SERIES 17

The 2002 Corinthian Convention took place at Villa Park on the 25th & 26th of May and was the launch date for ProStars Series 17, with collectors who attended the event able to be amongst the first to add these to their collection.

 

​

ProStars Series 17 was all set to make Corinthian history, as Corinthian made public they had at long last acquired the required license to release figures from Real Madrid! Series 17 was set to include Roberto Carlos, Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Raul in Real Madrid Champions League kit, however at the absolute last minute this licensing agreement was cancelled due to image rights relating to the players, leaving Corinthian and it's collectors community devastated!

 

 

The rumour has also been that the 4 Real Madrid figures were already packed in blisters and ready to be shipped, with the stock having to be destroyed, Over the years a few of these Madrid figures have appeared and of course it is impossible to validate them as being genuine and authentic.

 

 

It is also plausible that as with some of the unreleased FAPL Collection figures these also 'escaped' the factory but of course they do not form part of the collection and have to be classified as unreleased, with their PRO collector codes being PRO623, PR624, PRO625 and PRO626, it will also break collectors heart to know Corinthian also planned to release a Real Madrid 12 figure team pack!

 

 

So with the Real Madrid figures cancelled we are down to Series 17 featuring just 12 figures, however the line up does not disappoint and reads like a who is who of world football. For Arsenal we have Thierry Henry in home kit, David Beckham and Juan Sebastian Veron are in Manchester United away kit, with Michael Owen being in Liverpool Champions League home kit.

 

 

Spain's La Liga sole representative is Rivaldo in the home kit of Barcelona, the remaining 7 players all come from Italy's Serie A. For Roma we have Gabriel Batistuta in away kit and Francesco Totti is in the excellent Roma Champions League kit.

 

 

A new sculpt of Alessandro Del Piero is in Juventus home kit, while for Lazio we have Hernan Crespo in home kit and Alessandro Nesta is in Champions League home kit, with the Nesta being a first time sculpt.

 

 

Completing the series we have 2 players for AC Milan, Paolo Maldini is in third kit and a new sculpt of Filippo Inzaghi is in home kit.

 

 

Corinthian produced 2 special redemption figures for Series 17, which see Raul in the Spain away kit and Thierry Henry in Arsenal away kit, these figures were not available for direct sale, only by collecting the tokens found on the collectors information leaflets in Series 17, however Corinthian did not state how many of each were produced and they did not make platinum packs for those redemption figures. The original plan was to have Raul in Real Madrid 3rd kit, however due to the Real Madrid license falling through this had to be changed.

 

 

Series 17 was launched at the 2002 Corinthian Convention, which took place at Villa Park on the 25th and 26th of May, with blister packs being available in collector centres from 10th June 2002, with blisters priced at £3 each and you could also order the figures from Corinthian Direct as figure and card in sachet for £2.49. Included in each pack was the figures collector card and Corinthian ran a free redemption figure offer, with 6 tokens needed to claim one of the special redemption figures.

 

 

Along with the regular blister packs, Corinthian produced something special called the Platinum Pack, these were produced in much lower numbers and not available for direct sale, they were given away free for money spent with Corinthian Direct. The figures are identical to those in the standard blister but are on a Silver base and assigned a PP (Platinum Pack) collector code, which was the same code as the PRO version, with the figure then placed on a specially designed Platinum Pack blister card, coming with collector card stating it was produced in quantities no higher 360.

 

 

Corinthian did not make public how many of each blister pack were produced, only to say that the best seller in the series was of course Golden Balls in Golden kit David Beckham. The ones made in the lowest volume were Maldini, Crespo, Nesta and Henry.