When it comes to the OPC original series, the only packs I have seen are 2nd series and 4th series. Brian L. reports seeing 3rd series packs as well. The purpose of this post is to speculate on which wrappers were used for which series.
The known 2nd series packs all have the red wrapper with Fink. (Fink was likely used because Quacker had already been C&D’d). The known 4th series packs use both this same wrapper and a blue version of the same wrapper. Brian stated that the 3rd series packs also used this same red wrapper.
In the last ten years or so two other wrappers were discovered. It is not known which series packs they were used for.
The first is the same red “Fink” wrapper, but containing the extra line of text “Printed in USA”:
There has been some speculation that this wrapper was used for at least some 1st series packs. This makes sense because Topps could reasonably have printed some wrappers for OPC at the beginning of the OPC wacky run.
The other new wrapper is a blue one in which Chef Girl ar Dee has replaced Fink.
There was originally speculation that this was used for the 3rd series (since 3rd series packs hadn’t been seen by most). But now it seems much more likely to me that this wrapper was used for a later run of 4th series packs. Fink was C&D’d (and doesn’t appear in the reissues). That would be a reason to replace it on the wrapper. And since Chef Girl is a 4th series title, it only makes sense it would be used for 4th series packs.
So until further evidence arrives, I’m going with the hypothesis that 1st series packs used the red Fink wrapper, and the earliest ones had the “Printed in USA” version. 2nd and 3rd series packs all used the red Fink wrapper (without the extra line). And there are three versions of the 4th series pack: red and blue with Fink, and blue with Chef Girl.
Thoughts?
