Goofing Off

More on the incredible Andy Yanchus collection today kids!

Goofy Goggles, a gumless novelty imported by Topps from Japan, remains one of their most elusive issues.  I have never seen an example of one in person and until this auction, had only seen the black-and-white image offered by Chris Benjamin in his Sport-Americana guides from three decades ago. Yanchus, who was obviously good at ferreting out these kind of things, had only two examples from the twelve subjects advertised by Topps.  So right now it's a universe of three images available!

The Yanchus items were sold indie their envelope-style packaging.  The envelopes proper have since been resold I believe, but the goggles may not have moved on from the winners of this lot over at Bruneau & Co.  Here's both goggles, in glorious color. Peek-a boo!

These were made of Styrofoam with an elastic band attached.  I am thinking that band is why these are so hard to track down as Topps may have feared a safety issue and pulled the test (if things even got that far.)  Too bad, they are really neat but it would explain the extreme scarcity of extant examples.  Here' an oblique look:

Nice and colorful! Here's the other one:

More fun with color-it's a nice look:

I guess there are three known wrapper scans as well, as Benjamin shows one.  Dig that smilin' sun:

Topps, thankfully, printed up a checklist on the back, so we can see what all twelve looked like:

Kiss Me is the black-and-white image I mentioned above.  Here's the full checklist:

• Come Fly With Me
• Get Lost
• Guess Who?
• Here's My Heart
• I'm Cool
• I've Got My Eyes On You
• Kiss Me
• Let's Have A Ball
• Please Ignore Me
• Stop Stop
• Stop Wasting My Time
• What's Cooking

Topps applied for the Goofy Goggles trademark on September, 7 1967 (which is the date most guides assign to these) and it was published for opposition on June 25, 1968. 

Goofy Goggles very much remind me of another elastic-band issue, 1968's Wise Ties, which may have suffered the same, safety-related fate, albeit after some brief time in the marketplace. I could  see a possible scenario where Wise Ties, which had its first use in commerce on September 4, 1968, was yanked over choking concerns and Goofy Goggles then got the kibosh before any real testing occurred. However, if that was the case, why wouldn't Topps just sell them without the elastic band?

I may have to do a post on all the classic Topps sets where all supposed examples have not yet been sighted in the wild, or via pictures and scans.