Affordable Beatles Collecting – Trading Cards

I don't know about you, but I still love the Beatles and their music. Their lyrics and melodies are still good today even after all these years. I have always avoided trying to obtain some of their early memorabilia as I thought it would always be expensive, but I stumbled on to something quite fun and relatively cheap, Bubble Gum Trading Cards.  Just like baseball cards, these were sold in bubble gum packs with various beatles pictures on the front. Below are some example of the cards.

 

 

 

 

 

What is surprising is that this is very affordable in the most part. Why?  because there were millions of crazy teenage girls out there buying these cards, so there are a lot out there. They were produced by Topps and printed in the USA  (just like the baseball cards) in 1964 at the height of the British Invasion.  Most can be had for a few dollars.  They have great candid photos of the Fab Four.

Most cards are not centered well and may have some yellow and foxing on the back as these were stuck in young girls scrapbooks of the time. This is quite normal, but allows for a fairly inexpensive collection. Of course, if you just want to get top of the line or graded cards, that is another matter.

There are several different series that were printed. If you want to see more examples, click on the links below for items we have on sale.  Now don't go wild if you find the early series with autographs, they are printed facsimiles unfortunately, but are still pretty cool.

1st Series  – Black and White and numbered on the back 1-60, with various autographs on the front.

2nd Series – Black and White and numbered on the back 61 to 115, with various autographs on the front.

3rd Series – Black and White and numbered on the back 116 to 165, with various autographs on the front.

Color Series – Color, numbered 1-64, and have fun information about them on the back.

Diary Series – Color, Numbered 1-60, with diary entries of what each Beatle did on a day.

Hard Day's Night – Black and White and numbered 1 to 60 featuring pictures from the movie.

Plak cards – Perforated set numbered 1 to 55 designed to go together and make a poster.

A quick note on the Plak cards. These are extremely rare  and much harder to find and more costly to collect.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and will think about this collecting area.  Would love to get your comments on this article.