MOONRAKER
(Topps, O-Pee Chee & Stani)
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Release
Date |
1979 |
Set Configuration:
99 Base cards
22 Stickers
10 Cards per pack
1 Sticker per pack
36 Packs per box
16 boxes per case
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Topps,
the well-known American bubble gum company also manufactured as a
tie-in to “Moonraker” a fabulous bubble gum card set.
The complete set contained 99 cards and 22 different stickers with
the same size format. Each pack contained one sticker, ten cards and
of course a piece of stuffy chewing gum. The blue wrapper was beautiful
designed displaying Roger Moore in space suit armed with a laser gun.
A complete box contained 36 packs and a complete case 16 boxes. In
1979 the price for one pack of bubble gum cards was only 20¢.
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"Counter
Display Box & Wrappers with different advertising" |
A factory
sealed case as shown in the picture below is extremely rare. It’s
a wonderful piece of James Bond memorabilia that belongs in every
James Bond 007 collection. The case mentioned the amount of 16 boxes
containing 36 packs.
"Factory
Case holding 16 Counter Display Boxes"
Special
thanks to Reuben Wakeman for the above picture.
The pictures
shown on the card displayed the complete movie in bubble gum card
format. With the reverse of the cards you could create two 25 piece
puzzles. While the other cards had a short text description of the
picture in the front. The cards and stickers are printed on heavy
cardboard. Sadly, here and there the cutting machine didn’t
do a perfect job, so most of the jigsaws aren’t perfect and
this can be a little disappointing. The stills shown on the stickers
are randomly chosen publicity stills and some screen shots. These bubble
gum cards are quiet easy to purchase at movie fairs, eBay and other
Internet sites. Price wise they are very reasonable, even low for
cards from the 70s, and a great way to start your James Bond card
collection. It’s not even hard to discover a complete counter
display box full of wax packs. I wouldn’t recommend eating the
pink stuffy bubble gum inside the packs, though.
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"Both
of the Topps “Moonraker” puzzles" |
Starting
here is a full colour pictorial on the twenty-two Moonraker stickers,
they present stills of James Bond, Chang, Jaws, Drax, Corinne Dufour,
the space station, etc.....We could mark this twenty-two sticker set
as the predecessor to the many chase cards that will be manufactured
during the coming years..
"Topps
“Moonraker” stickers"
A rarety among the stickers and the cards, is the following; each card or sticker has one or two asteriks. Could that indicate a seperate printing or printed in another location. Who knows?
"One or two asteriks"
This
card set was first published by O-Pee Chee, a Canadian candy and bubble
gum card manufacturer, who were bought as a company by Topps who reprinted
the cards and the wrappers with slight logo changes. Look carefully
on the wrappers and you will discover bilingual text printed on them.
These first bubble gum cards were also printed with a French text
as well as English text. Both the French and the English text cards
and packing are easy to find at the collectors markets and on-line.
There is no real difference in price so look out for what version
you want, unless that is if you want both. Again both cards and wrappers
are available and easy to find.
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"O-Pee
Chee wrapper, bilangual and only 15¢" |
Thanks to James Trepanier, a Canadian card collector who mailed me the above pictures of two different wrappers and a mint sealed packed of O-Pee Chee Moonraker trading cards.
Here below
a sample of an O-Pee Chee wax box, notice the price tag of 15¢
and the bilingual text just below the yellow “Moonraker”
heading. The text on the card reverse is smaller because of the space
needed for the two languages.
"O-Pee
Chee packaging and card samples"
An advertising or a so called sell-sheet was also published. A sell-sheet
as shown here below is very rare, if you find one you can expect to
pay a retail price of around 20€. The wrappers are easy to find
and you can easily see the difference by the price tag, 20¢ for
a pack of bubble gum cards in the U.S.A. and 15¢ in Canada. Price
wise today expect to pay no more than 3€ or 2£. The Moonraker
sell-sheet is to my knowledge the first sell sheet ever issued for
the promotion of a James Bond bubble gum card set.
"Moonraker
Sell-Sheet "
In November 2023, an American based card collector known as Robert Lukaszyk mailed me some pictures of the same cards in Spanish Language. These cards were made by the Argentinean company Stani. This company made several existing Topps cards for the Spanish speaking collectors. The question is now, did they produce the stickers, the check list mentions 20 stickers instead of the original 22. But the stickers never popup, so "Do they exist?" The numbering and the pictures are identical. Here below some pictures of the Spanish version. There are also checklist cards with on the front, the layout of the puzzle. Not to forget that the checklist is also on the reverse of card #46. Perhaps it appears on other cards, this we will be for certain if someone out there has a complete set.
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"Wrapper Front " |
"Wrapper Reverse" |
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"Front & Reverse of the Checklist card" |
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17
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46
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49
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17 Reverse
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46 Reverse
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49 Reverse
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67
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79
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99
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67 Reverse
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79 reverse
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99 Reverse
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(Special thanks to Robert Lukazyk for the above pictures)
Here
below you may enjoy all of the 99 Moonraker trading cards issued by
Topps. As I explained before, the Canadian cards are exactly the same
exept for the billangual card explanation.
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01
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02
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03
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04
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05
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06
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07
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08
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09
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10
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11
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12
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13
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14
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15
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16
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17
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18
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19
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20
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21
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22
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23
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24
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25
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26
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27
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28
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29
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30
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31
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32
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33
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34
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35
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36
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37
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38
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39
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40
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41
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42
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43
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44
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45
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46
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47
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48
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49
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50
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51
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52
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53
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54
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55
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56
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57
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58
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59
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60
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61
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62
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63
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64
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65
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66
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67
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68
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69
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70
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71
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72
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73
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74
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75
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76
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77
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78
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79
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80
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81
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82
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83
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84
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85
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86
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87
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88
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89
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90
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91
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92
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93
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94
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95
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96
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97
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98
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99
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As
bonus I present you a still of an uncut sheet for the twenty-two “Moonraker”
stickers. Notice a full sheet like this below was used to print six
times twenty-two stickers in one time. A sheet as the one below is
extremely hard to find. Good luck Mr. Bond.
| Check
List: |
| Base
Cards |
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[ ] 01 Agent 007
[ ] 02 Relaxation, Bond-Style!
[ ] 03 Trapped By Deadly Spies!
[ ] 04 A Tight Spot for Bond!
[ ] 05 Thrown from the Plane!
[ ] 06 Plummeting to Earth!
[ ] 07 Rescued By Parachute!
[ ] 08 Jaws Vows Revenge!
[ ] 09 Reporting to "M"
[ ] 10 Miss Moneypenny
[ ] 11 Q's Newest Weapons
[ ] 12 Enter Drax
[ ] 13 Fantastic Estate of Drax
[ ] 14 A Collection of Perfection!
[ ] 15 The Adversaries Meet
[ ] 16 Holly ... Friend or Foe?
[ ] 17 Deadly Device
[ ] 18 The Secret Plans
[ ] 19 Murder in the Canal!
[ ] 20 Killed By a Living Corpse!
[ ] 21 Fantastic Chase!
[ ] 22 Evil Assassin Chang
[ ] 23 Kill Bond!
[ ] 24 Hired to Kill!
[ ] 25 The Clock Tower Struggle!
[ ] 26 The Savage One
[ ] 27 In Death's Grip!
[ ] 28 Chang Falls to His Doom!
[ ] 29 Scientist' Lair
[ ] 30 The Deadly Fumes!
[ ] 31 Vials of Destruction!
[ ] 32 The Lab ... Deserted!
[ ] 33 The Spies Compare Notes!
[ ] 34 The Man Called "Jaws"
[ ] 35 Teeth of Steel!
[ ] 36 Snapping the Cable!
[ ] 37 Cable Car Peril!
[ ] 38 Duo for Danger!
[ ] 39 Holly -- Captured By Drax!
[ ] 40 Bond Undercover!
[ ] 41 Conferring with "M"
[ ] 42 Testing New Weapons!
[ ] 43 Director of "Q" Branch
[ ] 44 The Menacing Monk!
[ ] 45 Jaws in Hot Pursuit!
[ ] 46 A Daring Escape!
[ ] 47 Bond Glides to Safety!
[ ] 48 Mysterious Hideout!
[ ] 49 Beckoned By Beauty!
[ ] 50 Beautiful But Deadly!
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[ ] 51 The Doom Bridge
[ ] 52 Icy Waters Below!
[ ] 53 Bone Crushing Anaconda!
[ ] 54 Fished Out By Jaws!
[ ] 55 Less-than-Tender Clutches!
[ ] 56 Escorted by Jaws
[ ] 57 Don't Be Foolish, Mr. Bond
[ ] 58 Inside the Great Pyramid
[ ] 59 Drax's "New People"
[ ] 60 Launch All Moonrakers!
[ ] 61 Bond and Holly on the Run!
[ ] 62 Commanding Moonraker 6!
[ ] 63 The Ships Blast Off!
[ ] 64 Speeding toward Space!
[ ] 65 Drax Aboard Moonraker 5
[ ] 66 Journey Across the Heavens
[ ] 67 The Incredible Space Station!
[ ] 68 Docking of the Moonrakers
[ ] 69 The Drax Empire
[ ] 70 Peering through the Telescope
[ ] 71 Mind-Boggling Complex!
[ ] 72 A World in Space!
[ ] 73 Bond and Holly Arrive
[ ] 74 Inside the Space Station
[ ] 75 The People of Tomorrow
[ ] 76 The Command Chair
[ ] 77 Spotted By Jaws!
[ ] 78 Apprehended!
[ ] 79 The Master Speaks
[ ] 80 Crazed Genius!
[ ] 81 Flowers of Death!
[ ] 82 Hello, Dolly!
[ ] 83 The Oddest Couple!
[ ] 84 End of the World!
[ ] 85 The Craft's Rotation -- Stopped!
[ ] 86 Flying Helplessly through Space!
[ ] 87 Bond Swings into Action!
[ ] 88 Arrival of the Earth Forces!
[ ] 89 Drax's Dream ... Up in Smoke!
[ ] 90 Powerful Karate Chop!
[ ] 91 Holly Blasts the Enemy!
[ ] 92 Victorious Astro-Fighters!
[ ] 93 Jaws Saves the Day!
[ ] 94 Desperate Mission!
[ ] 95 The Weightless Peril!
[ ] 96 Destroying the Deadly Globes!
[ ] 97 Lasers Find Their Mark!
[ ] 98 The Moonraker in Flight
[ ] 99 Death of a Mad Dream! |
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| Sticker
Chase Set |
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[ ] 01 James Bond
[ ] 02 Corinne Dufour
[ ] 03 James Bond
[ ] 04 James Bond
[ ] 05 James Bond
[ ] 06 Murder in the Canal!
[ ] 07 Jaws
[ ] 08 James Bond
[ ] 09 Evil Assassin Chang
[ ] 10 Jaws
[ ] 11 Drax
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[ ] 12 Jaws & James Bond
[ ] 13 James Bond & Corinne Dufour
[ ] 14 Rescued By Parachute!
[ ] 15 Space Station
[ ] 16 Drax
[ ] 17 James Bond & Dr. Holy Goodhead
[ ] 18 Space Station
[ ] 19 James Bond
[ ] 20 Space Station
[ ] 21 Drax
[ ] 22 Jaws & James Bond |
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| Promotion |
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[ ] Dealer Sell Sheet
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