gday card talkers, just wondering, i recieved an amazing collection of promo cards yesterday(over 120) from a bloke in canada, and they included 11 "Happy Holiday" cards from card companies including Pacific, ProLine Classic,
Topps, Collectors Edge 95, Playoff etc and all cards include a pic of santa claus in some way playing hockey, football, or just a note from the company ceo wishing every1 a happy holiday, ok, are these promos, special holiday cards or can someone shed a bit of light on these, thanks
adrian

I would consider them Promos, my opinion. I keep cards like these in a binder labeled Card Company Promos. Half the binder probably contains cards released by NFL (National Football League) license holders from the 90's. Unrelated to the NFL, Parkhurst, Press Pass, Pro Line Portraits, ProSet, Upper Deck & others have released cards depicting Santa.

Regarding your Football Promos. Sets of varying number were released from 1993 - 1997

1993 - 13
1994 - 11
1995 - 9
1996 - 9
1997 - 8

Note how the number drops as fewer companies are granted licenses.

gday bill
thanks for the info, yeh that makes sense, the info about the card companies
just out of interest, i do have 2 canadian ice hockey cards from 1990 both featuring identical santa pics and a snowman with ice hockey stick on 1 and the other says happy holidays from david branch OHL commisioner
thanks again, just thought it was interesting
cheers mate
adrian cook

I remember getting those when the mail-in offer was valid. You had to send in a certain number of empty wrappers from the participating brands and possibly a bit for postage. They are great cards usually done in the style of each brand's regular cards from the particular season when they were released.

The card makers also got together for at least one "Back to School" set which had mail-in requirements similar to the Santa sets, but was released in late August/September and without the Santa Claus theme, natuarlly. Usually depicted on these cards were the "spokesmen" athletes for each individual company.

I consider the Santa cards to be Non-Sports cards even though they were redeemed with sports cards wrappers, while the "Back to School" set is definitely a sports set. Since they are mail-in sets, they might be considered "premiums" as opposed to promos, but really either designation is accurate, I think.

One thing for certain is that the Santa premium/promo card sets were certainly building on a couple of very popular Santa Claus insert cards in the innovative 1990 and 1991 ProSet NFL Football sets.

More recently, you might have seen the boxed set of Santa Cards (with Autograph and a Memorabilia card of Santa's Suit) released by the Topps Company. These used the designs of famous Topps cards through the years (baseball, mostly) and were very well made. The set is inexpensive and would make a nice companion to the Santa Promo cards from 1993-1997, as well as the original ProSet Santa insert cards from the start of that decade.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Here's a look at the 1993 and 1994 sets, the only ones I have.

The 1993 Set:



The 1994 Set:


Hey, Bill D., did you happen to get the sets from 1995-1997? If so, I'd love to see them if you could post pix here. I didn't hear about those at the time, or I'd have definitely sent in for them.

Chesspieceface

Many thanks for posting pictures of the 1993 and 1994 cards. Until I checked my collection against those pictured I had not realised I have all from those years. Looking at my others I have a Pro Set 1989 card, 2 Pro Set cards from 1990, a ten card set from Upper Deck issued in 1992 (cartoon type drawings), 8 from 1995 and 3 from 1997.

John

Hi John
I have the ProSet Santas (one is a Mrs. Claus if my memory is correct) and the 1992 Upper Deck holiday set, too, but I'd love to see the cards from 1995 and 1997, so if you have means of showing them, please do. Thanks!

Chesspieceface

As requested here are the cards.

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Thanks for the pix, John! I see a lot more athletes on those than the earlier cards had. Drew Bledsoe, Brett Favre, Troy Aikman, Reggie White, Dan Marino, Emmitt Smith, and even Kerry Collins, who like Favre is still going strong 15 years later Those are some nice ones, all right, and probably not too common nowadays.

So according to Bill DeFranzo,
I guess you are missing 1 card from the 1995 set which had nine total and 5 cards from the 1997 which which had eight total. Perhaps in those years the cards weren't issued as full sets as with the sets from 1993-94? That would explain how you'd be missing a few, if maybe each manufacturer was responsible for distributing their own card from the set.

Indeed, in that 1994 "Back To School" mail-in set I mentioned, ProSet is on the checklist, but had gone out of business by the time the set was actually sent out, so their card was not included and may not have actually been manufactured. Too bad as it was supposed to be a Brett Favre according to the checklist.

Back to the Santa Claus cards, I was going through my Pro Set cards and I do indeed have the single Santas that were found in the 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 card packs. I didn't get the 1989 one, but apparently, those were sent to dealers and not issued in packs, so that's probably why.

As for the Mrs. Claus card I mentioned, I now think that was not from ProSet, but rather from "Proline Portraits" which released a few sets, also in the early 1990's. I'm going to check and see what I might have there, and post pix along with the ProSet Santas from 1990-1993. ProSet was really on its last legs in 1993, so that particular Santa card may be less plentiful than the others, and maybe someone out there would like to see it.

Pretty amazing though that there were Santa themed Football cards every single year from 1989 through 1997 and from so many different companies.

Just got another 1993 card pro set

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and another 1997 Fleer Ultra

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a big thanks to john, chess, and bill for the amazing photos and update on these cards, i now know where they came from and can match them up to mine, and sort them into an appropriate folder, much appreciated, adrian

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
Hey, Bill D., did you happen to get the sets from 1995-1997? If so, I'd love to see them if you could post pix here. I didn't hear about those at the time, or I'd have definitely sent in for them.

Do you still need scans? My scanner is disconnected at the moment but it will be back on line soon.

This NFL promotion ended with the 1997 set. All were polypacked.

I don't know much about the concurrent "Back to School" series but these exist:

1994 - ?
1995 - ?
1996 - 9

I could guess at the number of cards in 1994 & 1995 but I never opened or fooled around with the polypacks to verify.