TELL ME A 'SPOOK STORY'

Imagine this, Monster Millennials: As a Monster Kid in the 1960's, you didn't have the luxury of on-demand monster movies to watch whenever you wanted to. If you were lucky, your parents let you stay up and watch the late-night shows hosted by assorted and sundry witches, warlocks and just plain weirdos. Luckier still were the early evening monster movies that were shown during the week of Halloween. Later on, some of the shows were broadcast (in L.A. anyway) on weekend afternoons, but that was it until videotape showed up. All we had were monster magazines and a few toys and games (including the Aurora monster models) to remind us of the fun scares that we got watching TV.

That is, until 1962 when Leaf Brands introduced the "Spook Stories" trading cards. A year earlier, Nucard released a set with photos from American International and other B-movie distributors, but Spook Stories were the first cards to feature the famous monsters we knew and loved from Universal. Plus, the card stock was thick, sturdy and glossy, too.

The series came in two sets for a total of 144 cards. The wrappers came in two colors, orange and purple, and had the title, Spook Theatre. We never referred to them as that; to us they were just simply, "monster cards"!

Following is from the October issue of NON-SPORT UPDATE, which includes a short history of these legendary trading cards. 

Sample cards (front).

Sample cards (back).

Sample stickers.

Card box and wax packs.

Card wax wrappers. Images are from the collection of Hepcat.