Vintage Star Wars Cards: Random Foreign & Bootleg Cards!

In the early days of Star Wars collecting, you were lucky if you had a book, or a friend with knowledge, to help you to know what was out there.  These days, of course, we have the Internets, so we are much better off.  In my Star Wars card collecting, I picked up some interesting oddities along the way:

Here is card #64A from the UK Topps Star Wars set.  I have read that the first (Blue) series was identical to their American counterparts, but for the second series, the photos were scrambled, and the numbering was always followed by an "A."  As far as I know, the backs were unchanged.  For example, this card features the photo and slogan from American card #78.

The Topps cards were also issued in Mexico, but apparently the actual release was done by another company.  Here are the front and backs of card #13:

And here are both sides of card #45, with the lightsabers still uncolored, just as in the American cards:

The back includes something else you don't see anymore:  the stain where the piece of gum used to be!

In Japan, the cards were better, because of course they were.  Yamakatsu (who also issued more than one set of wonderful, small Godzilla cards) issued a set that was almost postcard-sized (no doubt because of the Japanese fondness for bromide cards) and glossy.  It was a smaller set, with only 33 in the entire series.  Strangely, they don't appear to be numbered; at least I can't find any clue on this one that I have.  The back gives the collector a couple of spaceship diagrams, too:

I don't know much about this card, other than what's on the back.  It's more of a slip of glossy paper than a trading card, and it's about 50% of the size of a standard trading card.

It's #76, and came from Costa Rica, as you can see.  I was lucky enough to get the wrapper that it came in:

And as you can see, definitely made in Costa Rica.  No idea how many came in a pack, or how many there were in the whole set.

The Greek bootleg set is a very famous, and very notorious, set among collectors.  It apparently showed up in 1980, and it's supposed to be a very large set, and a very difficult one to assemble, if that's even possible, due to limited availability, and being a bootleg and all that.  If I remember right, there are even cards in the set that have nothing to do with Star Wars (once again, bootleg). Here is the front of card #136, and here is the back:

As you can see, it's extremely un-fancy, but what did you expect?  I was also lucky enough to get the wrapper, which is even cruder:

I'd love to see more of these, but I've honestly never run into any more in all my years of collecting.

In Canada, the Return of the Jedi Topps cards were issued by Opee-Chee, and otherwise identical to their American counterparts (except for being bilingual).  Here is the front of card #24, and below is the back:

These days, we are used to seeing extra languages on our products, but back then, you never saw that in the US.

The above card is #250 from a series of small cards that were issued in Sweden.  That's all I know.  Apparently the set was big enough to include some unique pictures and artwork.  The cards also had plain backs with no printing.

Similarly, in the Netherlands, a small-sized card set was made for Return of the Jedi.  The Darth Vader card is #2, and the Boba Fett one is #61.  They also had plain backs.