’ stamps, I have to give the nod to Isle Of Man showcasing their namesake cats on a stamp, and the engraving of the Mauritania Cheetah stamp is incredibly detailed and the stamp is printed so perfectly it makes me wish we still used lithography for stamp printing today!

This post took many hours and I ended up in many rabbit holes dedicated to illegal or otherwise dubious stamps, which ended up to be a fascinating read. Thanks Sue, for the thoughtful gift 🙂

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