A Cereal Box Prize Leads to a Card Purchase

 

A few months ago, this image—taken from the back of a 1980's cereal box—came up on a social media feed.

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia factor 10. 

 

I don't even think I had one of these bike reflectors when I was a kid. Doesn't matter. For some reason that image brought me straight back to the 1980s, and the cereal aisle at the supermarket. It also reminded me of riding bikes with my buddies. No helmets. No pads. No parental supervision. No questions asked on where we were going. Just be back before the street lights come on.

 

Imagine that? Just riding around with your friends. Pedaling fast for a few hundred feet, slamming on the brakes and skidding out, and looking back to see the skid-out you left on the asphalt. Stopping at the corner store for some baseball cards or candy. Riding down to the Little League fields with your mitt and a bat, and leaving your bike unlocked next to the backstop while you played baseball. Didn't have bases? No problem. You'd just use the end of your bat and scratch a square shape in the dirt at first, second, and third.

All those memories came straight to the front of my mind, thanks to a simple image on the back of a 1980s cereal box. The good feelings were so strong that I figured I'd do a quick eBay search to see if any of those bike reflectors were listed for sale.

Oh, they were. Quite a few of them. And because some of the prices were so good, I decided to purchase one that was still in the original, sealed wrapper. Here it is.

It turns out the reflectors were issued in specially marked boxes of Kellogg's cereals like Froot Loops, Corn Pops, and Raisin Bran. Here's a TV commercial with a promo for the bike reflectors at the end:

I don't like how those kids shirked their tent-pitching responsibilities to go back for another bowl of Raisin Bran, but I guess that's how marketing is done.

In any case, because this is a trading card blog, let's link some cards to the whole thing. After all, Garfield is a popular cat, and has been for quite some time. So I ran a quick search on Trading Card Database to see if any sets of Garfield cards existed.

And they do! More than one set, in fact. Skybox released a set in 1992, a company called Krome followed in 1995, and Pacific threw their hat in the ring in 2004. I looked through the checklists to see if any specific cards caught my eye. Soon enough, I found a few from the Pacific set and purchased them.

Here they are, front and back:

 

All three cards are from a little subset called "Then and Now". They highlight how the animation style of artist Jim Davis has changed over the years. (The Garfield franchise turned 25 years old in 2004, so the set was a nice little tribute.)

The characters I'm familiar with are the ones on the right. But I have to say, the 1978 versions of Garfield, Jon, and Odie are pretty great—Jon in particular. Just scroll back up and compare the two versions. 1978 Jon looks a lot less like a doofus.

Here's one more card I picked up.

 

I think most of us can relate.

Here are a few other memorable Garfield quotes that appear on cards in the set:

• I need less week and more weekend

• A diet is too little of a good thing

• One good meal deserves another

Classic Garfield. And it's really something—as collectors we never know what roads we'll travel during our collecting journey. Did I think I'd be buying a Garfield bike reflector? No. Did I think that reflector would lead to me purchase a few Garfield trading cards? No. But here we are. And the dose of nostalgia all this has given me was well worth it.

So let's go back to the bike reflectors, and not overlook how cool it was to find them in a box of cereal. It leads to a couple of questions for you readers and collectors:

 

What prizes do you remember getting from cereal boxes back in the good ol' days?

Are you a Garfield fan?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading.

2023 Series Custom Cards: PRINTED (Plus a Giveaway)

The title above does not contain a typo.

 

This post is indeed about the custom cards that I created and printed in 2023. Normally I'd have showcased each of the 2023 cards here on the blog throughout that calendar year, and then had a summary and giveaway at the beginning of 2024. But here we are, four months into 2025, and I'm just now getting around to it. I guess you can say things have been busy in a good way.

And 2023 was a pretty good year for custom cards at Nine Pockets Headquarters. Let's look at the list:

 

1956 Elaine Benes

Thundercats Team

Mumm-Ra Team

Stevie Ray Vaughan In Action

Red Hot Chili Peppers

1973 George Costanza

1973 Elaine Benes

1973 Seinfeld Comedy Stars v1

1973 Seinfeld Comedy Stars v2 

New York Jets Superbowl III Champions

D-Generation X Future Stars

 

Classic Film Subset

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Breakfast Club

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

 

   

That makes 14 cards total, which is exactly the same number of customs I created the previous year. I'm happy with that.

 

Here's a closer look at a card front and a card back:

 

To keep the brand going, I used the same template that was used for the card backs from previous years, changing just the ink color. 

 

2019 = dark gray

2020 = indigo blue

2021 = maroon

2022 = green 

2023 = dark gray

 

I figured four colors was enough, so for 2023 I looped back to the dark gray color. (Spoiler alert: The 2024 custom cards continue the pattern, and they're indigo blue.)

Some of the cards, like the classic film subset, received special card backs that more closely resembled the style of the original set, like this one.

 

 

 

Those are always fun to do.

The 2023 cards are available for sale in my eBay store, but just as always, I'd like to get some of them into the hands of you fellow collectors, free of charge. So let's do a giveaway for the first five commenters.

Here's what to do:

(1) Find one card you'd like from 2023 list above. (Click on the links to visit the original blog post for each card.)

 

(2) Leave a comment that includes your card choice, plus one consolation choice just in case I'm very low on stock.

 

(3) If you haven't sent me your mailing address during a previous giveaway, or if your address has changed recently, please email me with that information. A link to my email address appears on my blogger profile page. You can also contact me on TCDB.

 

And that's all you have to do. 

 

Thanks so much to all you readers, fellow collectors, and fellow bloggers for spending some time here at Nine Pockets. You guys continue to provide great inspiration and entertainment, and I look forward to getting these custom cards out to you.