Saturday, September 08, 2007

1989 Panini Football Stickers


Through my recent purchase of a 100 ct. box of this product, I was able to complete this set. Many of the boys in my 5th grade class owned the book into which these stickers were placed. One of the greatest collecting choices which I have made in my life was the decision to not jump further onto the bandwagon and begin a collection of Panini Hockey stickers that same year. Sure, there would have been great sticks featuring bearded Calgary Flames players, but not much else.

Now, my album is torn to shreds and is being held together by several strips of mailing tape. The Super Bowl insert poster is somewhere else in my basement, along with several more unopened packs.

Let's tear in.


71 Mark Lee - Packers (Mark is obviously congratulating an opponent on their well-earned victory, which is basically what happened following every Packer game played in the 1970s and 1980s.

K Super Bowl XV Foil Insert (Unfortunately not bearing any likeness of Dick Vermeil, although he hadn't yet begun his work as America's preeminent crier.)

257 Frank Minnifield - Browns

366 Erik McMillan - Jets

414 Super Bowl XXIII Highlight (John Taylor's TD catch with 34 seconds left: The decisive play in one of the greatest Super Bowl games of all time.)

189 Doug Williams (Super bowl XXII MVP; also used as ammunition by Ice Cube's character in the film Three Kings to dispute Spike Jonze's character's assertion that white quarterbacks are better than black quarterbacks.)

Pack Grade: B
I got a Packer, a decent foil sticker, a meaningful action shot, and a Super Bowl MVP. Not bad for an Italian company whose bread and butter is European football, not American football. And what's not to like about a design which incorporates the shape of the goalposts?

3 comments:

--David said...

I love the "VAULABLE" foil sticker reference on the pack... Valuable, meaning everyone should keep them, meaning everyone has them, meaning NOT valuable... Gotta love marketing... On the other hand, most of the kids I knew tossed these aside as flukes... Little did they know...

SJ said...

Being a year behind. I focused on the 1990 Baseball Panini stickers. They lost something the following year when they sold the basketball set with the whole set there on sheets. No fun pulling open packs looking for Kevin Duckworth, he was already there along with Jack Sikma and Spud Webb.

Joe Martelli Jr. said...

Nice, I love the obscure stuff, I got into collecting cards thru stickers, it was I think 1983 and Reggie Jackson was on the cover. I remember the packs were orange and 25 cents. I would buy 1 every day on the walk home from school. I finished 2 albums but would rather have 10 Gwynn, Sandberg or Boggs rookies from cards that year instead of buying those damn stickers!