My adding this card to the news feed, three years after it was first published on this site, bore lots of fruit.
We now know that the set is indeed called simply "Mega Stickers", and yes, there are 98 of them, which is an extraordinarily odd number, surely they could have found two more? However it is an odd set, because it is split between pictures like this, small pictures within a large white edge section, glittery stickers, and tattoos (which are numbered from 81 to 98), and these are often sold separately, though the numbering only goes to prove that they are part of a larger set.
And not only appears in one of our reference books, our latest, the British Trade Index 1971-2000, RB.127, as :
- MEGA STICKERS. Orange and white back. Undated. No album issued. Issued 1996. Size (L) 85 x 62 & 66 x 54. Nd. (98) ...MER-070.084
it also has a new issues report - in "Cartophilic Notes and News", Volume 21, Number 198, dated July/August 1996, which reads :
- Merlin Collections "Mega Stickers & Tattoos" (98) (Stickers - 80, Nos. 1-80, Tattoos - 18, Nos. 81 to 98).
An interesting pot-pourri of modern pop art themes, presented on either white or gold & silver metallic foil backgrounds. The backs are in orange and white. Sticker size is 85 x 62. Tattoo size is 66 x 54. Both items are undated. No album has been issued for this series.
It also shows two pictures, a lady in a very slit skirt playing the saxophone (sticker 27) and a tattoo of the Grim Reaper, complete with scythe (sticker 88). From that it appears that there is a slightly different back, as the tattoo one has "TATTOOS" beneath the "MEGA STICKERS" wording, and rather than a blurred picture it gives instructions as to how to apply the tattoo to your body.
I like this card very much, though it does not seem to fit in with either of those, or any of the others I have so far seen, they are much more stylised, and in addition hand-drawn. And I freely admit that to a non motor-racing fan it is a totally baffling picture, though to a motor-racing fan it is a really super view of the tunnel at Monaco, and, more than that, everyone seems to like it when I show it to them.
Merlin was started in 1989, by two ex-Panini workers, and the company was bought out by Topps in 1995, who did not keep the Merlin name, they changed it and used it as kind of a European offshoot called Topps Europe Ltd.