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Bear's Grrreatest Games (UK cards)
The Yoyo Bear Grrreatest Games cards first appeared in the UK in December 2019. The cards are in Landscape format, with the numbers marked on the front. In January 2020, they also made their first appearance in the USA. The games chosen for the UK and US sets are identical although the naming of certain sports differs across the Atlantic. Between the two sets, there are variations to the formatting throughout, and to the textual content on the reverse. At some point international cards were also released.
It did appear that with this set, Bear was attempting to unify the offerings across both sides of the Atlantic. In the end, things didn't quite work out that way, in no small measure to Covid-19, and then latterly the supply-chain effects of Brexit ..... but thank you Bear for trying.
The set consists of 50 cards, each representing one sport or game. The sports and games are split into 10 categories: Adventure Sport; Aquatic Sports; Strength & Agility; Ball Sports; Extreme Sport; Winter Sport; Mind Sport; Activity Sport; Race Sports and Track & Field Sports. This set introduces a number of commentators including Harry Hopper and Milly McRibbet.
The shiny cards appeared in the UK in early April 2020. Like the previous Curious Quest series, they are gold, and as predicted, the cards are numbered 3, 6, 11, 19, 21, 27, 35, 37, 42 and 48. This corresponds to one gold medal card for each of the sports categories. The collection finished in the UK in December 2020*, but continued in the USA and internationally for at least another year.
* Just when we looking forward to the final release of cards from the Animals (2021) set, towards the end of 2021, the Greatest Games cards came back again to the UK! Not the ones we had before, but the US cards! Given that we were now, mostly happily, collecting the Animal cards this came as a big blow. In reality, after a month had passed, they were gone again and we were glad the Animals cards again, including some new ones.
SHOCK HORROR. Alas, in January 2021, the Greatest Games were resurrected for a second time. We could have screamed!!!!! To make matters worse, these cards were different - they were completely devoid of writing, and had half images on the back. Having collected the UK and US sets, was this a third set that we need to collect? I think I am ready to crack!
In the meantime, the front of two of the new style cards are shown below:
This set devoid of writing is now known as the international set. What is also highly unusual about these cards, is that for the first time ever, the orientation of the front and back does not match.
The reverse of three of the cards are shown below (note the portrait orientation):
In the UK, at least, there is a card keeper and stickers, which can be obtained by emailing Bear Headquarters. As of late January 2020, these have already been posted to several collectors.
The image below shows the first six UK cards. Hovering the mouse over the numbers below (or tapping numbers if on a tablet or phone) will display the remaining pages.
| 1-6 | 7-12 | 13-18 | 19-24 | 25-30 | 31-36 | 37-42 | 43-48 | 49-50 |
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Continue to the next page, BEAR'S GREATEST GAMES US series.
