Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.starwars
From: plebeau@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Lebeau)
Subject: Cards and the old days.
Reply-To: plebeau@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 06:01:00 +0000

Hmmmm....

All this talk about SW cards has got me reminiscing.
I can remember collecting SW cards when I was a
nipper (well 12 anyway).  They came with some brand
or other of chewing/bubble gum back in my home
country (New Zealand).  My brother and I both
collected them, but I ended up with them all
eventually (I probably swapped them for something like
a tennis ball, two golf balls and a pencil case!)

Forgive my mad ravings, but there is a point to
this post...

Hearing, my American and Canadian SW comrades talking
about 'Topps' and 'O-Pee-Chee' (shouldn't there be a
'Three-O' on the end of that :-)! ) cards, got me
wondering... where do the cards I have come from?
(I hope I still have them - I can't check - at the
moment, I'm approx 15000 km away from where they are).

I suspect, from what I've read, that they may be Topps
cards.  Maybe if I describe them, someone can confirm
for me.

From memory (it's 2-3 years since I last looked at them)
they look like:

- Approx 3in by 4in
- Had a blue border (possibly with little specks/stars
  in the border)
- In one corner (forget which) there was a little red
  multi-point star that, I think, had either the SW logo
  or the card number in it.
- Round-about 100 cards.  Maybe less.
- The first few cards showed portraits of the main
  characters - the last few also had portraits.
- Rest showed scenes/stills from the movie
  (roughly in chronological order).
- Most had white backs, but some (about 20-30) had
  parts of a picture on them so that if you sorted
  them out jigsaw-style they made up a poster.
  (I'm pretty sure it was the old SW poster of
  Luke holding the LS up vertically).

Does this sound like any of the sets available in
North America?

If it does, then my favourite card would probably
be one of Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth from shoulders
up facing towards the camera with a bright green-blue
background.  I think it was card no. 10 and was
captioned "The Evil(?) Grand Moff Tarkin" (I think).

I don't know how accurate my memory is, but I would
be interested in knowing whether these are the same
as you guys have.


Paul


PS. There was also a series of stickers that came with
a brand of ice-blocks (popsicles) that featured mainly
Ralph McQuarrie paintings.  I think they're still
plastered all over the inside of my old wardrobe door!

PPS. I also collected a series of SW comic strips
that ran in the kids pages of a woman's magazine.
There was one page per week and it ran for about a year
or so.  For a start it was in B&W but eventually it
changed to colour.  I think I still have them somewhere.
Any idea what what this is?  I've heard mention on
the group of an old comic strip like this - could mine
be the same thing?

Anyway, it's been fun looking back on the good old days
when all this kid stuff was exciting.

Who am I kidding?  It still is!


Paul LeBeau                      o
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Organization: Junior, English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA