Topps Europe Launches Garbage Gang Slime Buckets

Much like the recent Sgorbions Slime release in Italy, Topps Europe has launched The Garbage Gang Slime Buckets. Thanks to UK collector Stephen Emery for finding this picture first. There aren’t a lot of details yet on the product. The slim buckets look to be the same, old Minikins inserted into Slime. There is no mention on the box of an activity book like Sgorbions had.  Topps Europe had confirmed with GPKNews a few weeks back that the Slime product would be launching in the UK, at the time they didn’t have a release date. Those of you in the UK keep your eyes peeled for this latest product.

Topps Europe Releases The Garbage Gang Trading Card Game

Happy release day UK! Garbage Pail Kids collectors outside the US haven’t been able to collect a home grown release of GPKs in a few years. That has all come to an end thanks to Topps Europe. Today Topps Europe releases The Garbage Gang Trading Card Game set. The set was also released just a few weeks ago in Italy under the Sgorbions brand. Both the UK Garbage Gang and Italian Sgorbions releases appear to be the same except for the languages on the cards. The set is based on the 2008 Italian Kakkones release. The set contains 96 base cards, all using ANS art. With the exception of four cards, see info below, all cards were reprinted from the series 1 set including the 10 Lenticular cards. Garbage Gang is available in 24 pack boxes, and Starter Packs, which include a binder and 5 cards. Both regular packs and starter packs are available now on Topps Direct for purchase, (yes they do ship to the US). Topps Europe also said they will be available across the UK at Sainsbury’s, WHS, McColls, Martins, One Stop and independent newsagents. Topps Europe was nice enough to provide GPKNews with box and starter pack to review.

The Starter Packs are huge, measuring almost a foot long. They come wrapped in a see through cellophane wrapper. Inside each Started Pack is a cardboard backer, empty binder, front binder cover, back binder cover, and a see through sealed pack of 5 cards of which one is a lenticular card.

The cardboard backer serves as advertising for the package, and to help keep the contents safe.

The front binder cover features the artwork for Explorin Norman as well as some cards along the bottom. The back side of the cover give instructions for purchasing single cards directly from Topps Europe to help finish your set. Both regular base cards and lenticular cards can be purchased until Jan. 4, 2019. The offer is only available to collectors in the UK. The Sgorbions set has a similar offer available to collectors in Italy.

The back cover features the only checklist included for the set. Pictures of all cards in the set are listed. Picture quality is small and low, and unfortunately the cards names cannot be read. The inside back cover features basic instructions for playing the card game. There are also some advertisements for upcoming Topps Festival dates in the UK and a service called Popjam.

The binder itself included 24 four pocket pages. Thats enough to hold the complete 96 card set.

The included card pack comes with 4 base cards and one lenticular card.

24 pack boxes are also available to collectors.The sides of the box all feature various cards in the set.

Each pack comes with five cards. The odds on the packs state that lenticular cards fall at the rate of 1:6 packs. Our box contained 12 Leaky Lindsay packs, 6 Corroded Carl packs, and 6 Explorin Norman packs.

The cards are actual cards, not stickers as many collectors are used to. The cards are sturdy, using a similar card stock as the artist autographs in the recent retail US sets. The card backs feature “Garbage Values” and “Garbage Type” used in playing the card game.

In both the Garbage Gang and Sgorbions sets four of the original cards were replaced by four cards from the Italian Series 2 Kakkones set. Replaced were cards based off of Spiderman, Harry Potter, Teletubbies, and the Walter Water card. While the first three most likely were removed because they are established brands, not sure why Walter was removed. Here are two of the series 2 cards that were used.

In our box break we only received 48/96 cards in the base set. Collation of the cards in the box was awful. The box contained 115 total base cards, of which 67 were duplicates. We didn’t receive anything before card #25, with other large runs missing. Each car we did receive had between 2-4 versions. While this is a small sample size, if all boxes are this way collectors will have to do a lot of trading to complete their set.

We did beat the odds on the lenticular cards by pulled a total of five.

All in all this is a solid release from Topps Europe. Some collectors will wish for stickers and OS artwork. However, the packs are priced right and the card stock is sturdy. Both the regular packs and the Starter pack offer a lot of value. The poor collation of the box is really the only downside to the set. Collectors who wish to collect a simple set like they did 10-30 years ago will enjoy this set. As will our friends overseas, who for the first time in 10 years, can go out and hunt these packs down. Thanks again to Topps Europe for providing GPKNews with the preview packs for review!

Sgorbions Release Confirmed/UK The Garbage Gang Release Delayed One Week

Topps Europe has pushed back the release of The Garbage Gang to Oct. 4, 2018. Originally, the first foreign GPK release in years, was set to come out on 9/27. No reason was given for the delay. The set is an English version of the Kakkones release from Italy in 2008. More info on the set can be found in the announcement of the release.

Topps Europe also confirmed with GPKNews that this same exact release has actually already launched in Italy. Sold under the Sgorbions brand, collectors in Italy can find the same packs and starter packs, just in Italian. The naming is interesting considering this set was previously sold in Italy as “Kakkones”. The Sgorbions release came out Sept. 10, and is also distributed by Topps Europe through their Italian office. Topps Europe also confirmed that Italy and the UK are the only countries seeing a new release. Thanks to GPK collector Henry Mora for finding the pictures through a retailer in Italy.

Here are a few sample pictures of the Garbage Gang cards courtesy of Topps Europe.

Topps Europe Officially Announces The Garbage Gang

Details around a new UK Garbage Pail Kids release started to come out earlier this week from Topps Europe. After sharing images of the pack wrappers all this week, the sell sheet is now out. Today Topps Europe officially announced The Garbage Gang. The packs and boxes also include the tagline, “The Most Disgusting Trading Card Game”. As many eagle eyed collectors already deducted, the set appears to be a reprint of the Kakkones release in Italy from 2008.

Just like the Kakkones release, the set contains 96 base cards. The base cards all have a green border. The cards pictured on the sell sheet appear to match up with cards from the original Italian set. The artwork features mostly cards from ANS 1 & 2. There are no a/b versions of each card. Rather just one name is used. Also, unlike most GPK sets, these are not stickers, but rather game cards. The backs of the cards have stats and other information used to play a battle type of game. There will also be 10 Lenticular cards randomly inserted into packs. Those will have a blue border. That’s it, no parallels, no sketches, just an old school ANS type of configuration.

There will be two different configurations available. Each pack will contains 5 cards, with the possibility of pulling a Lenticular card. A retail box contains 24 packs, while a case contains 12 boxes. Each pack carries a retail price of £1.00 (British Pound) or €1.60 (Euros), (roughly $1.30 in US dollars). There will also be a blister pack, called a “Starter Pack”, that contains 1 pack of cards and a mini collector binder. The packaging also suggests there will be a special lenticular card included. Each Starter Pack comes with a retail price of £3.00 (British Pounds) or €4.80 (Euros), (roughly $3.90 in US dollars).

Topps Europe will work with GPKNews as the release gets closer to offer a contest, so stayed tuned! A copy of the sell sheet as a PDF is available here, or you can check out the picture below. The Garbage Gang will be available across the UK on Sept. 27, 2018.

 

 

Topps Europe Confirms Upcoming Garbage Gang Release

Update 8/1/18: Topps Europe shared an additional pack image with GPKNews. However no other info about the set is available. Stay tuned to GPKNews for additional details when they become available.

The last time the UK saw a release of Garbage Pail Kids was 2004. It appears that’s about to change. As first reported by GPK collector Rodiguns Fell, Topps Europe has confirmed with GPKNews that they are planning an upcoming release of The Garbage Gang. Details of the upcoming set are scarce at the moment. Topps Europe supplied us with a mockup for one of the pack wrappers. The wrapper features the ANS artwork of Explorin Norman, which was featured on both the US ANS 1 packs and the 2004 UK GPK release. The top of the pack has a blue “The Garbage Gang” banner, along with advertising the pack contains 5 cards. What is really interesting is the tag at the bottom of the pack which says, “The Disgusting Card Game”. This of course leads to a ton of questions, none of which there are answers for yet.

Rodi spoke to a Topps representative this past weekend at the London Film & Comic Con. The Topps rep shared with Rodi that the set would be released this October. They said the cards would be a reissue of the 1991/92 Garbage Gang UK release. He also mentioned the cards would have a yellow border.

Right now those are the only details available on the set. Topps Europe is a subsidiary of Topps in the US. The company was originality Merlin, until it was acquired by Topps in the mid 1990’s. The company is the distributing arm for Topps products in Europe. On their website they sell mainly soccer, Star Wars, WWE, and kids sticker sets. Both the 2018S1 and 2017S2 GPK sets were offered in small quantities to collectors in Europe directly from them, the first time GPK cards were available directly in Europe in over a decade.

GPKNews will keep collectors up to date, once additional details on the set are available.