History of Merchante Spanish Trading Cards and Albums

Merchante Spanish NBA Trading Cards are among the most scarce basketball cards ever made. They were only printed and distributed in Spain and were meant to be stuck on an album hence 99.9% of them are stuck to albums and finding unstuck cards is very rare. Most basketball collectors don't know the existence of these cards so they are extremely undervalued, making them a great investment opportunity.

This page is a tribute to this collection and a way to make more known these cards for the NBA vintage collectors all over the world.

J. Merchante was a Spanish trading cards brand from 1983 to 1992. They focused their production mostly on sports albums like soccer, cycling, basketball, formula one, but have other interesting ones like La Pandilla Basura "Garbage Pail Kids".
The most important albums produced were the ones focused on Basketball. They were the first company to release basketball trading cards in 1984 and kept printing and releasing cards until 1988. There are 5 basketball albums released:

1984: Campeonato Baloncesto Liga 84-85
1985: Campeonato Baloncesto Liga 85-86 (with NBA cards)
1986: Campeonato de Liga Baloncesto 86-87 (with NBA cards)
1987: Baloncesto 88 (with NBA cards)
1988: Baloncesto Liga 89

The main focus for collectors is the 3 albums from 1985 to 1987. Those albums include a section of trading cards from the most important NBA players of those years. The most important one is Michael Jordan, but we can find others like David Robinson, Oscar Schmidt, Akeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Abdul Jabbar among others. The gem cards are the NBA players rookie cards printed by Merchante. Keep reading for the Spanish NBA Rookie full list.

Basketball was not a very popular game in Spain until in 1984 Spain was a Silver medal in the Los Angeles Olympic games. Playing the final against the USA with the final result of USA 96 –  Spain 65. From that point, Basketball sprung interest among the youngest and kids were playing basketball anywhere possible and buying the new Albums and Magazines available in the market. Merchante was the first editor to understand this trend and released the first 100% dedicated basketball album in 1984.

American players were so popular that in the 1985 album they decided to include a final album page with American NBA and other international players that achieve relevance during Olympic games. That's the first printed Michael Jordan card in Spain, 1985 Michael Jordan Rookie Card.

Early Merchante cards are very easy to distinguish for the retro design that makes them unique. 1985 and 1986 cards have NBA player pictures bordered with stars. Those stars can be found in 1985 and 1986 cards. Those cards are printed on thick cardboard and do not have the standard size of American trading cards. The front print is not laminated so borders are easily damaged and rounded if manipulated. Usually, kids carry them in their pockets so most of the unstuck ones lack sharp corners. Sharp corners are almost impossible to find. If you find one buy it!
Most of the cards have centering issues and some are Miscut. Standards were not very important at that moment. I guess they never thought that some of these cards would be extremely valuable in the future. Spain has a big tradition on cards, chocolate cards and soccer cards were very important but never achieved an investing grade until recently this year 2020 when Messi Rookie cards skyrocketed.

These albums got sponsorship from different brands in different years. From 1984 to 1985 the sponsor was CLESA and LETONA. From 1986 to 1987 was CONVERSE. The sponsoring brand was displayed at the back of the trading card. Often these Spanish cards are labeled or named as the sponsor and the color of the back. Further explanation ahead.

This album and the LETONA one include the first Michael Jordan Card or Spanish Rookie Card. Both albums were released at the same time but in different areas of Spain. CLESA cards have a logo and RED BACK and LETONA cards have a logo and a BLUE BACK. LETONA Michael Jordan Rookie Cards are by far more scarce than CLESA ones. I will explain it in the next block.

CLESA was a milk and yogurt producer from Spain. At the time they were competing with multiple kinds of milk and yogurt brands and part of the marketing budget was dedicated to brand awareness in tv and radio ads. As part of that brand awareness, CLESA was sponsoring the Ferrol Team named CLESA FERROL. Makes sense that they saw sponsoring the albums as a good way of spreading the brand around the Spanish territory.

This album was focused on the Spanish Basketball league. All league teams and players are present in this album. Some of the important Spanish players of the time are San Epifanio "EPI", Fernando Martin, Chicho Sibilio, or Corbalan. But the main interest is the last page of the album that include 12 International players trading Cards:
#168 Kareem Abdul Jabbar, #169 Drazen Petrovic ROOKIE CARD, #170 Larry Bird,  #171 Arvydas Sabonis ROOKIE CARD, #172 Fernando Martin, #173 Michael Jordan ROOKIE CARD,  #174 Vladimir Tkachenko, #175 San Epifanio Epi, #176 Erving Magic Johnson, #177 Detlef Schrempf ROOKIE CARD, #178 Byron Scott ERROR Card,  #179 Alexander Volkov ROOKIE CARD.

I've read that the 1986 Fleer card is considered the first Michael Jordan Rookie card since previous Michael Jordan cards were part of sets and not distributed in all American regions as it happens with Fleer collections. If we take that assumption as the base to decide the rookie card then this Merchante 1985 Michael Jordan Card is a true Rookie Card since this card was distributed randomly in the wax packs of the time.

The card displays an image of Michael Jordan with the black t-shirt worn by the USA Gold Olympic winners team. The card is riveted with blue stars. The back of the card displays the CLESA logo and the number 173 with M. Jordan.
This is a cardboard card, not a sticker. Was meant to stick it to the album with glue. most of the cards available have been removed from the album and have sticker residues or paper loss.

Sale Statistics
This Album is very rare to be available for sale even in Spain. As I mentioned before basketball was not a popular game back then. Soccer was the main interest in young people. That's the reason why there are so few albums available.

Sales: No more than 50 Albums have been sold online during the last 15 years

This album was released in 3 regions of the Spanish territory, Catalonia, Valencia, and Murcia. LETONA was a milk brand of Catalonia and was bought by CLESA in 19

78. LETONA had an extremely popular product in their portfolio, a chocolate milkshake called CACAOLAT. It was so popular in Catalonia territories that they sponsored a national league team called GRANOLLERS CACAOLAT. Granollers competed in the Spanish basketball league with CLESA FERROL. Due to the brand awareness in the Mediterranean area, CLESA decided to get the best out of it. That's the reason why LETONA has it's own 1985 Basketball Album branded. There are 17 regions in Spain, 3 released LETONA albums and cards, and 14 released CLESA Albums and cards. That's why LETONA basketball trading cards are much more scarce than CLESA.

This album includes the same players as the CLESA one, but the cover of the album and the publicity are different. The cover displays a different image with a Cacaolat Granollers player.

The cards in this album have a BLUE BACK with LETONA logo. Aside from that fact cards remain exactly the same.

Sale Statistics
This Album is extremely rare to be available for sale even in Spain.

Sales: No more than 30 Albums have been sold online during the last 15 years.

1986 was a tipping point for basketball in Spain as it was the year of the FIBA Basketball World Cup organized and hosted in Spain.  Due to a good performance in the 1984 Olympic games of the Spanish National Team, everybody was super pumped about the chances of the Spanish team in the world cup. The USA was the winner in a very tight game against USSR. Drazen Petrovic was declared MVP of the tournament.

The album keeps the format of the predecessors. All Spanish league teams are present but the last pages of the album are dedicated to the best players of the "Mundobasket" Basketball World Cup and 2 special pages with the best NBA players of that season.

The cards have a different design. Are vertical designed with two images of the player, one image of the face, and one action play image. NBA players cards have a special NBA LOGOMAN on the up left corner and the player image is bordered with blue and red stars. The overall appeal of the design is super retro, totally 80's. Personally, I love how these cards display and are among my favourite ones. I'm sure as more collectors around the world discover these cards they will increase in value as at the moment (Dec 2020) they are grossly undervalued. I hope this page and the information I will add will help to get the recognition this, and other Spanish sets, deserve.

The most valuable card is #163 Michael Jordan. As mentioned before finding one unstuck is unbelievable rare.

Some of the cards of this album are great. Lots of rookie cards and very interesting ones. A total of  12 ROOKIE CARDS can be found on this album:
#140 Tyrone Muggsy Bogues
#143 Oscar Schmidt
#145 Valery Tikhonenko
#147 Kenny Smith
#150 David Robinson
#163 Michael Jordan
#164 Isiah Thomas
#166 Spud Webb
#169 James Worthy
#170 Dominique Wilkins
#173 Akeem Olajuwon
#174 Ralph Sampson

Click the card of your interest to know sale statistics, facts, and for sale cards
Aside from the mentioned rookie cards the set includes super nice and interesting cards  of other great NBA Players like Abdul Jabbar, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Artis Gilmore, Ralph Sampson

This is the last album that has NBA players. Probably Panini got the image rights of the NBA and that was the end for Merchante  NBA cards. This album is the first one to use stickers instead of cardboard cards. The back of the stickers has the Converse logo and a snicker from the brand.

The NBA players appear in two different parts of the album, the "DUNK PLAYERS" and the "ASES DE LA NBA"
Michael Jordan has two different stickers in this album, number  #113 and number #146. These two are very rare too although not as the previous ones for 1985-1986. The "ASES DE LA NBA" has a total of 42 stickers, and the "DUNK PLAYERS" 6 stickers.  In this collection, we can find the first Charles Barkley card and Manute Bol Card.

OTHER NBA BASKETBALL SPANISH ALBUMS FROM 1987-1989
During the same period of time, three sports magazines released several NBA Basketball albums. I have reviewed them on other pages. All these collections include several Michael Jordan exclusive stickers. All of them ultra-rare. I recommend visit these pages and learn more about these Spanish NBA Gems:
1987 GIGANTES DE LA NBA
1988 ESTRELLAS DE LA NBA
1989 LOS 100 GIGANTES DE LA NBA
1989 ASES DE LA NBA