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GOLDENEYE
STICKERS & POGS (Merlin)
When the shooting of “A View To A Kill” came to an end, an aging Roger Moore finally retired as secret agent 007 in 1985, a young Irish actor named Pierce Brosnan was approached by EON Productions to replace him. However, when his series Remington Steele featured a surge in popularity following his casting announcement an option in his contract for more episodes was accepted meaning that he had to turn down the role. EON in 1987 turned to Timothy Dalton, somebody they had looked at to replace Sean Connery but at the time, in 1969 was thought to be too young, and became Roger Moore’s replacement in “The Living Daylights”. Far more serious actor than Moore, Dalton took Bond back to his literary roots as a fierce killer. But the biggest challenge was met in the summer of 1989, “Licence to Kill” failed at the box office when pitted against the blockbusters likes Batman, Indiana Jones and Lethal Weapon. It looked like the era of Bond was over. Following a six year court battle over rights issues between EON and MGM, many thought that 007 was now a relic of the cold war. 1995 saw Pierce Brosnan makes his debut as secret agent 007 in the box office smash “GoldenEye”. Bond was back and bigger than before as this first James Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnan broke all the previous box office records for a Bond movie. Many manufacturers such as “Omega”, “BMW”, “Smirnoff Vodka”, “Bollinger”, etc…paid EON Productions large amounts of money for just a few seconds of screen time. Pierce Brosnan’s picture could be found on every poster, magazine or newspaper cover.
For the James Bond memorabilia collectors the party just started. At least three manufactures produced trading cards or stickers for “GoldenEye”, let’s start with “Merlin Publishing International”, an English company situated in Milton Keynes, received a license from EON productions to manufacture a sticker set and a series of pogs, a kind of hardboard flippo’s. The pogs where also available in France under the name of “Magicaps”. In Britain the pogs and stickers where quiet easy to purchase, else where like in Belgium were I had more difficulties in finding them.
From time to time the stickers and the magicaps pop up on eBay or other collector fairs. Price wise for a complete counter display box of pogs, expect to pay around 50€. The stickers and the collectors album where printed in Italy. The collectors album was superbly finished and inside you could read the whole “GoldenEye” story in the text that was printed next to the stickers sticking area. The album holds 32 pages, the double centre pages are a kind of a portfolio on all the leading characters, including James Bond, Natalya Simonova, Alec Trevelyan, Xenia Onatopp, General Ourumov, Boris Grishenko, Moneypenny, M, Q, Valentin Zukovsky and Jack Wade. The background of each page is a still from the movie. This beautiful album is a must have in every James Bond memorabilia collection. Download the album here. There were 180 different stickers to collect, all wrapped in a pack of six. The counter display box and the wrappers were simply designed depicting the famous “GoldenEye” logo combined with a picture of Pierce Brosnan as secret agent 007. Following the order system of the Vanderhout “Moonraker” stickers, there was a special form attached to the album, so you could order your missing stickers (see picture here below). Talking about service! This series of GoldenEye stickers doesn't have any specials or chasers to collect.
"Easy to complete your Sticker collection" The magicaps or pogs were issued with a similar packaging containing six different pogs or only four pogs and one slammer, there were 120 different pogs to collect. The slammer had an embedded “Merlin” logo and came in different colors (see pictures below). Pity for the collectors, but there wasn't any system to order your missing magicaps. For me I can say here and now that N° 27 is the hardest one to find, out of three complete boxes, there was no sign of pog N° 27 in any box. Twenty years later in 2015 I managed to get N° 27 trough eBay.
"Merlin Slammers"
"Merlin Pog Or Magicap Wrapper" In each pack of pogs you could find a promo card. Although made in England and sold there, these pogs were made for the French market, were they are called magicaps, each 2" disc pictured a sequence from the film and due to the early rush release to get them out before the premiere this included a cut sequence, something every fan loves to see.
Please enjoy the pictorial on all of the 120 Magicaps or Pogs. Notice that the picture isn't always centered on the pog. After all this set of magicaps is a nice addition to any James Bond collection and it's getting rarer by the day. The pictorial continues with 180 GoldenEye stickers. Merlin GoldenEye Magicaps
(Special thanks to Robert Lukazyk for the above pictures)
Merlin GoldenEye Stickers
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