Wax Pack Revolution #5

A recent obsession of mine has been collecting old wax & foil packs of trading cards from the 80s & 90s. Sure, I have a ton of these non-sport cards from when I was a kid, but the artwork and design of the packaging is something I missed. When you would buy one of these packs you would tear it open and throw away the wrapper. Never giving it a second thought. Seeing these again brings back memories of feeling the slick paper in your hands, seeing the simple artwork and the smell of bubble gum. Let's dive into a few of these packs that I have on display...AGAIN!

 Batman Forever Movie Photo Stickers (Topps, 1995)

Despite the appearance of the now infamous "Bat-Nipples", I always had a liking for the movie Batman Forever. I think Val Kilmer did a decent job as the Dark Knight and the addition of Robin was pretty cool. Jim Carrey was at his peak as a comedic actor, but the casting of Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face always bothered me. After seeing Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman movie, I wanted to see his take on the evil villain. Unfortunately Billy Dee was passed over in favor of Jones. Anyway, these sticker books were pretty commonplace back in the day for any hit movie, but these stickers were not the small Panini versions, these were full card sized stickers! Only something this big could hold in all of the action from the film that was Batman Forever.

Street Fighter: The Movie (Upper Deck, 1995)

Once again this is a movie that was hated by almost everyone who saw it, but I liked it. This movie brought my favorite video game characters to the big screen and the soundtrack was pretty bangin' too! What other album would have a duet between MC Hammer and Deion Sanders? This set produced by Upper Deck consisted of 90 base cards and had some randomly inserted F/X & LE cards. I have never seen these, but I know just like Raul Julia's award worthy performance as Bison, they were probably magnificent.

Star Wars: Journey To The Force Awakens (Topps, 2015)

I absolutely love this set of cards from Topps! I bought a couple boxes of these cards so me and my kids could open the packs in the hopes of completing a full set. I believe we opened 3 boxes and didn't get a full set of 110 cards, but we had a lot of fun while trying. This set from Topps also had some cool subsets & bonus cards including cloth stickers, silhouette foils & patch cards. Collecting this set was a cool way to teach my kids about the movies that led up to The Force Awakens.

X-Files Season Two (Topps, 1996)

My Dad was a huge X-Files fan and in turn I saw almost every episode of the show. I enjoyed it, but the later seasons when Mulder disappeared were not very good and my interest waned. These trading cards from Topps feature stills from some of the classic early episodes along with art cards from the Topps produced comic books. This set had a total of 72 cards and featured some pretty inserts with their Etched Foil & Hologram chase cards.