Friday 14 April 2023

Top Trumps, original 1983 advertisement

Top Trumps, original 1983 advertisement

Here’s a little something for the weekend, courtesy of my friend Graham Rye (who is the publisher of 007 MAGAZINE publications www.007magazine.com). Graham recently spotted this original advert for the  Top Trumps card game that was popular throughout the 70’s and 80’s. This poster dates from 1983 and features illustration artwork by Frank Langford. Featured among the biggest plane, the fastest train, a host of prehistoric creatures and Dracula is an image of Clint as Josey Wales. 

Launched in 1976/77, Top Trumps was popular with adults and children in the United Kingdom, especially among boys, for whom it was a popular playground pastime. The topics tended to reflect this, and included military hardware, modes of transport and racing cars. The packs were also priced so that children could collect new packs by saving pocket money for a few weeks. The original Top Trumps was launched with eleven different packs selling at 50p each, published by a company named Dubreq. Dubreq was also known for the Stylophone. Dubreq was taken over by Waddingtons in 1982, and they continued manufacturing packs until the early 1990s. The packs from this period are now highly collectable. 

If you are wondering what Clint is doing on this poster, there were several packs released under the subject of Entertainment which featured Smash Hits Pop Stars and another on Movie Stars! 

A nice little find indeed. My thanks to Graham.  

Below: Clint's Top Trump card from a later 2019 set

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