Ali cards

[Bored5000]

Thanks for the informative thread, Adam. On a general note, I have always thought the Ali vs. Superman card was a great card. I actually like the Simon Chocolates card the best of all the early Ali cards because of the image.

[Exhibitman]

Here are my favorite Ali cards.

This card was issued in Israel around 1970 and says "Cassius Clay (Boxing)" in Hebrew:



My second favorite is this one. Great image:



Here is the Shindana card (right) with a cabinet sized version that was discovered recently. I don't know the reason for the larger card but there are others from the set known including a card of the 1968 Olympics protestors with different artwork than the regular card.

[Exhibitman]

Has anyone noticed a variation on the 1966 Panini card? I have been looking at them and see that some have a light background and some are dark. Here is a dark one:



and a light one:



I've seen the regular backs in light and dark. The valida backs so far are only dark but they are tough to find so my sample base isn't very broad.

[wrestlingcardking]

I have noticed that for quite some time and wasn't real sure what to make of the difference. I found the dark backgrounds first and then later I started to see the lighter backgrounds appear......i was buying these cards about 15 years ago before all the sellers from Italy started to put them up for themselves on ebay......at first i was thinking the light backgrounds were knock offs of some kind although I really do not think that way today.

[scooter729]

I had nearly 20 of the '66 Clay cards from as strong of a first-hand source as possible - someone who worked at Panini in the 1960s. All of them were the dark version. (There were no Validas among the group.) I've noticed the difference as well in the light / dark version, and can't theorize why it is - but only can say that of the bunch which I had that came directly from the factory, they were all dark.