Tuesday, May 15, 2012

STAR WARS Series 5 (1977) Trading Card Puzzle Finally Assembled!


I was recently organizing some trading cards and I realized that in 30 years I never assembled the puzzle featured on the card backs of Star Wars series 5. This major oversight was most likely because for many years I was missing some of the cards from the set and I hate making puzzles that are missing pieces. Series 5, the ‘orange’ set was difficult to acquire back in the day. By time this series was released it was clear that Topps had used every possible cool imagine they could find in the previous 4 sets. In fact, I thought they hit a new low in series 4 with this card,



Yet Topps was somehow able to procure 66 new images for the orange set. I don’t recall these being out for very long and at the time I think I had stopped collecting Star Wars cards. Years later I only found a scant amount in my vast trading card collection.



However the 21st century arrived and with that we got nifty things like The Toy Vault and Ebay, which enabled me to easily complete the [sad] orange set. Here are a few examples of how truly pathetic this set really is,




Want to see the entire set? Of course you do! Go here

I would be embarrassed to tell you how much time it took me to assemble this (arguably) difficult puzzle but I believe I watched an entire episode of Happy Days before it was finally completed (Fonzie thought he lost his 'cool').

3 comments:

Octopunk said...

Was it really that episode? It comes up in a flashback in the Simpsons, when Homer is reading TV Guide to baby Lisa.

"Homer: I did! I did read to her! :flashback: 8:00, Happy Days. The Fonz, Henry Winkler, is worried he's losing his cool. "

That's so funny that you picked out "A Pair of Jawas." I had that same card on my collage-style bulletin board for years.

I stopped collecting SW cards after the yellow (third) set, but I might have picked up the whole green set pretty cheaply years later. The orange set is pretty sad, although there are some decent Cantina shots.

Congrats on the puzzle! Love those Duros guys.

JPX said...

That's true, there are some good cantina shots. Even on the label is says "New Cantina scenes!", which I hadn't noticed before.

Yes it's a real episode! I recently acquired all 244 episodes of Happy Days and I have been watching them in reverse order since I probably only watched the first few seasons as a kid (there are 11 in all). In the episode I was watching everything was going wrong with Fonzie and he thought he lost his 'cool'. The later episodes are so outrageously bad.

I also remember that moment from The Simpsons - hilarious.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I need closure: did Fonzie ever get his cool back?

Awesome post btw, the orange series looks like the one to get.