Why is the 1988 Quaker Dipps set so awesome?

Oddball food issue? Check

Actual scarcity? Check

Checklist packed with nostalgia? Super-Check!

Quaker and I have a long and wonderful relationship when it comes to cards. Back in 1986, the Quaker Granola Bars MLB baseball cards were some of the first food issue cards I chased down. If I would have lived in Canada during the late 80s, these Quaker Dipps cards would have been right up my alley!

The Canadian Quaker Dipps set contains 18 cards and were found in three card panels right on the back of 6 different packages of Quaker Dipps Granola Bars.

The checklist contains a great mix of wrestlers from the era with Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Randy Macho Man Savage to name a few. However, the most significant name is probably The Ultimate Warrior. His card in this set is one of the first Ultimate Warrior cards released.

Another thing I love about this set is its scarcity. Most likely due to the nature of it being on the back of food packaging and many of the cards being hand cut, not too many copies of these cards survived.

I first learned about the set from a conversation with Zhan Mourning during a podcast episode and I was instantly interested. I did a quick eBay Search and was able to pick up a couple lots of the 1988 and 1989 sets, but after that initial purchase, these have been pretty non-existent. I was stuck on having about 14 of the 18 cards for a couple years. I had eBay alerts set, checked card shows, posted my set needs on message boards, and they were nowhere to be found. There were only one or two listings I missed out on over that two year period. These cards don’t have to rely on a manufactured serial number to be “scarce”, they are legitimately hard to find!

Recently there were a few full panel complete sets up on eBay and I was fortunately able to snag one! You can check out the photos below. I’m still going to try and pick up the remaining “singles” I need so I can have both a full panel set and a hand cut set, so if you have any of these I’d like to chat!