Collector’s Blog on Foreign Sticker Variations

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Super Powers was distributed and enjoyed across the globe.  Sometimes having their own cardbacks for different countries and sometimes not.  In the US and Canada, different facilities were set up to honor mail-away offers for different promotional items (fan club, poster, etc) but most countries didn’t have these facilities in place and the US did not fulfill these mail-in offers globally.  This was not a problem for the countries that had their figures distributed with different cardbacks, as the offers were simply omitted from them when they were printed.  But some of the time the countries did not get their own cardbacks (or didn’t get them at first) and they were sent US or Canadian versions of the toys and they had to figure out a way to either handle the mail-away offers themselves (UK), or to just void out the offer completely (Australia/New Zealand).

Quick fix:  Stickers!  In this article I’m going to talk about the obscure variation of offer-modifying stickers found in the UK, Australia/New Zealand, and Mexico.  If it weren’t for these stickers, we would have never known where these were sold.  Because of this small variation, collectors have yet another little easter egg to hunt for.

UK Palitoy Stickers

In the UK, before they were given their own distribution of toys on Trilingual cardbacks, a very small number of US figures were imported to be sold to test the market to see how well the toys would do there.  Instead of honoring all offers available in the US (Poster, Figure, Fan Club, Cape), Palitoy had a facility to honor just the Free Poster Offer, and affixed a sticker on the back of the card to give the updated UK address for fulfillment.  On cardbacks that were US versions of the Free Poster Offer and Fan Club Offer, all they did was add the sticker to the back.  On cardbacks that were US versions of the Superman Cape Offer or Steppenwolf Figure Offer, they often added large blank stickers to cover up the verbiage of the offer that was available to the US.

Here are the first series Palitoy Stickers I’ve been able to track down.

aquaman_us_12fco_palitoy_back batman_us_po_palitoy_back flash_us_po_palitoy_back
greenlantern_us_12fco_palitoy_back joker_us_12fco_palitoy_sticker_back lex_us_fo_palitoy_back
penguin_us_fo_palitoy_back robin_us_12fco_palitoy_back superman_us_po_palitoy_back

 

Since they only made Trilingual cardbacks for series 1 figures, when series 2 figures came out they simply used the US versions again.  By this time, the poster offer was already expired, so they did not need to add Poster Offer information on a sticker, instead they just added the distribution info on a sticker.  Note:  Brainiac and Wonder Woman are series 1 figures, but they’re shown below since they are on a series 2 (23-back) cardback.

brainiac_us_sco_palitoy_back firestorm_us_23fco_palitoy_back mantis_us_23fco_free_palitoy_sticker_back
martian_us_23fco_see_palitoy_back parademon_us_23fco_free_palitoy_back wonderwoman_us_23fco_see_back

 

Vehicles featuring the Palitoy Sticker often have the “Palitoy Company” sticker on them, but the ones that don’t can be identified by the UPC sticker placed over the original UPC, and it starts with “3 010002”.  In the case of the Batmobile, the instruction sheet itself is trilingual, different than the English-Only instructions that come with the US version.

supermobile_palitoy_sticker lexsoar7_palitoysticker batmobile_palitoy_sticker

 

Australia/New Zealand Stickers

Unlike the UK, instead of giving consumers a means to fulfill the promotional offers, Australia and New Zealand exports simply had stickers placed over the offers to void them out completely.  While the UK had US released figures, Australia got Canadian released figures.  You’ll see below the ones I’ve been able to track down so far, the two remaining that I’ve seen that I don’t have are Green Arrow and Darkseid.

aquaman_canada_fo_back batman_canada_fo_australia_back desaad_canada_australia_back
drfate_canada_australia_back firestorm_canada_australia_back flash_canada_fo_australia_back
hawkman_canada_po_australia_back kalibak_canada_australia_back lex_canada_fo_australia_back
penguin_canada_po_australia_back redtornado_canada_australia_back robin_canada_po_australia_back
superman_canada_po_australia_back  wonderwoman_canada_po_australia_back

 

 

Mexico “Club De Kenner” Stickers

Due to Mexico toy laws in the 70s and 80s, seeing imported toys in Mexico was extremely rare (almost unheard of) and wasn’t seen until the late 80’s after the Super Powers line was cancelled.  The next variation of toys were US and Canada released (made in Hong Kong) and imported to Mexico, as exclusives to the Mexico Kenner Club (or “Club De Kenner”).  These sticker variations are among some of the hardest to find Super Powers variations, as well as one of the lesser known.  They sent both 3rd series large cards, and Shell promo Canadian Small cards.  These stickers were not used to redirect or void out any promotional offers, because the 3rd series cards and Canadian Small cards had no offers printed on them to begin with.  I won’t call them “quality control rejects” but you’ll notice on several of the short cards, a few were mispackaged on Superman cardbacks.

Firestorm
Canada Short Card
Error: Superman miscard		 firestorm_canada_small_clubdekenner firestorm_canada_cdk_sticker_back
Green Lantern
Canada Short Card
Error: Superman miscard		 greenlantern_canada_smallclubdekennersupermanmiscard greenlantern_canada_cdk_sticker_back
Mister Miracle
US Third Series		 mrmiracle_us_clubdekenner mrmiracle_us_clubdekenner_back
Orion
Canada Card
Error: Superman miscard		 orion_canada_clubdekenner orion_canada_clubdekenner_back
Shazam
Canada Card		 shazam_canada_clubdekenner shazam_canada_clubdekenner_back
Robin
Canada Short Card		 robin_canada_smallclubdekenner robin_canada_cdk_sticker_back
Steppenwolf
US Third Series		 steppenwolf_us_clubdekenner steppenwolf_us_clubdekenner_back
Superman
Canada Short Card		 superman_canada_smallclubdekenner superman_cdk_back

Details of the back sticker:

cdk_back_text

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