A trading card featuring Swiss actress Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in 1962’s ‘Dr. No.’
“James? Take me ’round the world one more time.”
—Holly Goodhead (played by actress Lois Chiles) in Moonraker, 1979
The cultural phenomenon surrounding fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond started in 1953 when author Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel Casino Royale was published. Over the course of the next 65 years, Fleming’s books and short stories featuring the exploits of James Bond would become blockbuster films which made actors like Sean Connery and Daniel Craig into international stars. As legendary as Bond is, the women 007 found himself entangled with (in more ways than one) are just as legendary.
In 2003 trading card maker Rittenhouse put out a set of Bond trading cards called Bond Girls are Forever. Each pack contained twenty different black and white images of Bond girls along with their character name and another photo on the back. This collection was a companion set to the super groovy lenticular card set Women of James Bond in Motion. Additional cards related to the series saw the light of day in other Bond-themed card sets such as The Quotable James Bond, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Complete James Bond.
Here’s the thing—if you’re into collecting trading cards some of the ones I’ve mentioned in this post can be elusive and expensive once/if you track them down. This is especially true when it comes to the Bond Girls Are Forever set which I’ve seen going for nearly 500 bucks on eBay. In the case of Ursula Andress and her famous white bikini from Dr. No, Andress’ single card can run you more than 70 dollars—or roughly the price of an actual bikini.
A selection of Bond girl trading cards below—some are slightly NSFW.
The iconic Grace Jones as May Day from 1985’s ‘A View to a Kill.’
Bonita the belly dancer at the El Scorpio night club played by actress Nadja Regin in the pre-title sequence of the 1964 James Bond film ‘Goldfinger.’
More after the jump…
