This is the infamous 1979 rerun sheet. Tens of thousands
of these suddenly showed up in 1999, before that they would sell for
around $150 each, now they can be obtained for about $20 (at one point you could get them for under $10), certainly
the cheapest sheet at this time. There has been a lot of speculation
as to why so many showed up. Some believed they were counterfeit, but
this has never been proven. Jay Lynch noticed that they were die-cut with a
technology that was not around in 1979.1 Though this was evidence
that they might be counterfeit, it did not prove
it conclusively. Then in late 2000 the mystery was finally solved
(at least by the mainstream collectors).
It came out that these sheets were part
of a planned promotion for Bond Bread around 1985.
Bond Bread was apparently going to use them like
Wonder Bread had. They were printed in the same factory in Philadelphia
that the rest of the wackys were printed at.
This was around 1985, which explains Jay's observation. They were
printed and die-cut, and yet they
were never shipped, due to some sort of cease and desist or perhaps due to a
change of plans on the corporate level, we are not sure. So there they sat on
a pallet for 15 years, with the "stop shipment order" stuck on top.
Eventually the factory went out of business and went abandoned.
Throughout the 90's it became a crack smokers hangout. There the sheets sat,
until they were found sometime in 1999.
This story comes from the people who found the wackys in the factory.
They are believable because they also found many other wacky pack
items and documents. Stay tuned for much more to come on this
amazing factory!!
It appers there
were on the order of 100,000 of these sheets. The impact on the hobby has
been very interesting, and hotly debated (was it good or was it bad?!)
Stay tuned, more to come...