Punk rock trading cards from 1977
Jonathan Richman
In 1977 a Dutch company called Monty put out a set of trading cards under the name “Punk: The New Wave.” Included in the set were punk-era stalwarts like the Dictators, Blondie, Elvis Costello, the Jam, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the New York Dolls; Dutch acts like Gruppo Sportivo and Normaal; and a handful of acts who clearly didn’t belong in any set of punk rock cards, like Dwight Twilley and KISS.
In a package you’d get six cards and a bright pink strip of gum. The packaging looked like this:
Unfortunately, there’s no place on the Internet (until now!) where a large number of these cards can be seen, so it was necessary to grab (almost invariably rather small) images from a few dozen individual auction pages. The quality of the images leaves something to be desired, so someone out there who might own this set–upload some better scans, please!
Blondie
The Clash
Johnny Rotten
Heartbreaker
The Dictators
New York Dolls
Elvis Costello
The Jam
Heartbreaker
Johnny Rotten
Blondie
Lou Reed
The Sex Pistols
The Stranglers
Blondie
Mink DeVille
Heartbreaker
Johnny Rotten
The Jam
Elvis Costello
Johnny Rotten
The Dictators
Gruppo Sportivo
Normaal
Heartbreaker