Wacky Package All-New Series 10 Autographs

In March I wrote up a post about the Wacky package All-New Series 10 release, one of the new additions that peeked my interest were the Commercial Star Autographs. These inserts had an original Wacky Package image on one side with the autograph of the actor who were in the commercials for the items. Some of the cards were Lifer Cereal autographed by John Gilchrist, who played Mikey in the Life Cereal commercials, and Coca Cobra autographed by Matt Frewer, who played Max headroom in the Coke commercials (and Max Headroom Show).

 

The cards have been out for a while now and prices have seemed to increase since the release, surprisingly, but I picked up a couple of Wacky Package cards and one of them was this All Turtle Snapper card signed by Wendy Kaufman, who played the Snapple Lady who answered viewer’s letters in the Snapple commercials. I paid a whole $1.78 for the card plus $1.95 shipping. The front of the card is the bottle on a flat black background and the back of the card (I am not really sure which is the front and which is the back) is a glossy image of Wendy Kaufman with the sticker autograph. I think these are a fun idea; they really grab the attention of people who grew up in the 1970s and 80s.

Wacky Package All-New Series 10 Gets The Star Treatment

When I was a kid my friends and I loved ripping packs of Wacky Packages and trading each other for the cards we wanted, back in the 70s and 80s when “trading cards” really were traded by groups of kids in the school yard. Fast forward nearly 30 years and Wacky Packages are still going strong and now my kids are the ones ripping packs (including the eraser packs) and trading with their friends.

In two weeks the next round will be released by Topps, 2013 Wacky Packages All-New Series 10. In the past 10 years the releases have made significant changes, mirroring the sports card releases. Now we have parallels, short prints, foil cards and even artists autographs, printing plates and sketch cards. This year Topps is once again shaking things up by releasing two different boxes, the standard box ($55/box with 24 10-card packs which includes 1 hit) and the new Collector Pack box ($85/box with 14 6-card packs which includes 1 hit, but also 32 parallel cards not available in the regular box).

 

Also new for the series are Commercial Star Autographs. These cards are signed by the actual actors who shilled for the real items that the wacky package cards are based. While the artist Wacky Packages autographs do well in the aftermarket the actor autographs will probably draw a larger base because we all remember Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials and Max Headroom in the Coke commercials.

 

So far only a couple of names from the checklist have been announced; John Gilchrist, who played Mikey in the Life Cereal commercials, Wendy Kaufman, the Snapple lady, Matt Frewer, who played the computerized Max Headroom in the Coke commercials and John Moschitta Jr., the dude who spoke a mile a minute in the Micro Machines commercials.

 

Topps has not released any images of the autographed cards so I do not know if they will be creating new designs for the autographs or if they will be using the design from cards that were already released.