Super Seventies (And Extra Eighties)

Last time out I posted a couple of Topps cello Super-Packs then belatedly realized Topps had sold them for a few more years than I initially thought.  After a little more digging, I've found what I hope is most of them.

Our saga begins in 1978, with a Football cello and cross-promotion:

The back had no added stiffening tray, it was au naturel:

As 1979 rolled around, a Baseball Super-Pack was created, with a penny dropped off the price:

The back shows a tray card we've seen on that 1980's Football Super Pack shown last time out:

1979 Football got the same treatment:

Same tray....

You can check last week;s thread for the 1980 Super-Packs but I was surprised to see the cross-selling continued into 1981, the year I re-entered the hobby.  I usually keep to a 1980 cutoff here and in my collecting but am rethinking that a bit noting, while I ponder, that I never saw these anywhere that year, that's for sure:

The gum went back to its sugary roots and the back went blank, perhaps fitting for the year of the big MLB strike.  I think Topps was still trying to fend off Bubble Yum at the time (an epic fail BTW) but there could be any number of reasons why this product was picked for '81. Note the 1980 code showing year of conception as the price went up by a dime, indicating the code was not for a 1980 wrapper rehash.

There could very well be variant wrappers and contents.  The commodity codes might shift around a little or even reused for a spell as well on some Super-Packs in the era.  The only decent insert came with the 1980 Baseball Super-Packs and it's not clear to me why say, a football scratch-off game wasn't included in the Football issue that year. Perhaps they were planning the widely issued 1981 Baseball Scratch-Off set and figured why not monetize things such a product if it took off.  Who knows?

I'm learning more about Topps packaging these days thanks to some Facebook groups, especially those from the Super Seventies!

Super Pack

I want to revisit a couple of items today, the first is Fun Packs, those little (usually) 1 or 2 card packs Topps worked up every Hallowe'en and Christmas for a couple of decades.  I've shown various wrappers from these before but they all seem to be from 1965 or later. A recent eBay sighting makes we wonder if a primordial version has finally surfaced:

There's no product code, so it's pre-1966 and it sure looks like the graphics could be 1963-64-ish.

Secondly, I posted about a fairly unknown Topps Scratch Off game from 1980 and at the time (May 12, 2009) noted Bob Lemke thought it came from Jumbo Packs:

He was pretty close as they came in Super-Packs:

I guess this is technically a test issue.  Here's our quarry, on the back, 931 matching code with the card, and all:

Dig the commodity code at the bottom:

Now I say this was probably a test because later in 1980, Topps released a Football version with two key differences. Topps went with the theme and used Super Bazooka for the gum:

But there would be no scratch off for gridiron fans, just a crummy tray card with an ad!

(UPDATE 7/13/20: Turns out there were Football Super Packs in 1978 and 1979 as well.  1978 had no backing of any type, 1979 had a similar ad card. 49 and 59 cent versions exist for 1979, the former was a carryover from the year prior. A 1979 Baseball Super Pack with the ad card backer is out there too.)

What a rip!