Episode 109 Cartoon Rookie Cards - Flintstones, Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes

Welcome back to Sports Cards and a Cup of Joe. This is your host, Joe Davis and it is great to be back with you and we are going to have a great time in this episode. And I cannot wait to dig into this topic because today we're going to be talking about non sports cards and what I like to call rookie cards of some non sports characters. And today we're going to focus on some cartoon characters. I've been promising this episode and now that I've started working on the information for it, this is going to turn into a multi part episode. I don't know how many, I guess I'll see how many of you like it, how many of you want to hear more. But first I want to give you a little bit of background. Recently, the 1977 Star wars card number one, Luke Skywalker sold for $687,500. And when I saw that as for a PSA 10, of course. And when I saw that, I'm like, okay, I have got to get this episode out there. Because though I'm going to be talking about cartoon characters today, you know, they're one in the same in the sense that Star wars is an intellectual property. Some of the characters I'm going to talk about today, they are intellectual properties is the proper terminology for them. We're going to talk about Looney Tunes, we're going to talk about Flintstones, we're going to talk about Scooby Doo. These are major cartoon franchises and they are brands that have been around for decades. All of the ones we're going to talk about today, their first trading cards were released from the early 60s up till 1970. And so these characters have longevity. They have decades of fans who love them. And one of the things I do, I'm going to give you a little insider knowledge today. When I'm researching something like non sports cards. When I'm researching a brand and I'm thinking about could these cards sell? Because most of these are not in the mainstream. You don't go to your local card show and see 20 showcases of looney Tunes cards. It just doesn't happen. Even at the national. This kind of inventory is very sparse and difficult to find. We do incredibly well with this type of inventory at the national because there's so little competition. But the thing is, I do research on these brands now. I love the brands, I love the characters, I grew up with them. But that doesn't mean they're still in demand just because they came, you know, they were around in my childhood. So What I do is I will research and here's something you can do. If you've got an old cartoon favorite you love or some other fictional character, you can look up and see, okay, that brand, that merchandise, that intellectual property, how much merchandise is actually sold from that brand. That's been around a long time. So I actually have researched a number of these. And for instance, of course, when you look at brands and you look at global merchandise sales and you talk about franchises, of course Disney is far and away the ringleader. Global sales of Disney merchandise dwarf all the other similar intellectual properties. Pokemon is getting way up there, but is still minuscule percentage of what Disney related merchandise does. However, Pokemon is really moving up the chart. But what I like to focus on is older brands, older characters, because the cards have been around for a long time. They're not printing, you know, they're not printing new stuff left and right on these characters. And so a lot of what's out there is not readily available. There is some relative scarcity on a lot of this stuff. It's hard to find. It's certainly hard to find graded. There's a lot of stuff in my own collection that is a pop one, pop two, like, and I don't mean in a grade, I mean graded, period. A lot of stuff I own, it's the only ones ever graded. And so I know when I can buy a well known card, I should say a card of a well known character and get it graded and there's only a handful of them in the world that have ever been graded, then it's probably a pretty safe investment and it's certainly something fun, pretty safe to hold on to because there's not many of them out there. And so as I was talking about rookie cards, which is the term I use, technically they're first appearance cards. But after the sale of the Luke Skywalker for $687,500, I was like, I've got to do an episode on some of these other characters because sorry to let you know, but Luke Skywalker is actually a fictional character. Also, he's not a cartoon character other than in Star wars animated series. But today we're going to talk about franchises, brands that have been around even much longer than Star Wars. So we're going to kick it off by looking at three of my childhood favorites, characters, brands and now trading cards that we're going to talk about. And a lot of this stuff I literally discovered just over the last year, meaning, like I didn't know these cards existed. And I started Doing research and I wanted to find, hey, what are some of the oldest cards of some of my favorite childhood characters. So let's start with a little bit of yabba dabba doo. We're going to talk about the Flintstones. Yeah, Fred's happy about that apparently. So we're going to talk about the first cards of Flintstone characters. I was just researching recently, every year globally, there's still hundreds of millions of dollars of sales of Flintstones related merchandise. So that being said, it shows the popularity of this brand of these characters that have been around. They were created by Hanna Barbera. They weren't the oldest original Hanna Barbera characters, but they are the best known franchise of all the Hanna Barbera characters. Slightly outpacing Scooby Doo, who we will also get to. But the Flintstones, if you look back, they were used very heavily in marketing those characters. Fred and Barney even puffed on Winston cigarettes, believe it or not, back in the day. Because their cartoon was not really intended. It wasn't a kids cartoon back in the day. It was shown late in the evenings starting in the early 60s and they were used to market a number of items, automobiles and more. Many, many items. And their first trading cards. There was a lot of different licensed trading cards of the Flint zones that came out in the early 60s, early to mid-60s. Now one thing to keep in mind, I'm trying to provide some big picture education about the non sports world is that a lot of times your first trading cards of a cartoon related character isn't necessarily a card that was released in the US which often makes it even more harder to figure out, hey, what was the first card made of these characters? When was it released? Where was it released? And so some of the earliest Flintstones cards were released in England in Australia. But there was a set released here in the us it was part of a larger series made by Dynamictoy and they were jumbo sized cards released in 1962. DynamicToy released these postcard sized cards which included the Flintstones characters. It included Disney characters and it included Ripley's Believe it or not characters as well as Barbie. It's also to my knowledge the earliest trading cards of Barbie. But they're gorgeous cards. I'm working on my master graded set. I'm down to about two cards to finish it. But they are some of the true rookie cards of characters from the Flintstones franchise because they came out in 1962 that year. Also there was Dutch gum cards released overseas. Multiple different cards of characters. And there were also Primrose Trading cards released during that time period of 1962 to 1963 of Flintstones characters. So there were multiple sets, multiple cards of Flintstones characters released back in the 62 to 63 time period. Those are all early, early cards on the Flintstones. A few years later, the Dutch Gum cards went on, I believe through 1965. I have cards of multiple Flintstones characters from different Dutch Gum sets that were released during that three year period. And then a little bit later, I believe it was 1968, there was a product called Wheaties, it was spelled W E E T I E S that was released in Australia. And there were some odd square shaped cards of both Flintstones and Looney Tunes characters which we're going to get to, but multiple cards of Flintstone characters released in the early 60s, of course, cards, you might see a box in the background here. The company cards, C A R D Z trading cards produced a Flintstones product in the early 90s and they've been in other series since then. Kakawa included them in recent releases. But they are certainly characters that are still well loved and collected across the globe. All right, let's stick with another great Hanna Barbera character. And that of course is Scooby Doo. If you didn't know, coming out in 2027, there is a new Netflix live action out on Scooby Doo based upon the original series with Fred and Velma. And all the shaggy original characters are going to be back in there. Not the original characters, but you know what I'm saying, those characters are going to have their own Netflix series. Scooby Doo is another one where it's very confusing because there's a lot of early cards on him. I recently saw a major auction house that auctioned off a card of scooby doo from 1973 and they called it a rookie card or a first appearance. And I'm like, no, you're wrong, that's not it. Because I have some in my collection earlier than that. And so when you talk about that franchise, there's two different series which I believe should be recognized as the oldest ones. The, the earliest cards. I recently bought a Scooby Doo. One comic that was CGC graded from 1970, which is when some of the very earliest merchandise started hitting. And in 1970 we think again, it can be confusing. Paul's Ice Cream, an Australian brand, released five different Scooby Doo stickers. And they are really, really gorgeous eye popping stickers. They say things like super Scoob and playing it real cool, stuff like that. And there's some debate about when were those really released? Because I've graded them with BGs and they label them 1970. Paul's Ice Cream SGC labels them 1970s plural, as if they're not sure of the exact year, but they believe it was from the 70s, but they don't know for sure it was actually 1970. Now the copyright on them is 1970, which honestly means nothing. And what I mean by that is there are a lot of cards out there and I see this very often with non sports cards and cartoon one specifically where a grading company will just say, oh, well, the copyright on the card is this year, therefore that must be when it was printed. And that's often not the case. We'll discuss that on a later episode about Peanuts trading cards. Because there's two different Peanuts cards out there in the market that say and they're labeled by grading companies as 1965. My opinion is neither of them were made in 1965. I think they were both likely made in the 70s, but they're labeled 1965. Why? Because there's a copyright date on it that says 1965, which simply means that's when that particular likeness, the copyright was issued, not when the card was necessarily printed. So the great debate will continue with Scooby Doo cards because they're the Paul's Ice Cream cards that are labeled 1970 or 1970s, depending on your grading with BGS or SGC. PSA has yet to grade one of those. I've asked them and I have worked on this because I have some I would love to grade with psa, but they as of yet don't even have that in their database. But the other Scooby Doo card, which I know the year these were released are the 1971 Mattel. And that set had a couple of different Scooby Doo cards. One, they're the same pose, but one is a standard card. One is a die cut card where there's little notches in the bottom of the card. And then there are also many cards in the set where the back of the card shows the the whole gang and Daphne, Velma, Scooby, Shaggy, Fred and so forth. And it's a really, really attractive card. And it says Scooby Doo and they're really nice looking cards. And those were issued by Mattel as part of a card game and those were definitely 1971. And PSA does grade those. I've seen multiple grading companies grade those, label those as 1971. So if you love Scooby and you want to buy some before the new Netflix series comes out because he is one of the most iconic cartoon characters in history. Those are your big ones to look for. The, quote, 1970 Paul's Ice Cream. They were issued in Australia. Five different sticker cards of Scooby. And then the 1971 Mattel series, which has individual cards of four of the leading characters. And then also has those group photo cards on the reverse of many cards in the set. So I have some of all of them in my own collection. I love them. I love that series. And so there's your brief education on Scooby Doo and the gang, Right? All right. One of my other favorite franchises, favorite characters is any of the characters from the Looney Tunes franchise, of course, led by none other than Mr. Bugs Bunny. Now, Bugs Bunny had cards released, had multiple cards released back in 1964. He had a single card in this. I forget the name of it now, but it was a chocolate series released overseas of various characters. It had like the Beatles and other characters, actors, actresses from different genres. But Bugs Bunny was in that set also. But there's only been one ever graded by psa. So you talk about scarce. They're very scarce. But it was a 1964 chocolate overseas set. But the ones that I'm more familiar with are the 1964 Primrose, you heard me mention that name before, an English set. They were also cards of Flintstones and many other series made in the 60s. Other Hanna Barbera characters were made too. But there was a Looney Tunes set made by Primrose, 1964, I believe it's a 50 card set. And that, I believe should tie with this next set I'm going to talk about as the earliest printed Bugs Bunny rookie cards. But not just Bugs. Other key characters are in that series. Daffy Duck, there's Elmer and others, other great characters. But the keys, of course, are Bugs and Daffy are the best known characters. And speaking of Bugs and Daffy, also in 1964 there was a Spanish issue, 1964, Fher is a manufacturer. I don't know how you say that in English for her, but FHER is where they're labeled. And the series was called El Conejo de la Suerte, which means, I believe, the Lucky Rabbit. And those are very colorful and incredibly condition sensitive. The first few cards in the series are Bugs Bunny, but there are also cards of Daffy, Porky Pig, Elmer, Elmer Fudd, Roadrunner and Coyote. So a lot of those key iconic, beloved Looney Tunes characters are in that Set. I just learned about those probably a little over a year ago. I didn't even know they existed. And I was looking at buying a big collection. There was this Bugs bunny card from 1964 and I'm like, wait a minute, that's not a primrose card. I have some of those, like, what is this one? And so I've been on the hunt for those ever since. And I don't think I've quite completed a set. I'm working on a graded set of my favorites, but I'm also working on a raw set as well. I think I'm still missing just a few as I believe it's about a 200 card set. But you talk about paper thin. These are basically printed on it's like thick toilet paper stock. They are just razor thin paper stock. They were designed, I believe, to be pasted into albums. And they are very condition sensitive. The Pop Report on most of those is ridiculously low. I know there were some I graded and when I graded them, they were the first ones to ever hit the Pop Report. There are just not many of those out there. You know, this is not a mass produced 20, 26 tops flagship product. We're talking stuff that is 60 plus years old that was released in another country. A lot of it's never even made it to the US and there's just not that many of them out there. But they're colorful. The El Conejo de la Suerte said it basically looks like you took your newspaper and cut up comic strips because you'll see part of a scene, but you don't see all of the scene. And they're very colorful, very entertaining cards and I love them. I'm building, like I said, both a raw set and I'm grading a lot of my favorite poses in the set too. But this has given you a little brief glimpse into this world of cartoon cards that I am so passionate about. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons. Like many of you. I watched Bugs Bunny and Road Runner and all those great characters. And they had a huge impact on me because they brought joy to my viewing. They were just. I watched cartoons for hours and hours and every afternoon it was the Flintstones and Underdog. And I loved these characters as a child. I love them to this day. And there's so many others that I can share with you. And I will do additional episodes. We're actually planning on a full episode just on original Disney cards where we will talk about the Mickey Mouse and the Winnie the Pooh rookie cards per se. Rookie cards. I'm going to use that terminology. Y' all can laugh at it. But hey, I come from the sports card world and we call things rookie cards when it's their first card. So we're going to use that terminology and we're going to do another episode on Peanuts characters, because those are my favorites, but also Peanuts characters. One estimate I just read, last year there was over $3 billion worth of peanuts merchandise sold worldwide, which was well behind Pokemon, but it was still way up there in terms of global sales of cartoon related intellectual properties, cartoon brands. So there is still a lot of demand for Snoopy and Charlie Brown and Linus and Schroeder and Lucy and Sally and Pigpen and all those beloved characters. There is still plenty of global demand for those characters. So why not provide some education on their trading cards as well? Because I know that many of you who are sports card collectors, because I dealt with so many of you at the national last year, and countless sports card collectors came up to our table and would say, wow, look at that Charlie Brown card. Look at Snoopy catching a baseball. That's so cool. I gotta have that. And so many don't even know these cards exist. And so I love providing that education because I know what it's like for me when I uncover a new set of these characters that I didn't know existed. Some of them have been around for 50, 60 years, and I didn't know about a particular set. And as a collector, that is so exciting to me. Imagine what it would be like if you're a vintage card collector and you love Mickey Mantle, and tomorrow you walk into a store and you see a 52 tops. Excuse me. You see a 1952 Mickey Mantle card from another manufacturer and you didn't know it existed after all these years. That's what it's like for me when I uncover these old brands, these unique, often international, these brands released in other countries. And it's a journey of discovery for me. So I want to go on that journey with you, help you learn about some of these brands. And. And I know some of you are already on ebay searching for some cards right now because you're like, I want a Scooby Doo in my collection, or I want a Bugs Bunny rookie card or whatever. And so that's fun, and I hope you're having fun with it. And so I can tell you all the highest graded ones that I've graded, I'm keeping them. So sorry, they're not for sale. And a lot of these literally Some of these, I've literally only graded one of each, so some of them you'll never see out there, but there goes your treasure hunt to go hunt them down as well. So more cool character discussions coming up. Hope you like this. Again, these are just three of my favorite brands of vintage cartoon characters, but there's so many more that we can explore on future episodes from the Disney characters to the Peanuts characters and more. So I hope, I know this is a little different, a little different lane for us to go down today, but I hope you will have fun with it and hope you've learned something today. And maybe you've got a friend who collects some of this stuff and you can help educate them as well. Also, for those who didn't know, we have an entire website to provide more education on these brands. It's@cartooncards.com that's cartoon cards with a Z C, A R D, Z A on the end. And I even released a full blown magazine on this topic about a year ago. And we still have some issues of those available that you can order on the website. It's glossy, it breaks down a lot of the important brands and key cards. And there's still more content we'll be adding to that site in the future. Maybe we'll create a master rookie list for you because there's so many, when I do these shows, I get those kind of questions like, hey, is that Wonder Woman's rookie card? Hey, is that, you know, this character, that character's first card? And so I love providing that information and it's fun, you know, on this, fun going on this journey with other collectors of these brands. So hope you've gotten something out of this episode. And we'll be mixing in more of these topical episodes in the future along with of course, more great sports card content. Remember, most importantly today, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, he loves you. He gave his life for you. He wants a relationship with you. Because I can tell you, for me, it's the greatest, most important relationship in my life. So thank you for joining us today and remember, I think you're awesome and I appreciate each and every one of you. I. Hope fill my blend up with purpose will not.