Comics UK

stevezodiac wrote:I have all the Civil War cards and every bank note denomination. There was a company in Somerset that sold all the classic bubble gum cards - I bought a few sets from them. I presume they were copies as they were in mint condition. They may still be going.

Apparently the bank notes are rarer than the cards as most of us didn't hold onto those. (I kept the 20 or so cards I had though.) Even rarer are the wrappers, which few kids kept.

Although the cards were very gory and violent, our teachers at infant school let us swap them in the playground without any problems. Considering that most of those teachers were in their 40s or older (all women) they must have been very open minded.

They also gave us Hawkman and Metal Men comics to read in break if it was raining. A good attitude for them to have considering it was only 11 years after the anti-comics crusades of the mid Fifties and that some adults still felt that all American comics were still suspect, despite the code seal on the covers.

Talking of swapping cards in the playground brings to mind a rather unsavoury bubblegum-card-related incident from my time at primary school. One lad was a bit of a tearaway, and this particular playtime he decided he would perform a body function in the flower bed at the edge of the playground. Having done the deed, he proudly stuck a Batman bubblegum card in his, shall we say, 'deposit'. Someone must have told a teacher, because a few minutes later the headmaster appeared, handed a shovel to the young tyke and made him clear up the mess. Enjoy your tea!

Did that make him the crapped crusader?

Those US Civil War cards were pretty strong stuff for the times! (mid 1960s) today they seem tamer-but back then- wow!!

stevezodiac wrote:Did that make him the crapped crusader?

I used to have a few "Yellow Submarine" cards. They are pretty rare now I believe!

I have these Starsky and Hutch cards which were on sale at the height of the funky duo's popularity. I think the cards are unofficial, as there's no copyright info, and the pics look as though they've been taken by camera off a TV screen. The backs are blank, and the cards are smaller than the average bubblegum card (Star Wars card shown for comparison).

Those small tags on the sides of the cards suggest they came on a sheet and were pulled off. Maybe they were given free with a comic. Perhaps a Girl's comic like Jackie? Last year the Daily Mirror gave away sheets of about six Hannah Montana cards every day for a week which were pulled off in the same way leaving those little tags. They also gave you box which came flat and had to be folded into the box shape and clipped together with protuding tabs.

Yes, the S&H cards were joined together, but as I remember it I bought them in a sweetshop/newsagent. I seem to remember they came in packets in which you got a few cards, much like the standard gum cards. I can't remember if there was gum included, though. The limited info on the packets suggested they were of foreign origin (possibly German if memory serves). Pity I didn't keep the packaging.

Update: a bit of googling suggests that the cards were made by Dutch manufacturer Monty Gum.

As a child of the 80s the only non-football cards I remember collecting were the Garbage Pail Kids. They had that wonderful bubblegum aroma. I can't help but think that if they were released today for the first time the PC brigade would be out banging their righteous drum.

Back in the mid 60's there as a set of Thunderbirds bubblegum cards - black and white photos on the front, and the back of the cards could be assembled into a gaint photo once you had the set. Here's the thing though - some shops stocked an inferior version, the cards were smaller and had poorer quality pictures. Were these bona fide, does anyone recall?

Google has provided me with the answer to my question - they did come from the same company, but I don't know why - perhaps to keep up with demand, they had to find a new printer who couldn't manage the same quality. Perversely the inferior cards, due to rarity value, are now worth more than the superior ones!

One of the web pages I looked at alleged that the company in question didn't always have the rights to feature the properties they used. Maybe the cards you mentioned were unofficial knock-offs.