SO DO YOU STILL WISH YOU WERE A SPACEMAN? WELL, NOW YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER CHANCE...

Are you a fan of FIREBALL XL5?  Have you got all the merchandise?  Nah, me neither!  There must've been loads back in the '60s, and I was probably only aware of some of it.  I recently noticed on ebay that Fireball cards produced by a company called COMO CONFECTIONERY (and probably given away with sweet cigarettes) are selling for about £20 each, which means that as there were 52 cards, it'd cost over a grand for a full set.  I've even read that full sets can go for double that.

However, thanks to an enterprising seller (batrobin6) who has reprinted the cards (professionally too, by the looks of them) a full set of cards can be had for a mere £9.95.  Well, I'm always up for a bargain so I ordered a set and they arrived yester-day, and very well-pleased with them I am too.  A nice little slice of the '60s that I missed at the time, but are now part of my XL5 collection.  I've used the seller's photos to show you what the cards look like.  The pic below is of an original card and its duplicate side-by-side.  As you can see, the red is slightly lighter on the reprint, but this colour variation doubtless exists between original cards as well.

Incidentally, the reprints (which are discreetly marked on the back as such) are limited to only 500 sets, so if you'd like them, better get your skates on and glide straight over to ebay.

Posted in: Cartoons