Alternative Cards

A & BC issued 2 versions of the Planet set, their first to feature only football players.

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Each individual card was made up of two smaller cards with a perforation down the middle. So 110 cards showed 220 players

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This was FKS's first card album and was only sold in newsagents in the North of England.

Similar Cards

The FKS album was very similar to the previous season's and was sold all over England.

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Top Sellers used Panini to produce their albums, which were released in January to tie in with the calendar year rather than a season.

End of an Era

This was the last card set issued by A & BC as they were bought out by Topps in 1975.

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This was the first set of football cards issued in Britain by Topps, effectively taking over from A & BC.

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Panini decided to start producing their own annual sticker set and album rather than producing one for Top Sellers.

End of an Era

This was the last card set issued by Topps in the UK for a decade. It was the first one to have an associated album since A & BC's 'All Sports' set in 1954.
This was also the last domestic set issued by FKS following an unbroken run of 15 seasons, leaving the way clear for Panini to dominate the market.

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This was the first sticker album set issued by Topps. It was a tie-in with TV pundits / ex-players Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves. The sticker backs formed 6 different jigsaws.

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This was Merlin's first sticker set.

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This was Merlin's first card set and Pro-Set also issued the first of their three card sets.

End of an Era

This was the last time Panini featured the Scottish top division in its albums as it started producing separate English and Scottish sets.

End of an Era

This was Panini's last Premier League album until 2019. The 'Football' albums started by Top Sellers in 1972 had run for 22 seasons.

A Return

Topps re-entered the UK football card scene with the Stadium Club set of cards that celebrated previous A & BC and Topps card sets on the back.

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Merlin won exclusive rights to issue cards featuring Premier League players in their kits.

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With Panini losing the Premier League licence, they issued an album featuring every Football League club instead. With Merlin issuing a Premier League set, it meant all four top divisions of English football were represented across the two albums.

Buy Out

Topps bought Merlin in 1995 but continued to use the Merlin name on most of their sets until 2008.

Sneaky

Panini issued the 'Players' set featuring Premier League players through a deal with the PFA. The players were not allowed to wear anything related to the Premier League.

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Topps settled on 'Premier Gold' as the name for their card sets.

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Topps released a sticker set at the beginning of the season for the first time.

Hard to Find

Premier Gold 99 was only issued in Scandinavia.

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Topps introduced the idea of issuing update sets towards the end of a season.

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The Superstars album was the first credited to Topps, although it advertised the Merlin 2000 album inside.

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In a gradual move towards dropping the Merlin name, Topps issued the Premier Gold sets under their own name for three seasons.

Alternative Cards

Topps and Nestle issued pretty much the same set of mini-cards, although Nestle's were issued in both regular and foil versions.

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Magic Box Int tried their luck at issuing a card set for three seasons.

Name Change

Topps renamed their annual 'Premier Gold' collection 'Premier Stars' for two seasons.

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This was the first Match Attax set issued by Topps. The cards were shaped so they could slot together when playing the game. Panini also experimented with a card set in a binder for the first time.

Changes

This was Magic Box's last collection and Panini's first domestic set since 1998.

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This was the first domestic Match Attax set issued by Topps.

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With the Match Attax format proving popular, Topps issued a set containing all 24 teams in the Championship for the first time.

Alternative Cards

Topps started issuing 'parallel' cards - the same as those in the base set, but with different colour backgrounds, making the complete set huge and annoyingly difficult to complete.

End of an Era

With Topps losing the Premier League licence to Panini, this was the last Premier League Match Attax set issued (for now).

New

The On Demand series was issued in the US but Topps made some available online in their UK store.

End of an Era

With Panini taking over the Premier League licence, this could well be the last set issued under the Merlin name.

New

Panini released this set of stickers and a tabloid-style newspaper to stick them in to celebrate getting the Premier League licence. The set is a summary of the 2018/19 season.

A Return

This was Panini's first official Premier League album since 1993. They also started issuing cards under their Adrenalyn XL banner. In fact Panini started issuing way more sets than the average collector could keep up with. This included Impeccable Premier League Soccer, Chronicles, Obsidian and Prizm, all with multiple variations and built in rarities. With over 8500 cards in the Prizm set alone it's unclear who the sets are aimed at. We're going to simply ignore them for now.

New

Panini released the Score set for the first time, with 200 Base cards and lots of extras and variations. The issue for collectors is that to collect the extras you have to buy loads of packets, usually a box at a time, meaning you end up with lots of copies of the Base cards. So a set of 200 Base cards currently sells for 20GBP on eBay as there are simply so many of them out there. Panini and Topps have changed the mindset of collecting now to be a needle in a haystack hunt for the cards that are designed to be rare. Great for them, but feels like a bubble that will eventually burst.

End of an Era

As Panini's 5 year licence with the Premier League came to end, Fanatics announced they had won the bidding war to produce cards and stickers for the following season.