OK, I got this odd idea in my head to stock my Slugfest with an assortment of NOS vintage Trading Cards (and a few other things like Pokemon and Yu-i goi, etc.) , something that may delight my guests, young and old.

SO I am in possession of this 33 year old complete box of 24 unopened wax wrap packs of Space 1999 trading cards and bubble gum sticks.... not a money making collectable (I guess), but the show was special to me, at least, I watched it religiously and was about 12 at the time.

So here I am, about to tear open these gems to put them in the Slugfest.... and I am faced with not one, but two dilemmas:

1) Do I actually disturb this tome and open up all the packs...?  and

2) Do I actually try to chew the gum?  

I LOVED that show


Chew it!

I got a box of like 2000 Toronto Maple Leafs cards.. assorted years etc...

Cool memorablia!

I wonder how much such cards are worth today.
Were there any recent eBay auctions for those?
You might want to check before opening these packs,
just in case...

I used to watch this (in French) every week too back then, along with
the earlier Alerte Dans l'Espace (UFO), and of course, Perdus dans l'Espace
(Lost in Space), along with the great Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

I'm a pack-rat myself and place WAAAY too much importance on "mint" items.

If the packs were half-missing and/or already opened, sure, I'd use them.
But if they're "NIP"  (New In Package...      I'd keep them that way. I would not open them.


... but that's just me
(... the guy hanging-on the 30 year old kids magazine thinking they might be worth something someday ! )



Steph

CHEW IT!!!

Mail me a stick and Ill make a vid of me chewing it. I LOVED that old cheepo gum!

Yes, I JUST bought them on eBay for $50.  

Space 1999 was a UK / Canada co-production I believe, in the days when Telefilm and the Tax man were giving out great tv/film investment breaks.

Sylvain, I will say (and thank you for reminding me of it) that UFO ( a British production) was probably my FAVOURITE show as a child, my brother and I spent hours jumping int o and sliding down various homebuilt ramps (much to my mother's dismay) with pillows at the bottom in order to enter our own "Interceptors"....  

Quoted from Steph

... but that's just me
(... the guy hanging-on the 30 year old kids magazine thinking they might be worth something someday ! )



Steph

People putting away unopened MacDonald's toys are the ones who end up laughing all the way to the bank.  Anything that we normally open and throw away ends up having collectable value.  And WHO would be buying an ounopened box of bubblegum trading cards for the show Space 1999? (How quickly that year came around and the moon is STILL firmly attached to its current orbit around the Earth).

And yet there is something very irreverent about breaking the seal and decadently trying to chew 24 pieces of 30 year old gum at the same time...  

Space 1999 was a great show..........I bought the whole series at Best Buy last year.I loved watching it again


p.s. I wouldnt eat the gum.....lol

Memories... man I miss the 70's (and British Television):

P.S.  I did already put in a complete series set of mint Stargate (the TV series I, II & III) trading cards into the Slugfest....  Now I only wish I could retroactively refit trading card dispensers into my soon to arrive Stargate (and a few other pins that have redemption circuits), it's quite a cool concept.

i have eatten gum older.  but i dont' advise it.  didn't blow any bubbles.  never could with that stick gum to well to begin with.

  as for opening the box of them.  i wouldn't if its something you like and know you will keep.  i had a card collection of over 300 unopened boxes.  but that paled in comparison to the opened boxes i had.  i would buy full cases of older cards like donkey kong, pac man, garbage pail kids, wacky packs and load of fantasy artist cards as well.  i would keep one box and open loads others to make a set and then usally sell the other boxes.
  you can go to ebay and find crap loads of cases of cards for cheap and that might be a better idea.
  what i bought for slugfest (which i never end up trading for).  was a wack of temp tattoos.  you can use stickers as well.  you can also get cardboard covers for them so they come out easier.

  i would leave your fav's in the box and buy things you kind of like and that are cheaper

Don't Eat It, I have done it and it breaks down right away and is like chewing an erasor. On the other hand if you chew a piece you can cross it off your list!

Oh yes Wacky Packs and Garbage Pail Kids - thanks for reminding me about those Gory - now I see more money going out to ePay....  

Quoted from websherpa

Oh yes Wacky Packs and Garbage Pail Kids - thanks for reminding me about those Gory - now I see more money going out to ePay....  

Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids cards actually pull in respectable numbers on Ebay, alot more than many others.

You want big money cards, get some orginal "Mars Attacks" from the 60's.

I can concur that chewing old NOS gum from Topps/OPC is not a good idea.  Yuck!  I was a card freak until something else *cough* pinball *cough* took hold.  

Sam

Stick it to the bottom of a machine of the same era. It increases it's value when it has authentic gum on it.

I have a Card WHiz I could re-unite it with, but a Captain Fantastic would be the quintessential 76 pinball I beleive (16,000 made - that's a lot of gum!)

According to IPDB, around 110 different pinball machine titles were released in 1976 ..... can you imagine!

The funny thing is I'm just showing Space 1999 to my 12 y/o son for the first time this week.  He likes the Eagles.  I have an 18" Eagle model around here somewhere that I'm going to break out and show him.

Incidentally...a piece of trivia:  The gas you see shooting out of the landing struts on the Eagles, as they land and take off, was actually freon being pumped through the model.  Gary Anderson said they used to vent freon basically non-stop on the set.

Quoted from Bish

The funny thing is I'm just showing Space 1999 to my 12 y/o son for the first time this week.  

I was about 10 yrs old when Space 1999 was on TV,
and although I was curious about it, it did kind of spook me out sometimes.

One episode in particular (...where some "glob-like" alien would eat people and
poop out some burnt-looking cadaver ) scared the hell out of me for days !

30+ yrs later, I still remember that episode vividly !

Be sure your son is not as impressionable as I was !  


Steph

  

I was about 10 when it was on too, and I remember that episode vividly.  That was the episode about the "Ultra Probe", and Tony Chillini, and a monster that could appear out of nowhere (preceeded by a little glowing/spinng ball). The monster looked like a giant spider with one huge glowing eyeball.  

I actually skipped that episode because like you, have remembered it for the past 30 years for the same reasons.  It scared the hell out of me at the time.  I think in some ways TV was more raw back then, although you can see worse things on now.

Ultimately, did it scar either one of us for life?  No... It's just a cool childhood memory.

Quoted from Steph

I was about 10 yrs old when Space 1999 was on TV,
and although I was curious about it, it did kind of spook me out sometimes.

One episode in particular (...where some "glob-like" alien would eat people and
poop out some burnt-looking cadaver ) scared the hell out of me for days !

30+ yrs later, I still remember that episode vividly !

Be sure your son is not as impressionable as I was !  


Steph

  

Quoted from Steph

I was about 10 yrs old when Space 1999 was on TV,
and although I was curious about it, it did kind of spook me out sometimes.

One episode in particular (...where some "glob-like" alien would eat people and
poop out some burnt-looking cadaver ) scared the hell out of me for days !

30+ yrs later, I still remember that episode vividly !

Be sure your son is not as impressionable as I was !  


Steph

  

I have memorys of a Dr Who epasode with a HUGE worm, epasode took place under ground IIRC....same thing, scared the Sh#t out of me and I STILL remember it.

For me it was three things: Stayed up late at a sleep over to watch Kolchak The Night Stalker TV Movie (a modern day vampire) and had to sleep with covers over my neck for the next 15 years.  I remember my mother giving me some garlic and a cross to wear to bed....

The other was "The Blob" (likely saw it on late night tv): wher ethe old man pokes the blob with a stick and it jumps up to consume him (can't get scene out of my head, and it still makes me chuckle ...).

The last was an episode of Twilight Zone called "The Invaders" which pitted Agnes Moorehead against a troop of tiny aliens and there's a scene where she takes an axe to the "aliens" ship (the aliens are humans).  Can't get that one out of my head either.

Quoted from websherpa

I have a Card WHiz I could re-unite it with, but a Captain Fantastic would be the quintessential 76 pinball I beleive (16,000 made - that's a lot of gum!)

According to IPDB, around 110 different pinball machine titles were released in 1976 ..... can you imagine!

Funnily enough, the CF that I picked up on the weekend has a couple of pieces stuck to the underside.

I paid extra for that special piece of authenticity.

Get it over with, just chew the gum!

The original fly where the guy is screeching in the spiderweb at the end. Creepy when your 4.

Anyone remember UFO?





http://ufoseries.com/

Now if it was UFO gum I wouldn't think about chewing it. Space 1999 of course.... chew away.

Space 1999 Season 1 Trading Cards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2uCI0qZMac&feature=related

Thanks Necro, I hadn't realized until just this moment (seeing those pics) that they used scale models for UFO - another childhood fantasy dispelled....

Thanks Bish, at least I can get a look without opening (for the moment they remain unopened).  Funny the YouTube poster mentions "the stick of gum that you could chip a tooth on."  I remember how those gums would break into pieces if you looked at them sideways - I would think they'd have turned to dust 30 years later....

Quoted from websherpa

Thanks Necro, I hadn't realized until just this moment (seeing those pics) that they used scale models for UFO - another childhood fantasy dispelled....

Who said they were models? I thought it was the real thing. Life's got to suck though when you miss with that first shot.

I guess I won't tell you the people on Thunderbirds were marionettes then either. Oops.

Reviving this old gum post

UFO, the movie: planned for 2011:
http://forbiddenplanet.com/pages/matthew-gratzner-new-ufo-trilogy/

...looking forward to it !

It is interesting to observe how much the entertainment industry
is investing to target baby-boomers, for nostalgia $ revenus/hope...

(of course, pinball is one element of entertainment nostalgia!)

Looking back at the older EMs and early video arcade games,
I am still amazed about what designers were able to achieve
back then, with the available limited technology at the time...

Keep on flippin'

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

The gum remains packaged and uneaten so far....

...and we now have the whole series of UFO on DVD and I've been making my way throughthem slowly, what a blast form the past!  And we have a couple Thunderbirds DVDs as well, I didn't realize until now just how much production went into them and that they had adult appeal as well.  

Wayne, I think you should feed the extremely stale gum to a crocodile. It is probably the only living creature that can exert the force now required to chew it. Unless it has gone to powder.

For those who loved the UFO teleseries like I (and Wayne!) did,
in addition to the great UFO-series DVDs, this book is a must have/read:
The Complete Book of Gerry Anderson's UFO by Chris Bentley.
(it is sometimes available used on eBay, for a good price).

This recent book also looks to be quite interesting:
http://www.filmedinsupermarionation.co.uk/

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

Cool box of cards!

I've got a similar Return of the Jedi box of cards from '83.  The box is open but the 36 packs aren't, gum is still in there too!

Packs have Luke, Jabba, Vader and Wicket on 'em.  

(Not a pic of my box, but mine's exactly the same as this)

Quoted from wbradley

Wayne, I think you should feed the extremely stale gum to a crocodile. It is probably the only living creature that can exert the force now required to chew it. Unless it has gone to powder.

I was trying to find a way of telling you what to do with them concrete like gum sheets ... But , there you go , wbradley got it right ...