Spain's version of Lisa Frank
When I was young my sisters and I were wild for Lisa Frank. We had folders, Trapper Keepers, pencils, backpacks, keychains and most importantly stickers. You remember her designs. They mostly involved bright, obnoxious colors, dolphins, unicorns or dogs. We collected everything and stuck the stickers everywhere. You couldn't show your face at school if you didn't have something by Lisa Frank.
Apparently here in Spain when Jose was young he also collected stickers called cromos. They are very similar to baseball cards in that they have soccer players faces and stats on them. (Surprise, surprise Jose started very young with his soccer obsession). He would collect them and very carefully put them into the correct spaces in the book that came out each season, which was divided by teams. His goal was to get each player and it was a way for him to learn about the league. Really it is a good advertising ploy.
Somehow these magazine type books have made it into our apartment. There is a whole stack of them starting in the early '90s which is unfortunately after the soccer players' mullet era. Jose claims that they are now worth a lot of money. I am not sure I believe him. However, if there is a market out there for these cromo/stickers his books must be worth something since he was meticulous about his collection even as a child.
I know that this collecting was an activity that Jose would do with his dad. They would look for the cromo/stickers that he was missing and would talk about the players and teams together. If Jose and I have a son in the future I know that he looks forward to starting another collection together. I have a feeling he will enjoy it more than the child. If we have a girl someday I hope she will gravitate more towards Lisa Frank girly things but let's be honest, she will probably be a soccer fan as well. Que sera, sera I guess.
Cromo sounds more like pogs than Lisa Frank. She cannot be touched. Chrissie said that Lisa Frank's plane key is on a Lisa Frank keychain.
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