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!