SERIES 24

The EURO 2004 Championship was hosted by Portugal and Corinthian released a tournament themed series on the 19th April 2004 with 16 figures included, one for each nation participating in the tournament.

 

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David Beckham introduced yet another new hair style, which of course meant Corinthian would do a new sculpt of Becks, featuring here in England home kit, with him being the highest volume blister in this series with 10,639 and would prove to be the best seller in the series.

 

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Cristiano Ronaldo got back to back series releases, here in Portugal home kit with 6,043 blisters released and would be amongst the top sellers in the series. For France we have Thierry Henry, with Corinthian making 7,159 blisters, and we have Pavel Nedved for the Czech Republic with 7,135 blisters made.

 

 

Ruud Van Nistelrooy got an all new sculpt and he was the second highest volume, with 8,407 blisters, with Raul in Spain away kit being the 3rd highest with 7,507 blisters.

 

 

Michael Ballack was released in a regular ProStars Series fort the first time, his first Corinthian appearance was as part of the International Tournament Greats Series, he features in Series 24 in Germany away kit with just 3,895 blisters made. For Denmark we have Jon Dahl Tomasson with 3,331 blisters and Corinthian made 5,509 blisters of Filippo Inzaghi in Italy home kit.

 

 

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sculpted for the very first time, released in Sweden home kit with Corinthian making 5,131 blisters. Corinthian would use this sculpt for every other Ibrahimovic release.

 

 

The remaining 6 figures were all made in the same low volume of 2,431 blisters each, 5 of which were first time sculpts and 3 of those would never be released again. For Croatia we have Dado Prso, he would make only one other regular ProStars appearance which would be in Series 32. Stilian Petrov for Bulgaria was the same sculpt as seen in Series 22 and this would be the final appearance of Petrov in the ProStars range.

 

 

Greece shocked the world by battling to win the tournament, the Greece figure released in Series 24 is Stelios Giannakopoulos, his only other ProStars appearance would be in Series 39, which was a EURO 2008 tournament range.

 

 

The final 3 figures are all first time sculpts that Corinthian would never release again, we have Alexi Smertin for Russia, Hakan Yakin for Switzerland and for Latvia we have the Latvian Michael Owen in Marian Pahars.

 

 

In total Corinthian made 79,342 blisters for Series 24 which considerably higher than Series 23 and around the same levels as Series 22 and The Stars Of The Season 2002/3 Series.

 

 

Corinthian produced 2 special redemption figures for Series 24, which are Ruud Van Nistlerooy in Holland away kit and David Beckham in England away kit. Collectors were able to directly purchase the redemption figures, which were priced at £5 and came in clear sachet with a non numbered collector card, you could still collect the tokens and claim the redemption figures that way.

 

 

Series 23 was released on the 19th April 2004, with blisters priced at £3 each and included in each pack was the figures collector card and Corinthian ran a free redemption figure offer, with 8 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.