Considering base sets are lacklustre and meh these days and no one seems to care about anything other than autos, not to mention endless rehashes of properties like Star Wars and Star Trek and Bond, maybe returning the "puzzle back" for the entire base set would make collecting marginally interesting again. At least you'd have a 100-140 card puzzle to complete after you open your box and realize you've been screwed with a bad sketchcard of a monkey and an auto from the chiropodist of the guy who played one of Ming's guards in Flash Gordon (1980).

Just a thought.

I'm a big fan of the sets that have backs that make up 9 card puzzle pictures.

ie: Night of the Living Dead or Hammer Horror where the backs were the film posters.

To make opening packs more interesting, maybe they can bring back the contest like TOS had where you needed to collect letter cards to complete a puzzle to win a prize. Having multiple layers of prizes (i.e. a sigle auto or sketch for completing a short phrase, and a set of autos for completing a longer phrase) would give all level of collectors something to look for.

I agree that modern sets have lost sight of what the base set is about. I have a number of puzzleback sets in my collection (Mostly 1960's British Issues). Not only do I get more pleasure collaiting a set (replacing cards I lost when I was a kid), but it possable to actually have a full set!

I could see the puzzle back cards as a 9 or 12 card insert set, not as an entire base set. I like to read the card backs and hate it when the text is lazy or just badly written. I would imagine a card company would love to make a set where they wouldn't have to employ anyone to write anything.

You mean like Topps Raven? They already do that now!

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I could see the puzzle back cards as a 9 or 12 card insert set, not as an entire base set. I like to read the card backs and hate it when the text is lazy or just badly written. I would imagine a card company would love to make a set where they wouldn't have to employ anyone to write anything.

Who says you have to leave off the text? Picture Puzzle Gum from 1937 had both:

quote:

Originally posted by aeolus14ummbra:
You mean like Topps Raven? They already do that now!

Hey I believe you, but since I don't bother with anything Star Wars, Walking Dead or GPK, what do I know about TOPPS. Come to think of it, I really haven't pick up much TOPPS at all in recent years as compared to other makers.

As far as Picture Puzzle Gum of 1937 goes, all I can say is that it's nice to see that something was before my time.

My absolute favourite puzzle back has to be the A&BC Land of the Giants picture. It featured the same image as the Aurora model kit of a giant snake coming over the Spindrift.

The puzzle backs on the A & BC Batman cards issued in the 1960's were my favourites. There were A and B series as well as Bat Laffs. I believe they were also issued by Topps in the USA in a larger size.

regards

John

quote:

Originally posted by Graham:
My absolute favourite puzzle back has to be the A&BC Land of the Giants picture. It featured the same image as the Aurora model kit of a giant snake coming over the Spindrift.

Err. Are you sure?

The puzzle idea is quiet a good one but I dont think that it will take off as to have a whole set as a puzzle will defeat the purpose of a set of cards by not having the front displayed but it also could generate more sales as you would have to buy two sets of cards or two boxes to get a total display thus making the sets more expensive. About 2000 Ikon put nine card puzzles in their Buffy sets although not inserts these were a part of the base set and I think a very good idea you had to buy a whole set to get the puzzles and they being nine card fitted the binder pages as a very nice picture puzzle also about 1995 Krome put three card puzzles in their Lady Death series these were very nice and i think that there were about four three card puzzles in the set and today you can sometimes get them but it is easier to buy a set to get them this idea would be better than just cards as a good set made up of say Eight nine card puzzles would be receptive to collectors look nice and you would not have to buy sometimes two or three boxes to get an inserted puzzle also the set could be broken down into three card and nine card puzzles I think that a set like this would fly as the seperate puzzles as long as they fitted nine card pages would fly and make them as individual puzzles very tradeable amongst collectors and non collectors who only wanted a representation of certain types of cards

I did enjoy the novelty of the puzzle backs but honestly like it more when it was part of the low level chase cards. Finally getting the 9th card and seeing the whole (often foil) picture complete.

In terms of base sets I think it's a nice finish but I consider it laziness on the manufacturer's part. I honestly like reading the card backs for factoids, trivia and information.

When it's an ENTIRE set of puzzle backs I feel a little let down. Even alternating between puzzle backs and text for different subsets in a base is okay. But not the whole base set.