Behind The Scenes

Wacky Packages Eyeglass Cases

While at the Chicagoland Show last weekend, a dealer showed us a case of 25 Wacky Packages eyeglass cases. They showed silk-screened images of Wackys from series 1 through 4. They were not all alike and 14 to 16 different products were used. The dealer.

By Sep 23,2011  1

While at the Chicagoland Show last weekend, a dealer showed us a case of 25 Wacky Packages eyeglass cases. They showed silk-screened images of Wackys from series 1 through 4. They were not all alike and 14 to 16 different products were used. The dealer obtained them from the wife of an optometrist and since they were a size for children’s glasses, it seemed like they might be authentic as Wacky Packages were originally intended for children. They also had a protective silk for the glasses.

The two sides of one of the Wacky Packages eyeglass cases

The two sides of one of the Wacky Packages eyeglass cases

We never saw these before and wondered if they were truly a licensed product because there was no copyright on the cases or on the box they came in. The title on the box was “Crazy Case”—not Wacky Packages. In the 1970s, there were licensed T-shirts, notebook covers, beach towels and several other products but the eye glass cases have never turned up before.

Long-time Topps employee Len Brown was working at Topps during the heyday of Wacky Packages in the mid-1970s. When questioned regarding these, he responded “Topps would never have let it be called Crazy Case. A licensee would have had to use a Wacky logo and have a Topps copyright somewhere on the product. I would certainly say thumbs down on the eye glass cases.”

We sent Topps artist Jay Lynch a picture of the cases and his response was, “I don’t know for sure but it looks like they were made out of pre-existing cloth which had Wackys printed on it. If Topps licensed the cloth, any person could buy the cloth and make stuff out of it without legally having any reason to pay Topps for the license. This would only apply to the cloth and not items made from the cloth for resale. It looks to me like the cloth itself is a knock off since the printing appears to have been done by a crude silk screen method. You can hardly make out the names of the products and Topps would never approve something done so crudely.”

When asked about the eye glass cases, Mike Jaspersen from The Topps Vault responded, “From what I’ve been told, we did not issue a license for this product.”

The current owner of the cases does not want to break up the box of 25 and feels they are worth $2,500. He had a couple of extras and traded one for an approximate $300 in value. Even if they are not licensed, the cases are certainly appealing to Wacky Packages collectors.

The dealer's case of the Wacky Packages eyeglass cases

The dealer's case of the Wacky Packages eyeglass cases

The box lid where you can clearly read "Crazy Case"

The box lid where you can clearly read "Crazy Case"

 

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1 Comment

  • Kt September 28, 2011 Reply

    Great story. I have one of these eyeglass cases that I obtained on eBay about 10 years ago. A

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