UK SERIES
Ever since the launch of Corinthian's figures in 1995, collector's have always asked about the possibility of producing a smaller version. On the 12th February 2001, after over 2 years of product development, MicroStars were born!
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Corinthian had reached an exclusive agreement with the UK's biggest producer of Easter Eggs, Magna Confectionary Ltd, to pack and release the MicroStars figures inside a hollow chocolate shell, called Powerpodz! The figures were packed into a clear sachet and then placed into a plastic capsule, along with a collector's information leaflet.
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The cost to pack the figures inside a hollow chocolate shell was only marginally more than releasing it in a clear sachet or window box, and less than the cost of a blister pack. Perhaps the biggest advantage of the Powerpodz was that they were able to be sold in a much broader rage of high street stores, with major retailers like WoolWorths, Asda, Sainsbury's and a whole host of newsagents and garage's, meant MicroStars were literally everywhere!
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The main difference that MicroStars have over Headliners/ProStars is that the under the base was some player skill ratings. MicroStars were predominantly aimed at a younger demographic, with a price point of just £1.49, so a game was devised, which started out as a 'One On One' and evolved later into The World Club League.
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The 5 base ratings were Dribbling, Shooting, Tackling, Passing and Crossing, with the goal keepers having 2 ratings, Save Shot Left and Save Shot Right. The figures were initially released on 6 different base colours, Green, Red, Blue, White, Silver and Gold with the base ratings increasing with the rarity of the base.
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The rarity of each base colour was as follows:
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Green - 1 in 2
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Red - 1 in 5
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Blue - 1 in 8
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White - 1 in 10
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Silver - 1 in 20
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Gold - 1 in 40
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Corinthian introduced the ultra rare Black base in MicroStars Series 12, with the ration being 1 in 50 and there were no individual base ratings, instead there was a FREE CALL number!
As with Headliners & ProStars, the MicroStars figures were also assigned collector codes, which began with MC (there are a few exceptions which are all detailed on this site)
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In total Corinthian released 19 series of MicroStars for the UK market, with the figues being released on a host of different sized packaging formats, all 19 UK Series are detailed in full, along with the various packaging formats and release information.