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Monday, July 25, 2011

2009 Fathead Tradeables

Set size: 150 players plus 30 teams, 5" x 7"

Front Design: A cropped color photograph appears over a curved team-color background swoop, with a large team logo, sometimes placed sideways to fit better with the image; behind the color photograph and team logo is a shadow of the image and player name on a wood-grain panel. The player's name and team appear on the right-hand border, with the card number in the upper-right corner.

Back Design: The backs contain team logos surrounding the Fathead logo.

Parallels and Similars: Future year issues are similar, but these are distinguished by the year printed with the brand logo.

Distribution: Fathead Tradeables were released in packs of five, usually in sporting goods stores, Toys R Us, Meijer, and Walgreens.

Thoughts: The full-size Fatheads run around $100 each and take up a lot of wall-space, which means only fairly-wealthy fans with plenty of wall space can afford to take the plunge. Granted, putting a giant Nolan Ryan opposite a Tony Gwynn would make a great hallways entrance to a man cave. These are a great way for kids to play collect and interact with "cards" though. I've never seen these for sale in stores, but now that I know where to find them I can seek them out. The larger format looks great, though since these are designed to be stickers, the relatively boring backs leave a lot of space empty that could be better served with statistics, a biography, additional photos, etc. Being that these are stickers, they are flimsy, but the vinyl looks like it would hold up pretty well. They could be a fun set to collect, just like the Fan Pak Standees that came out the same year. Having just a team logo set would be great - the large size would make them a great background behind team souvenirs.

Additional Links: The Fathead Tradeables website has a full checklist with pictures of the 2009 baseball release and a few other non-baseball releases, but does not contain checklists for the 2010 and 2011 releases.

Additional Images: Team Logo sticker, and sticker back.

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