Card of the Day: 2018 Grandstand Erie SeaWolves Bubble Boy

Card of the Day: Kurt Bevacqua 1976 Topps Bubble Gum Blowing Champ #564

Flashback Product of the Week: 1976 Donruss Skateboard Stickers & Bubble Gum

Here we have another neat little artistic set made by Donruss back in 1976.  Skateboard Stickers & Bubble Gum is a set that consists of 44-cards/stickers.  The artwork was done by comic-book artist Alex Niño who has worked with DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Warren Publishing, and Heavy Metal magazine in the past.  On browsing through the set you can see why Donruss would pick an artist like Niño.  It is filled with crazy skateboarding creatures.  The demand for these stickers isn’t all that good.  Full boxes with all their packs can sell for as little as $20.00.  Two years later in 1978 Donruss released another skateboarding product called All-Pro Skateboard.  This set contains artistic monsters as well as actual skateboarding photos.

Flashback Product of the Week: 1972 Donruss Vote For Bubble Gum Stickers

The act of voting is probably the most boring concept to build a product around, but Donruss actually pulled it off with 1972 Vote For Bubble Gum Stickers.  This 33-sticker set features an American flag like image on each sticker encouraging you to vote.  Some stickers tell you to vote for specific things such as peace or peanut butter.  Boxes contain 23 packs and can be picked up for $200.00 today.  This is one of those vintage products that if your lucky enough to purchase a box sealed, you leave it that way.  The individual stickers outside of the packs are barely worth a nickel.

Flashback Product of the Week: 1959 “Topps” You’ll Die Laughing

Its almost Halloween, so I think I’ll mix things up for the next few Flashback Product of the Week posts.

In 1959 Topps released a product called You’ll Die Laughing.  It features a 66-card set and contains some gruesome images of monsters and all types of creatures.  By today’s standards, you probably won’t think the artwork is all that bad, but in ’59 it was a hot topic.  Before this set was released, Topps anticipated parents would get upset over the artwork, thats why you won’t find the Topps name anywhere on the cards.  Instead Topps went under the name Bubble Inc. in order to avoid bad publicity and they added funny captions to each card hoping to soften their image.  Topps was right, parents didn’t like the graphic images and the bad publicity actually helped drive more sales.  PSA actually has a really good article about this set.

In today’s hobby, one of the most popular and creative companies producing card sets based on monsters would be Monsterwax.  If your into this kind of stuff, I highly suggest you check them out.  They truly take their time when putting a set together.  Their products are very limited.  For example, the card pictured below comes from their Shock Stories set.  Monsterwax only produced 1,000 boxes.  Collectors can look for a sketch card inside each box as well as a 3D card inside each pack.