SERIES 31
TERRIFIC TRANSFERS

Corinthian's first release of 2006 was ProStars Series 31 Terrific Transfers which features 12 players who moved during the 2005 Summer transfer window.

 

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The 2 big Japanese stars both moved clubs, which was a dream for Corinthian especially when it was to a club they held a license for. Shunsuke Nakamura moved to Celtic, with Corinthian making a staggering 11,829 blisters which is of course the highest in this series and actually accounts for over 20% of the entire series run.

 

 

It also needs to be mentioned that Corinthian also released this Nakamura figure in a Celtic club blister which was sold exclusively in the Celtic club shop. Corinthian made no reference to this blister in any literature i have seen and it was something i only became aware of in the Summer of 2020 as i spotted it buried in a job lot on Ebay. The figure is identical however the collector card is different so for those who collect cards this is a variant to chase, though my personal feelings are that this is the rarest regular released ProStars blister. At the time of writing i have only seen 2 for sale, both of which are in my personal collection.

 

 

Hidetoshi Nakata transferred to Bolton Wanderers with Corinthian wasting no time in releasing yet another Nakata figure, with 6,948 blisters being produced.

 

 

We have a new body pose figure of Edgar Davids, here in the Tottenham Hotspur home kit, with there being 4,969 blisters. For Newcastle United we have a fresh sculpt of Michael Owen with Corinthian making 4,070 blisters, with this figure begrudgingly being part of my collection.

 

Shaun Wright-Phillips is released in the Chelsea home kit, with 3,349 blisters and the sculpt is the same as seen in Series 26. The lowest blister production figure in the series is of first time sculpt Alexander Hleb for Arsenal, with there being only 2,637 blisters made.

 

 

With a great touch for a big man, Peter Crouch makes his ProStars debut in the Liverpool home kit, and interestingly he is actually the second lowest blister volume in the series with just 2,698 produced which explains why he can be sometimes elusive to locate. This sculpt of Crouch would not be used by Corinthian again.

 

 

My favourite from this series is Manchester United's Ji-Sung Park, this was the very first ProStars figure of Park and the only one Corinthian would release of him for United, his only other ProStars release would be in the 2006 Convention Series in South Korea home kit. Corinthian made 8,864 blisters and despite that amount he can still be tricky to find such is the demand for this figure.

 

 

Mark Van Bommel was released for the first time, here in the kit of Barcelona and with there being 3,722 blisters, the away kit figure of Van Bommel would be included in the Barcelona Champions Of Europe 2006 Team Pack.

 

 

The final 3 figures are all from Italy's Serie A, we have Patrick Vieira for Juventus with 3,082 blisters, Alberto Gilardino for AC Milan with 4,432 blisters and for Inter Milan there is Luis Figo with 5,152 blisters.

 

 

In total Corinthian made 61,752 blisters for Series 31 Terrific Transfers, which was almost 20,000 more than Series 30, with an average blister production of 5,146 which was the highest since Series 25.

 

 

Corinthian produced 2 special redemption figures for Series 31 Terrific Transfers, which are Edgar Davids for Tottenham Hotspur and Hidetoshi Nakata for Bolton Wanderers, both in their respective club away kits. 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.

 

 

Series 31 Terrific Transfers was released on the 23rd January 2006, with blisters priced at £3 each and Corinthian also made the series available in a case assortment, which contained all 12 blisters and 1 platinum pack, with the case assortment costing £36.

 

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 an individually numbered collector card with just 360 of each being produced.

 

 

On the subject of Platinum Packs something to mention is that there is a variant version of Edgar Davids in Tottenham Hotspur home kit, which actually features him without his glasses! This is not intentional and is a factory error but a nice variant to chase and i think only a handful actually exist.