The card game

 

For better or worse, Close Encounters of the Third Kind has toiled in the shadow of Star Wars since both were originally released in 1977. Well, as much as a film that made $288 million worldwide and picked up two Academy Awards can be considered in the shadows. But today, I'm talking more along the lines of collectibles, specifically trading cards.

There's the original Topps set of 66 cards and 11 stickers. (Just for comparison's sake, Star Wars had five series.) That collection probably was put together before Close Encounters' release, because the captions don't really match what occurred on the screen. (The best example of that is #6 with screaming Silvia Neary.) Also absent altogether, save an occasional profile, are stars Richard Dreyfuss (Roy Neary), Francois Truffaut (Claude Lacombe) and Bob Balaban (David Laughlin). My favorite is #24, which gives us a good look at Barry's kidnapper as Cary Guffey goes through the doggie door despite Melinda Dillon's frantic attempt to stop him, and we can see the arm of Guffey's real mother pulling him to the other side. 

For the company's 75th anniversary, Topps commemorated Close Encounters with a recreation of the 41st card of the set -- "The mother ship appears!" -- as a base card and a rainbow foil variant. And last year, the Topps archive unearthed separation proofs in red and yellow for the full series. They were sold on eBay in screwdown holders as a matched set for each card. So you got two for the price of one. They were snatched up pretty quickly and I haven't seen them reappear on the site since then, so collectors like myself eager for Close Encounters memorabilia seem to be hiding them like the military trying to keep the existence of UFOs secret from the public. (I held fast to #24 like I was Cary's mom!)

Wonder Bread also released a set of 24 cards when the film originally came out, also without Dreyfuss and Balaban -- but there's one of Truffaut! The Topps and Wonder cards are still relatively easy to find, although the complete Wonder set has started to pop up less often than the others. And that's basically been it on the trading card front, save the occasional foreign film photo or fact cards (more on those in a later blog).

So here's a look at the Topps and Wonder sets and some of the Topps separation proofs. What are your favorite cards from these runs? --Paige

The original Topps series:









Backs of the Topps series:










 
 
Topps separation proofs:











 
 

Example of the back of the Topps separation proof:
 

The Wonder Bread series:



 Backs of the Wonder Bread series:




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