6 Toys and Trading Cards 1980s Pennsylvania Kids Saved Their Allowance For
Saving up your allowance for something you really wanted felt like a big deal.
Pennsylvanians who were kids in the 1980s still remember the toy aisle or card pack that had them counting coins.
Here are the crazes that were worth every penny.
1. Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids dolls turned a Wilkes-Barre department store into a crush during the 1983 holiday season.
An estimated 1,000 people surged into a Zayre store there, according to History.com.
The crowd cleaned out the store’s supply of 240 dolls in 30 minutes.
Dolls vanished.
An assistant store manager stood on the counter wielding a baseball bat, but it didn’t restore control.
Five people landed in the hospital.
Creator Xavier Roberts included a birth certificate and adoption papers with each of his dolls, according to the Strong National Museum of Play.
Coleco’s plastic-headed versions were ready in time for the 1983 holiday season.
Would you have joined that line?
2. Burger King Phillies Cards
Burger King’s 1980 Phillies set was a 23-card giveaway limited to the Philadelphia region.
The cards honored the World Champion Phillies.
Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose and Steve Carlton headlined the set, according to Sports Collectors Daily.
It was the second straight year the Phillies appeared in Burger King sets.
The set used five pose variations from regular Topps cards, for players including Keith Moreland, John Vukovich and Lonnie Smith.
A Smithsonian archive lists the set in its Ronald S. Korda collection of sports and trading cards.
Regional through and through.
If you lived outside the Philadelphia area, you would have missed this set.
3. 1981 Fleer Baseball Cards
Fleer entered the baseball card market in 1981, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.
Topps had company.
A district court had found that Topps and the players’ union illegally restrained trade.
Fleer’s principal place of business was Pennsylvania.
Fleer’s Olney plant in Philadelphia handled card cutting and packaging.
During the early 1980s, Fleer was second only to Topps as a producer of sports cards, according to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
In 1981, you could choose among Topps, Fleer and Donruss.
Fleer vs. Topps in Court
Fleer’s antitrust case over trading cards began in 1975, when Fleer sued Topps and the Major League Baseball Players Association.
A federal court in Pennsylvania ruled for Fleer on June 30, 1980.
The Third Circuit reversed that judgment on August 25, 1981.
Topps later won the right to be the only company allowed to sell cards with confectionary products, according to the encyclopedia.
4. Slinky
Slinky toys have been made in a Hollidaysburg factory since 1964, Keystone Edge reported in 2020.
If you had a Slinky in the 1980s, it may well have come from Hollidaysburg.
Slinky sales continued at a steady pace through the 1970s and 1980s.
The Smithsonian lists a Slinky made by James Industries in Hollidaysburg around 1975.
Simple toy.
Slinkys were still made on the original machines in 2020.
In 1945, 400 Slinkys sold out within 90 minutes at Gimbels in Philadelphia, according to Penn State.
5. 1986 Fleer Basketball Cards
Fleer acquired a license for the National Basketball Association in 1986 and produced a run of basketball cards.
Hidden City says that set featured the rookie cards of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, and collectors consider it a masterpiece.
Marvel moved Fleer’s administrative staff from Olney to Mount Laurel, New Jersey, in 1992.
The Philadelphia 76ers took Barkley fifth overall in the 1984 draft.
He played for the 76ers from the 1984-85 season through 1991-92.
Philly had its rookie.
Pull a Barkley from a 1986 pack and you held the rookie card of a Philadelphia 76er.
Psst! Think you know the toys and cards of the 1980s? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Guess the 1980s Toy
Answer eight questions about the toys and cards of the 1980s. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
A Hungarian design teacher built a cube puzzle in 1974 and called it the Magic Cube. How many had people bought within two years of its 1980 arrival in stores?
6. Garbage Pail Kids
Garbage Pail Kids cards were manufactured in Duryea, Pennsylvania, according to a United Press International 1986 story about a West Virginia official's call to pull them from stores.
Topps was based in Brooklyn, New York, at the time.
The cards parodied Cabbage Patch Kids dolls.
A few saved quarters could buy you a pack.
Quarters added up.
Philadelphia's Card-Making Roots
Sports cards in Philadelphia began in 1908, when American Caramel Company tucked them into boxes of caramels, according to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
Philadelphia got an early start.
Fleer was founded in Philadelphia in 1888 and located in Olney by the 1930s.
Fleer introduced a set of 120 cards in 1923 but then stopped production.
If you owned a 1981 Fleer card, it came from a company with Philadelphia roots going back to 1888.
Topps in Duryea
Topps's Duryea plant ran a gum and card business.
The International Directory of Company Histories dates its gum production there to 1966.
Between 1985 and 1988, Topps released 15 series of Garbage Pail Kids, according to the Strong museum.
Then it all changed.
A Times Leader headline on November 1, 1996, said many of the plant's 577 workers would lose their jobs as the gum and card business closed.
Hidden City says Fleer's Olney factory closed that same year, and all card production was contracted out.
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