Recently my girlfriend bought me a pack that at first I thought is a card pack. Although it looked a bit bumpy, I had no idea what was inside until I ripped it off. Well to my surprise inside the pack was a creepy big-headed toy. After taking a closer look I realized that its mini football action figure of Dmitar Berbatov.
Meeeh, Berbatov! What the heck?!
I´ll be honest, my first thought was : “Who on earth would buy these creepy-looking toys?” But then again, don’t people usually tell you : “What? You collect trading cards? Is anyone still doing that? What a creep!”
So I ditched all the prejudices about these toys. Wait, did I just call them toys? No, these soccer figurines are highly collectable piece, just like any other. Some of them can be worth a lot. People collect them. They are passionate about them.
After looking at, what I first though was a ridiculously misshaped toy, I realized how interesting these are. I started researching about them online for a couple of days, and I found out so many interesting things, that I had to create a guide.
Bellow is what I call “The Ultimate guide to soccer action figures”. Enjoy!
What are action figures?
An action figure is a miniature of a well known character, celebrity or an athlete. Term action figure has been first used by Hasbro Toy company back in the 60s. Although they seam to be targeted at younger customers – kids, the largest portion of the action figures sales comes from adults who collect them. Collectors rarely play with their figurines. They mainly display them proudly. Like any other collectable, the value of a miniature figure is determined by the rarity and condition of a piece. For more information about the history of the figurines, check this article.
Soccer (football) figures
The most popular sport in the world got its first officially licensed mini figure in 1985. There are variety of manufacturers, collections and types of soccer figures. I felt that the most suitable classification is by publishers, although some collectors group them by year, national team, etc.
The most popular soccer miniature toys brands are :
- Corinthian
- SoccerStarz
- Kodoto
- Microstars Preziosi
- Bomberini Panini
Obviously, there are a couple of more brands that produce them, but I felt that above listed are most popular and interesting.
Corinthian football figures
Corinthian are the most popular type of tiny plastic figures of well-known soccer players. Company was established in 1985. The legend says that like many great start-ups Corinthian figures idea was born in the pub, with lots beer pints.
Although the company’s focus was soccer, they also used to produce figurines for other sports such as basketball, baseball and NFL. Corinthian soccer figures appear in different sizes. Depending on the size and a color of a figures base, different models exist :
- Microstars (up to 3 cm)
- Prostars (7 cm)
- Headliners ( 7 cm, green base)
- Club Gold (7 cm, golden base)
- Platinum figures (7 cm)
- Fan Favourites (7 cm)
- Prostars XL (7-25cm)
MicroStars
Microstars are the tiniest of all Corinthian soccer action figures. Their size is around 3cm in height. They were first introduced in 2001 and gained popularity ever since. They are a unbeatable proof that size does not matter when it comes to collectables. MicroStars mini figures come in 8 different base color. Figures are numbered with “MC” prefix (example : MC13240) . Color of a base on which player stands determines the rarity of a figure, since the figures were launched in different ratios. When you lift the player, on the bottom of the base there are stats for each player which are similar to the Match Attax cards. Since 2008 MicroStars were the main product for Corinthians, as they canceled the ProStars.
Headliners
In the 1990 Corinthians released the “Headliners” which were a large-headed figures of sport athletes. According to few miniature football figures collectors, headliners were the best product ever released by the Corinthians company. All the headliners figures have green base on which players figurine stands. Headliners are 7 cm in height, the same as later released ProStars.
ProStars
ProStars were launched in 1999. Company decided to re-brand the product and change its name from Headliners to ProStars. The reason for re-branding was a lack of profit in 1998. Company got back on track with fresh new looking figures, originally called “International ProStars”. Corinthians shortened the name to just “ProStars” after a while.
There are over 1750 different ProStars soccer figures released. However, there are also a lots of those who haven´t been released ( around 75 figures). All the figures had a number from PRO1-PRO1750. In 2004 Corinthians innovated the ProStars by introducing the Quiz Game. Now, all the figurines could have been used not only as a collectable piece, but also as a board game.
For card collectors, the information that these cards included wide variety of trading cards might be interesting. However some of these cards are quite aught-after and rare even today. 2008 was a year when ProStars action figures stopped being produced.
ProStars XL
ProStars Xl figures are bigger the the normal ProStars. Around 60 of this larger figures have been released.
Platinum figures
Platinum version of ProStars is one of the rarest collections when it comes to soccer miniature figures. These figures were produced in extremely limited quantity, with each player having a silver base stand. The fact that they could have be obtained only in competitions organized by the manufacturer made them a valuable collectable piece.
Gold Club
Miniture soccer figures from the Gold club edition have a golden base stand. Their size is the same as ProStars, Platinum, Fans Favorite and Headliners – 7cm ( cca 2,75 inch)
Fans Favorite
These Corinthians figures are quite different then any others produced. The heads of players from “Fan Favorite” collections can be moved, which makes them similar to popular “Nodder figures” or Bobbleheads.
SoccerStarz
SoccerStarz are currently the most collected soccer miniature figures ever since Corinthians went out of business. The company started to release their “SoccerStarz soccer figures” in 2012. Their collections of players are separated into two parts :
- Clubs
- National teams
SoccerStarz clubs feature players playing in most popular clubs all over the world. Currently SoccerStarz has an official license for these clubs :
- majority of Premier League clubs
- Barcelona
- Real Madrid
- Bayern Munich
- Borusia Dortmund
- Benfica
- Porto
- AS Monaco
- PSG
SoccerStarz national teams include football players from well known national squads. Currently they have these squads which are all officially licensed and fully endorsed :
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Denmark
- England
- France
- Germany
- Scotland
- Uruguay
Types of SoccerStarz figures
- Blind Bags
- Blister Packs
- Limited Edition Team Packs
SoccerStarz Blind Bags
When you buy a blind bag, there is no chance of knowing which player you will get. This is a great way if you like the suspense. However if you collect only specific team or player, you might give other types of SoccerStarz products a try.
SoccerStarz Blister pack
The difference between the blind bag and a blister pack is visibility of a player. Blister packs are made out of transparent plastic, and you can see which player is in it. This kills the “wow factor, but can be cost-effective if your focus is single team or football star figure.
Limited Edition team packs
Team packs contain a complete set of figures of a particular club or national squad. They are however made in limited quantity. Obviously, since team packs contain multiple players inside, their price is higher then a single blister packet.
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Kodoto Figures
When the largest soccer action figures brand – Corinthians announced they will no longer produce ProStars miniatures, Kodoto, Chinese company saw an opportunity to take the market by storm. The news that new successor of ProStars is in town, made hundreds of collectors ecstatic. Kodoto figures exist in various sizes and shapes. They are now, mainly focused on larger soccer figures, which have more details on them besides larger size. Some of the larger Kodoto figures really do not look-like players they represent. The reason for this might be the license or just the poor designer work. Kodoto is one of the companies that is still in business, launching new, reasonably-priced products constantly.
On the other hands Kodoto figures are available at very affordable prices at eBay or AliExpress.com. Check them out and you will see they are much cheaper then other soccer players mini figures.
Microstars Preziosi
Italian sticker and magazine publisher and distributor Preziosi launched their own Microstars Preziosi in 2010/11. Previously Preziosi was an official distributor of the Corinthians in Italy. However that year Corinthians decided to stop with product distribution in this European country. As a reply to the market demand Preziosi successfully released the Microstars 10/11 for their domestic customers. I found out that Berbatov player I pulled, at the begging of this post is from MicroStars Preziosi 11/12 set. Each blind pack includes a figure and a neatly looking poster of a player with lots of statistical information on it.
Bomberini Panini
The last, but not the least, the most famous stickers and card manufacturer Panini decided to go into very popular soccer miniture market back in 2003/4. That´s why with the launch of the latest Calciatori 2003/4 album they introduced a brand-new product called “Bomberini Panini”. Packets of Bomebrini were available on newsstands, tobacco shops and supermarkets. Each packet of Bomberini contains a players figurine and 7 stickers for 03/04 Calciatori album.
Panini Bomberini figures collection included 51 players. (36 launched originally, and 15 released a bit later). Publisher produced a large size stand for all the figures, which was available on their site.
Resources
During my research on soccer action figurines, I discovered the whole new world of football memorabilia collecting. There are a couple of sites that I used as a reference to this article. I managed to gather all the little pieces together in this article, but there are a lots of information about these collectables that I did not mention. These sites are a good starting point, and most of them contain countless illustrations of soccer figures.
- Corinthianarchive (archive with information on every Corinthian released)
- marcocorinthiancollection (great personal collection site with lots of information)
- Dutchcorinthians site (personal collection site with good classification of figurines)
- soccerstarz.com (official publishers site)
- corinthianseller.co.uk (online store with lots of photos and info, specialized in soccer figures selling)
- sportactionfigure.com (site about sport action figures in general
Do you collect soccer figures?
I already placed an order for a couple of Juventus and FC Chelsea ones, which will look neat in my mans cave together with other memorabilia cards and albums.
So how about you? Do you collect or plan to get some of these soccer figures? Let me know in the comments bellow, I am really looking forward to hearing what you think.
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