1979 Prodifu Spider-Man Stickers
This massive set of stickers was produced in France/Belgium, and is (I believe) the first ever set of numbered trading stickers dedicated exclusively to Spider-Man. The year of production is not printed on the packets nor the box. Late 70's is generally accepted.
Five stickers per pack, 300 numbered stickers in the set. Each rectangular sticker is 2¼" x 1½" although within that sticker is an oval-shaped sticker die-cut sticker which is intended to be removed (leaving an outer frame). The back of the sticker is blank card with literally only the number stamped on it.
Notice the words "Heidi", or "Goldorak" on the back of the packet. These are the names of two other popular TV cartoon shows (both Japanese anime) promoted in Europe by Prodifu during that era. The pouches were unsealed at the top, so you can simply pick them up and shake out the stickers.
The cutting of the stickers is not very accurate. There is no border around the stickers, and the die-cut regularly misses the the image boundary by one or two millimetres. This appears to be consistent, i.e. when a die-cut misses a boundary on a sticker, it seems to miss it in the same way on all copies of that same sticker number.
The "correct" orientation is not always possible to determine for some stickers. I have simply oriented the stickers according the number on the back, all in portrait mode. I have not attempted to identify landscape mode orientation. Nor have I attempted to correct stickers which appear to be upside-down.
The stickers are not intended to be complete images by themselves. Most of them show only a fraction of a character, and indeed many of them show no character at all, merely unidentifiable scene background. See for example stickers 21-25 – taken in isolation, each of these stickers show nothing of interest at all – merely a muddy mess.
One hundred packets (500 stickers) in a box. The distribution of these stickers is very regular. I purchased a box and received one complete set, plus 200 more unique stickers. There was no less than one copy of each sticker in the box, and no more than two copies.
Here is the accompanying sticker album:
