NORWAY NATIONAL

In May of 1998, Corinthian released a set of 12 figures painted in the Norwegian national home kit. They were released as part of Corinthians Headliner range and released under the banner of ‘Norges Tropp’

 

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The Norwegian Headliners really are a superb set, with 6 of the figures never produced again by Corinthian, those 6 of course being- Rekdal, Rudi, Solbakken, Grodas, Haland and Mykland. All 6 were original 1-off sculpts and fine sculpts they are too. The mykland is a particular favourite of mine purely for his beard. I also like the strong facial sculpt of Solbakken and the Haland figure has a lot of character too.

 

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From the other 6 released as part of the set, we also saw a whole new sculpt of Bjornebye and this version is far superior in my opinion to the one released for Liverpool as part of the FAPL range. The very first sculpt of Solskjaer also appeared and for me this too was never bettered by Corinthian. Making up the set are Berg, Leonhardsen, Johnsen and Flo. The Berg was a first time sculpt as was the Flo and Johnsen but the Leonhardsen had previously been released for Wimbledon in the FAPL range.

 

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All 12 Norway Headliners figures are very rare due to the low production volumes and it is believed that these were produced in even lower volume than the likes of Stroppa, Schwarz and Andersson! These figures were released on a variety of packaging formats, with all 12 figures being released as single blisters, 2 different 4 player packs were produced, along with a 12-player team pack.

 

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The 12-player pack is for me without doubt the most rare of all the pre1999 multi packs and is very seldom seen for sale, a real collectors piece as very few were produced. The same can be said for the 2 variant 4 packs and all the single blisters, produced in such low volumes, they just hardly ever appear for sale. The figures had no collector cards produced but were released with a collectors information file.

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Although 12 were released, 16 were planned but sadly 4 were pulled from the range, those 4 were:

NOR003 Danny Eggen

NOR005 Jostein Flo

NOR006 Thomas Gill

NOR009 Gunner Halle

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 All 4 were sculpted but never released, only the unreleased Master Models exist!