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Buongiorno collectors ! This article concerns Italian issued figures (*Originally written in 2003 but revised in 2009) The first Corinthian Italian blisterpacks were of "Serie
A" club players and were released in March 1997 They featured many of the great "Serie A" players
of that time, many who like Casiraghi, Desailly, Schwarz, Weah,
Deschamps, Karembeu and Boksic have since played in England making
them even more popular here in the U.K. The fact that many of these 50 or so figures were never
released again in different kits (as so many other Corinthian figures
seem to be!) has helped to retain their valuation in today's ever
fluctuating market Unfortunately Corinthian have declined to help me with
actual manufacturing quantities as it is "Against their policy"
and as the CRV valuations in their publications don't always reflect
the true current market values of many of these figures I have endeavoured
to estimate their values purely by my own personal experiences in
trading these figures/blisterpacks. Discounting the figure of SER044 Christian Karembeu (Sampdoria)
The three rarest and most sought after "Serie A"
figures seem to be :~ SER048 Kennet Andersson (Bologna) *see
picture below SER086 Stefan Schwarz (Fiorentina) and SER060 Giovanni Stroppa (Udinese) If you are ever fortunate enough to come across either
of these figures, expect to pay £70+ for a loose figure or £100+
for a good condition blisterpack! You will seldom encounter a Kennet Andersson figure in
blisterpack and only on rare occasions, Giovanni Stroppa or Stefan
Schwarz in blisterpack (Stroppa seems to be the more scarce of the
three) Virtually every major worldwide collector that I trade with has at least on of these figures on their "wants lists" … but more recently (2008/09) the Kennet Andersson figures seem to be more readily available and collectors seem to be finding it difficult to locate the figures of Stefan Schwarz (Fiorentina) & Nicola Amoruso (Juventus) The production quantities were originally thought to
have been extremely low on these figures but more recent revelations
in 2003 have established that a good number of these "Serie
A" blisterpacks are "stored" in a warehouse in Italy
(a friend of mine has seen them). Perhaps one day Corinthian will
tell us just exactly how many were manufactured The next batch of rare "Serie A" figures listed
below (in order of scarcity and with approximate blisterpack current
market values by them) seem to be as follows :~ SER047 Nicola Amoruso (Juventus) £60+ SER012 Pierlughi Casiraghi (Lazio) £50 SER049 Domenico Morfeo (Atalanta) £50 SER095 Andre Cruz (Napoli) £50 SER050 Marcelo Otero (Vicenza) £30+ Do you notice how of the eight rarest figures, five of
these were the ONLY figure manufactured for that particular "Serie
A" club? Bologna, Udinese, Atalanta, Napoli and Vicenza!
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