The Toy Box: Star Wars: A New Hope Widevision (Topps)

Star Wars: A New Hope Widevision
Topps
1995

Does anyone remember the good old days where one full box of thirty six packs guaranteed a full set of cards (sometimes two) as well as (at least) one full set of stickers? What happened to those days?

Despite numerous attempts, I've never been a big fan of trading cards. Though it was fun to get a wax pack here and there in the 80's and early 90's, something changed drastically in the industry when companies such as Topps and....Are there any others these days?....Started packing in any and every chase card they could think of; chromium holofoils, stickers, puzzles, bonus packs with exclusive cards.

When that became common practice, they then started tossing in things such as autographs, sketch cards, pieces of jerseys or actor's clothing, medals, and even the printing plates themselves. Even collecting a base set became a chore because card packs were inundated with multiple parallel borders of various rarities. Collecting cards became work. Worst of all it was expensive and pretty much guaranteed to ruin the day of any type of completest.

One of the last trading card sets I collected in my teenage years was the Widevision Topps Star Wars cards. What drew me into this set was it was essentially film cells on trading cards - Something which appealed greatly to me as someone who collects every version of Star Wars on home video. What was equally appealing was that on the back of the cards was the script, scene for scene along with storyboards and behind the scene's photos.

Like any trading card series of the 1990's, the set began as limited promo cards which were distributed to card and comic book retailers. Though they were the same front images (sans the coming soon blurb) which would eventually make their way into the set, they were distinguishable by their unique numbering, which began with a "P", as well as the card back advertisement for the set.

Promo Cards

The base set consisted of 120 cards, beginning and ending with fantastic paintings from the films promotional material. In between was essentially a visual storytelling of the film from card to card in chronological order.

Base Set

Of course you can't have any type of trading card without a chase set. This sub series consisted of ten chromium cards depicting some of Ralph McQuarrie's artwork.

Chrome Chase Cards

For the added chase, Topps produced four cards which were packed in with Kenner's 1995 Kenner Classic 4-Pack of figures. For those of you who were big into the resurgence of Star Wars figures, starting with the Power of the Force II line, you may remember this set. At the very least you'll recognize the packaging style.

The four cards included in this set were no different from those in the standard base set. The only exception being these cards were numbered with a "K" prefix.

Kenner Classic 4-Pack Bonus Cards

It's a bit of a challenge to hunt down the chromium chase cards from this set nowadays. However, the base set, promos and even the Kenner Classic 4-Pack bonus cards are quite common.

Click "HERE" to go back to the home page. For more posts related to this one, please click the labels below.

Star Wars: A New Hope Widevision (Topps)

No comments:

Post a Comment