The Collector Punk

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OK, so I am probably a bit late writing about these. The World Cup is over, England were dismal and the players are  rightly back at home on their multi-million pound estates.

As I have previously blogged, I have been concentrating on collecting the Panini World Cup stickers and I have now completed that collection. However, following the defeat of the national laughing stock we call a team, Tesco slashed the prices of the starter sets of these and that was too much of a temptation for me.

As you expect from a world leading trading card company like Topps, the card are excellent quality. The packs cost 50p each and contain 6 cards. There are a total of 305 cards to collect and they break down like this:

• 249 Player cards including 23 Star Player foil cards
• 16 Manager cards
• 28 Man Of The Match rainbow foil cards
• 4 Hundred Club rainbow foil cards

There are also 8 Limited Edition foil cards that are not available in packets:

• Glen Johnson (given away with Match Magazine)
• Jermaine Defoe (with the Collectors Tin)
• David Beckham (with the Starter Set)
• Steven Gerrard (with Guide Magazine)
• Gareth Barry (from McColls Newsagent)
• Theo Walcott (from WHSmiths)
• Paul Gascoigne (with the Tesco Binder)
• Gary Lineker (with the Texco Collectors Tin)

Tesco had an exlusive deal with Topps and the packs sold in their stores included an extra International Star card.  There were 46 of these cards to collect. These included:

• 37 player cards including 6 Star Legend foil cards
• 5 Man Of the Match foil cards
• 3 Hundred club foil cards
• Frank Lampard Autographed card (100 available)
• Peter Shilton Autographed Card (1,000 available)

Topps, as they often do with their trading cards, have put the odds of getting the rarer cards on the backs of the packs.

• Star Player foils – 1 in every 2.3 packs
• Man Of The Match foils – 1 in every 5 packs
• 100 Club foils – 1 in every 100 packs
• Star Legends foils – 1 in every 7 packs
• International Masters 1 in every 10.5 packs

This is a great set of cards for casual and serious collectors and now the World Cup is over, we may even see excess stock reduced in price as well as prices fall in the secondary market of eBay.

Happy collecting!

The hobby of collecting sugar packets has a large following and due to the popularity of taking sugar in drinks, sugar packets are available in every cafe and restaurant worldwide. This is another great collectable because the costs of collecting are minimal. Sugar packets are designed to be given away and they are readily accessable for you to collect or for others to collect for you. They are small and light so storing or displaying your collection is also easy. Today, we have an interview with Liesbeth Vergouwe who is a collector of sugar packets from The Netherlands. She has very kindly taken the time to answer a few questions. If you also are a suger packet collector, I am sure Liesbeth would love to hear from you.

•    How did you start collecting sugar packets and which was your first?

As a child my mother collected (and still does) matchboxes & used stamps. I helped my mom but they didn’t do it for me. Then I got some sugarpackets from my uncle and from then on I was lost. Until I was about 16 I just put them in a box but after that I started sorting, mounting and cataloging them. By then everybody who knew me, brought sugars for me. In January 2000 I got cable internet and started a website on sugarpackets. Back then, there were only 3 other sites, Phil Miller, The UK Collectors Club and sugar producer Pini Peri. The first year I got way too many emails and envelopes. Now it has been reduced to a few emails a week and one envelope a week.

•    How many sugar packets do you have?

More than 80,000.

•    If you had to pick a favourite from your collection, which would it be and why?

Only one ????
I am a cat person, so one of the cat printed sugar packets.

•    How do you store or display your collection?

My collection is kept in Ordners (lose leaf binders).
The sugars are mounted on paper with photo corners (which I fold myself from sticky tape).
Doubles or damaged sugars are used to decorate my binders, so some of my sugars are always in the picture.

•    You have mentioned you collect cats as well, can you tell me a little about that?

Not much really, I just like cats. And have over 800 statues of them. There is no more space left for them, now the only cat items that I collect are useful, like coffee cups, a cat (garfield) shaped phone, cat shaped kitchen clock……

•    Are there any particular sugar packets you are currently looking out for at the moment?

No, any new sugar is welcome.
It would be nice if I could complete some collections.

•    Are there any online collector groups or websites that help you with your hobby?

My own page is http://members.home.nl/liesje1/index.html and it is true that I have made some sugar friends the past 10 years through the internet. Once a year the Dutch Collectors Club hold a sugar trade day.

Finally spotted some of the new Lego Minifigures out in the wild today. My local Tesco Metro had them hanging up in strips in the newspaper and magazine section priced at £1.97 (that’s a whole 2p below rrp). Grabbed a couple to go with my Financial Times and my pain au chocolat. Ripped them open as soon as I reached the office to the amusement of my colleagues. The two mystery figures turned out to be the Spaceman and the Doctor. When we all got home the new additions were welcomed by my other minifigs.

UPDATE: I HAVE NOW COMPLETED MY ALBUM – apologies to those who have commented and e-mailed me looking for trades.  I hopw you can complete yours soon as well.

Here is an up to date list of swaps and needs for my collection of Panini World Cup 2010 stickers. If you want make a trade, leave a comment or fire me an e-mail or tweet. I straight swap 1 :1 for regular stickers and Shiny ones are 1:2 regular ones. I will try to keep this list as up to date as possible.

I have been a fan and collector of Lego minifigs since I was a child and therefore was overjoyed to discover that Lego were bringing out a range of minifigs aimed squarely at the collector. I have blogged before about my favourite minifigs but some of these new ones might make the list. This is the first time they have done this to my knowledge. There have been themed minifig packs before but never sold individually, with characteres that are not available anywhere else. So far there has been news of 2 series of minifigs, with 16 minifigs in each. They are sold individually in ‘blind’ bags so you can’t see which figure you are getting.  However, there are rumours that the packs have unique barcodes on for each figure. With a bit of googling you can find lists of which barcodes relate to which figure but that kind of takes some of the fun away doesn’t it? They are priced in the UK at £1.99.

The minifigures included are:

Series 1

• A Cheerleader with two pom-poms
• A Caveman with a club
• A Circus Clown with a horn
• A Spaceman with a helmet and laser gun
• A Demolition Dummy with a spanner and a PA7 70 sign
• A Tribal Hunter with bow and arrow and a quiver
• A Ninja with a gold Samurai sword
• A Magician with a baton, and interchangeable top hat and hair
• A Super Wrestler with cape
• A Forestman with a hat, bow and arrow and quiver
• A Robot with a robotic right arm
• A Skater with a skateboard
• A Cowboy with hat and two pistols
• A Nurse with a syringe and clipboard
• A Zombie with a shovel and chicken leg
• A Deep Sea Diver with diving helmet

Series 2

• A Spartan – with spear and shield
• A Life guard – with rescue buoy
• A Witch – with broom
• A Pop Star – with microphone
• A Weight lifter – with weight barrel
• A Ring master – with whip
• A Jungle Explorer – with magnifying glass and telescope
• A Karate kid – with trophy
• A Surfer – Beach Boy with surf board
• An Egyptian – with scepter
• A Dracula – with bat
• A Traffic cop – with ticket and handcuffs
• A Mime artist – with 3 changeable masks
• A Skier – with ski and sticks
• A Disco Stu – with an afro hairstyle and a LP
• A Mexican – with Maracas and sombrero

There are some great figures in these sets. My favourites have to be the Zombie and the Wrester from series 1 and the Mime and the skier from series 2.