Unlike the non-sport trade card market, Australia proved fertile ground for the home-grown development of card sets featuring our local sports such as Australian rules, Rugby League, Cricket, Soccer and Motor Racing.
The designs were often either basic, clunky, or unapologetic re-creations of overseas issues, in particular US football and baseball series released in the 1960s and 70s. But they were always ours in the end – ours to admire, collect, swap and occasionally mangle in the spokes of a dragster. Based on the pure pleasure derived from gazing at them both then and now, and without favour to any particular code, here’s our top 5! Please share yours.
5. VFL football (1974)
The first big series for Scanlens as their flagship set skyrocketed from 72 cards and 12 stickers in 1973 to a whopping 132 cards plus 12 team checklists and 66 different “twin” club sticker combinations. The footballer action poses at training warm the heart even now, but back in 1974, with 10 or 11 players representing each team, it was the first chance for the youngster to completely spread out on the living room carpet and play some “real” games of footy.
4. Soccer (1963)
An intriguing series as it’s neither extensive, pretty, or packed to the rafters with household names, and yet it’s just so interesting and compelling. Is it the rarity factor? The garish, high contrast colours? The novelty of a fledgling game making it to the mainstream via the milk bars of Australia? Considering so few full sets are known to be held by collectors (I get badgered constantly for singles!) we may never know the appeal – we just know its there.
3. Cricket (1965)
A wonderful era of cricket, this set comprises of 40 hand-coloured portraits featuring the leading Australian, English and West Indian stars of the 1960s and 70s – Ritchie Benaud, Bob Simpson, Wes Hall, Ian Chappell, Doug Walters, Geoff Boycott, and Sir Garfield Sobers are all there, and if you look closely enough, you’ll spot one apartheid era Southern African!
2. Rugby League (1970)
A combination of pin-up style and classic football poses, you could be mistaken for thinking half of the league players from the era were movie stars. With beautiful colouring and big names, this set has endured as the favourite of Scanlens-era league collectors. That it would be the last league series released until 1974 only adds to this.
1. VFL football (1966)
Rumour has it that Scanlens employed a young Irish fashion photographer who was out in Australia on another assignment to try and give their biggest set to date some colour and “pop”. Featuring a mix of super-stars, legends, and a few of Jack Dyer’s “good ordinary players” among the 72 subjects, this set presents many classic footy poses while revealing the darkness of mid-week training nights like no other. Add the introduction of 14 stand-up “plak” cards for youngsters to pop-up and stick on their school desks, and you have a set that almost 60 years later has endured as one of the hobbies’ favourites.
Nice choice, the soccer set really is a big sleeping giant. Probably #1 if rarity is included, and I thought I had the holy grail set, not so. Always loved scanlens.