So here we have a card which may be rather sought after if it was sold billed as the first appearance of "Godzilla vs Kong" - and shown to people who had just gone to see the brand new movie about the duo. Strange how things turn full circle.
Though in truth by the time this card was released the two had already been teamed up, in "King Kong vs Godzilla", a Japanese film released in 1962.
King Kong came first in 1933, he is ostensibly a gorilla, who lived quite peacefully on an island of giant animals and/or dinosaurs, until an American film crew come along and kidnap him so that he can be exhibited in New York. Oddly he first appeared in a novelisation of the film, the actual film being released afterwards. He has only made thirteen films in total though, whereas Godzilla first appeared much later, in 1954, and has already made thirty-eight films in total, thirty three of which were Japanese. He is a prehistoric reptile, woken up by an American nuclear bomb, which served not to kill him but to enhance his powers.
As far as card appearances go, King Kong is generally regarded to have been first shown on an unnumbered card as part of Leaf Gum`s 1961 "Spook Stories" stickers. However he is blue, and rather more of a large prehistoric man, though he is holding a tiny blonde lady in his hand, much as King Kong held Fay Wray in the movie. The first where he is billed as King Kong is in the same year, on card 3 of Nu-Cards` "Horror Monster Series".
Godzilla`s first appearance was in 1965, on card 17 of Donruss` "King Kong", though he does appear on several later cards within the same set.
Now our set of cards are not all actual named monsters, though you will find Frankenstein`s Monster, The Phantom of the Opera and Jekyll and Hyde. The others are un-named devils, ghosts, hands, snakes, vampires, werewolves and zombies. The set was issued between 1973 and 1974, and it follows the same pattern as Topps` earlier "Nutty Initials" (issued in 1967) and "Love Initials" (issued in 1970), a plain background on which is a heavily bordered initial, or more than one. The sticker is the initial, but the peel line is in the middle of the thick border, you simply lifted it with your fingernail, stuck it on, and, uncaring of collectors future, discarded the part of the card that was left behind, especially if it had only got a plain back.
Do note that the cards say "TOPPS CHEWING GUM INC" down the centre, but the counter box definitely says "Monster Initial Bubble Gum Stickers" and the wax wrappers agree, all saying "Monster Initial Stickers - with 1 stick Bubble Gum".
In addition, you can find the cards with pinky brown backs and white ones, and there is a difference in the way that they were distributed, the white ones only being issued in packs of three and the pinky brown ones in packs of four. Some collectors have the opinion that the white card was better quality and hence cost more to make, and that was why there were less cards in those packets.
Now some of those cards featured a puzzle, the fronts being a section of the picture only in full colour, and the backs being the whole puzzle in black and white. We will feature those in the future, and link back to here.
UPDATED 14 APRIL 2024 - Now originally I linked to a partial checklist at Jeff Allender`s NS Lists website. However I was then contacted by reader John Levitt, who said that the Non Sport Update Magazine - Card Talk Section reported about a year ago that Mr. Allender`s web-site has not been updated since June 2020. Therefore a better source is BubbleGumCards/MonsterInitials - where you will also find some of the original artwork for this set, as well as a chance to see how your name would appear in Monster Initials (just scroll down the page for that).
They also agree that this set was drawn by Augie Napoli, though they do call him "one of the artists". He died in 1994, but there is some of his work shown at Joseph Napoli`s website, who may perhaps be his son. I will try and find out.