Puzzling Wacky Packages Ape For Grapes

If I post this on a Wednesday, which looks very likely*, I should call it Wacky Wednesday. The subject of course is the parody stickers that Topps originally produced in the early 1970s that they called Wacky Packages. The WPs are off-the wall sometimes very very off-the wall and often leaning toward gross-out parodies of actual products. Topps was not opposed to parodying themselves which they did with this rare semi-hard to find Sticker:

1974 Topps Wacky Packages: Series 11: Planet of the Grapes

(Front and Back)

(pardon the thread/hair on the back scan image)

Topps Produced a set of cards for the Television series of Planet of the Apes the wrapper image of which this WP Parodies.

 1974 (75?) Topps Planet of The Apes cards Wrapper

 

Even though the TV show cards have a copyright of 1967 on them they were produced around the time of the show 1974/75. Oddly enough the Apes cards have puzzle piece backs.

Getting back to the WP stickers the sticker backs were blank. The brown/tan back is most common. If I recall correctly sometimes there were white backs with a slightly thicker paper/card stock. I got that sticker by its lonesome from Ebay in February of this year for five bucks ($4.99 + $2.22 shipping). Due to its rarity it often goes for much more. Since getting it I've shown it off on a couple of the card trading forums but never got around to officially blogging it. That is one of my problems not blogging something I've posted on a card board (ugh Pun not totally intended). I don't really care if it is the other way around not everything I blog about I need to post on a trading card board, but if I've mentioned a card elsewhere I like to mention it here. Preferably before mentioning it elsewhere.

For each series of  Wacky Packages stickers they would choose one of the mock products to use as a 9 card puzzle with the series checklist on the flip-side. For Series 11 Planet of the Grapes was the chosen for the series puzzle.

1974 Topps Wacky Packages Series 11 Puzzle: Planet of The Grapes 
(9 card complete puzzle)

Some of the puzzles are hard to find while others are super easy. For some reason this one is one of the rarer and very often overinflated overpriced on Ebay starting at $50 or $60 but more often starting for $100 or more for the full puzzle, individual pieces usually start between $5 - $10 and very often beyond. Plus they charge outrageous amounts for shipping. Back in late April this year I manged to get this sweet NM practically perfectly aligned full puzzle for only $29.49 + $2.50 shipping ($31.99 Total). Notice that is aprox. only $3.50 per card and each piece is in excellent to near mint condition with NO marks on the backside checklist. Often you find lesser quality conditioned cards with checks and marks on the checklist going for many times that.

The puzzle backs are the checklists for the series. Each puzzle piece has the same checklist back:

1974 Topps Wacky Packages: Series 11: Checklist Unmarked

 [I saw a checklist online of the UK checklist and the backs are green, not orange and it actually shows the Planet of the Grapes sticker in the image. The fronts with the pieces should be very similar if not the exact same. I'd like to get that puzzle sometime but not for the overinflated price of an arm and a leg.]

When I was a kid I had a ton of Wacky Packages, unfortunately many of them were lost to time. Some of them were attached to notebooks and scrap books through the ages. Some just plain lost. I do recall one time a classmate (while I was in 3rd grade) had purchased a full box of whatever series was the current one. The box yielded 2 or 3 full sets of the stickers he sold me one of his sets for five bucks, ten maybe twenty I don't recall. I forget if the puzzle was included or not. Unfortunately by the end of that day I have very few of the stickers left because the rest of the class had learned I had them and regrettably one by one I sold most of them for a quarter or 50 cents or maybe some I might have just given away. I was an easy to persuade kid. At the time it was the only full Wacky Packages Set I had although for a very brief period of time.

I often would get several packs and of course get duplicates of the puzzle piece which was one per pack (I forget how many stickers came in the pack). Of course being a kid I would also mark up the checklists often in ink, ball point pen or magic marker with the cards I had. Also with the cards I needed, sometimes I would just mark up all the check boxes on a checklist. I don't know why other than I was just a kid that didn't realize that later in life I would prefer to have them unmarked.

*OK so I barely made the posting on Wednesday thing.

Fleer Laughlin World Series Cards

FLEER - WORLD SERIES

(with Drawings by Robert Laughlin)
1970 and 1971 (plus any B&W '67s if I can find them)

I've loved these cards since I was a kid and first saw a pack in either K-Mart or some other big retail chain in 1970/71. I also recall that the gum included by Fleer in this product and in others had a powder (presumably to keep the gum from sticking to the cards) that had a distinctive taste. I both hated it and yet loved it at the same time thinking it was worse/better than the Topps gum. I think the gum Fleer used was sugar-free.

These cards have political style cartoons depicting the teams that played in the World Series for that card's particular year. The blog The Fleer Sticker Project is a good background source for these cards, and was a major help to me in reconnecting to this set. Ebay and Sportlots also had a hand in reconnecting me. More recently I found a Sport Collector's Digest link (http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.com/article/fleer_world_series_cards/) with an excellent description of the set(s).

It seems that in 1967 an independent company (maybe Fleer I'm not sure) along with Robert Laughlin produced a card set with black and white cartoons. I'm not 100% sure of the total card count I think it's 64? The 1970 set is based on that set and uses color versions of the drawings. The 1971 set changed a few of the drawings. Like many early 1970s cards many people are confused about when the cards came out since the copyright date is 1968. Topps did the same thing in 1975 with the non-sports set of the TV show Planet of The Apes the cards are copyright dated 1967 but were produced in 1975. In my My Ebay Guide on POTA cards I describe how to tell the difference between those and the original movie cards produced in 1968. I need to update the images on that guide, but I digress.

The 1970 set has 66 cards From World Series 1903 - 1969 (minus 1904 when there was no series) the 1971 set has 68 cards and includes 1904 and 1970. From 1972 - 1978 Fleer apparently released an update each year to include the most recent year, or they had a reprint set made in 1978. The jury is still out concerning when/how these updates were released. I'm going with the yearly updates as I recall seeing that mentioned in a price guide or a hobby magazine about these sets. Some of my 1970 card backs seem to have darker blue ink than others. I don't know if that means I've managed to get better preserved cards or that they may have reprinted the set at one time. My 1971 card of the '63 WS has a back that to me seems more of a dark brown than true black, and my card of the '24 WS seems to be a dark grey/charcoal black.


In 1980 Fleer reprinted the 1971 set (sort of) with card fronts and sticker backs from WS 1940 to 1979 with some of the cartoons replaced by new ones. I have the full Sticker set, although I'm curious about sticker variations that I might try to find. I haven't scanned those yet when I do I'll post a part two to this post and probably add at least one image here.

The two 70s sets are very similar but have tell-tale signs to tell the differences.

Keys to telling the sets apart:

1970
* The WS year is in a baseball.* The card back is white with Blue inked lettering.

1971

*The WS year is above the MLB Logo.
*The card back is white with Black inked lettering.

I find it interesting that the 1937 WS card from 1970 is the only card (so far, I don't have the entire set yet) that does not have the abbreviation "vs." on its front. I have two of this card and neither one has it.


There is a slight inconsistency with the team names. Sometimes the Yankees are abbreviated as "Yanks" and the Cardinals as the "Cards". The Athletics are always listed as the "A's" and the White Sox always as "Sox", but the Red Sox are never abbreviated. The Cubs are always listed with the team "C" logo (the one that says "Cubs"). Some of the Giants vs. Yankees series are listed as "Giants vs. Yanks" and some not. Some of the Cardinals vs. Yankees series are either "Cards vs. Yankees" or "Cardinals vs. Yanks" never any "Cards vs. Yanks". Interesting, I'm not sure why this is. As I said there doesn't seem to be any consistency to using the team nicknames.

Here are my set needs:

UPDATED 19 NOV 2009

1970
4, 6, 9, 20, 26, 33, 36, 41, 45, 48, 49, 61, 62,

1971
#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

These are ones I need to replace for being off centered (some more so than others):1970: 1, 3, 14, 19, 32, 35, 38,43, 44, 53, 54, 57, 59, 60, 63, 66
1971: 61

For some reason, or maybe many as with other card sets, many of the cards from these sets that I had as a kid disappeared save a handful to about a dozen maybe 15. Most from the 1970 set including the 1917, 1950 and 1967 (I think that is my favorite one). The 1963 card from 1971 seems to be the lone survivor from that set of the cards I had when I was a kid. Here are a few of the other cards I seem to remember having as a kid. I know there are a few others but these I'm the most sure of.