Continue to be Good at Gifting
Not every gift for the collector in your life can be as easy as “I’ll just buy them a box of Chrome Update”! There exists, in fact, a breed of collector whose interests lie in the world of pop culture (and its assorted fun). And there is a mountain of fun stuff out there you can still buy as anything from stocking stuffers to white elephant gifts to a grand gesture for under the tree.
1. Topps Star Wars Living Set Print #500 – Willrow Hood ($19.99)
You may think you know Star Wars… but you don’t. I thought I knew Star Wars and then I learned about Dr. Cornelius Evazan, a background character with a deep and rich canon backstory… who you may just know as “the guy who picked a fight with Luke in that cantina in Star Wars.” Enter Willrow Hood, who had a similarly brief appearance,with an accompanying deeper backstory. And now he has a card. Grab the jumbo art print as a gift for the Star Wars fan in your life, frame it, and let them marvel at your depth of knowledge — even if they have no idea who he is.
2. “I am Your Fathers Day” set ($30-ish)
For two glorious years — 2020 and 2021 — Topps produced a set of Star Wars trading cards featuring characters and their “fathers.” They were cool and in some cases kind of funny (The Mandalorian and Grogu, for instance). There aren’t a ton of them out there — the 2021 set had a print run of just 1330 — but if you can find one for around $30, any non-sport collector will appreciate the crossover fun of one of the most iconic reveals in movie history coupled with a mid-summer holiday that would otherwise have little Star Wars opportunity.
3. 1976 Marvel Super Heroes Stickers ($10-40, depending on the hero)
Especially in the vintage market, Topps had a habit of taking IP they have the rights to and adding some kind of word bubble with a snarky phrase. The Marvel Super Heroes sticker sets of the 1970s are a perfect example of this (as are the 80s “Fright Flicks” cards, but that was two holidays ago). Take your typical supernatural crimefighter, make a sticker of an action shot, and add some funny one-liners. Comic fans in your life will appreciate the retro design and effort of these cards, which range from funny to… unintentionally funny.
4. 1990 Simpsons Throwback Thursday set ($150-200)
You could take umbrage with this being a “sport” set, but the MLB players here are really just window dressing for one of the most memorable TV episodes of the last 40 years — The Simpsons’ “Homer at The Bat.” As part of the Throwback Thursday (TBT) line, Topps took their 1990 Simpsons card design and inserted images of players from the fictitious softball team. This is not a cheap set of cards to obtain (the print run was only 385), but if you have someone in your life who loves Jose Canseco, for instance, you can get just that card at a fraction of the price of the set (obviously). The value keeps going up, so protect it well!
5. 1978 Topps Marvel Marvel Comics Sugar Free Gum Pack ($25-ish)
You know when you open an old pack of cards and someone is always ready with the “are you going to chew that gum?” joke? Gird yourselves. This is straight up gum — but with an old-school 1970s comic wrapped around it. They’re essentially Bazooka gum packs, but with licensed Marvel characters in MAD magazine-style situations.
6. Garbage Pail Kids Rack Packs/Jumbo GPK
If you want to give your giftee a shot of Garbage Pail Kids nostalgia but don’t want to go for the typical (and more expensive) wax pack, you have two still-very-good-if-not-better options. The first is a GPK rack pack — you get more cards, it’s relatively inexpensive, and looking at the rack pack again will take them very far back to a simpler time. Likely in a mall. Across from the Orange Julius.
The second is the “Jumbo GPK” pack — a sealed pack of three cards that are super-sized, featuring some of the most popular characters. Not to be confused with a “giant” pack of regular-sized cards. The advantage of the jumbo versions? You can pretty easily frame them and hang them up as opposed to just opening some packs and then setting the cards aside.
