Panini helps relaunch POG in France

One of the more interesting releases from European manufacturer Panini in recent months has been a new series of collectable POG brand milkcaps in France. POG milkcaps were launched in the UK in 1995 having already enjoyed considerable success in the USA, Canada and Australia. A total of six different commercial POG milkcap sets were released to UK collectors before POG's British manufacturer, Waddingtons, decided to call it a day. The popularity of POG led to a number of manufacturers producing their own milkcap ranges, with SkyBox, Merlin and even Panini forming rival brands.

Milkcaps are small discs collected in much the same way as trading cards and get their name from the cardboard caps used to seal old-fashioned milk bottles. Milkcaps can be used to play the milkcap game, whereby participants take it in turns to hit a stack of milkcaps with a slammer disc, usually made of plastic. The player who has managed to flip over the most milkcaps by the end of the game is declared the winner.

Panini's new series is made up of 72 different milkcaps featuring colourful images taken from what appears to be a French television series about an alien named Bill. Milkcap backs feature the tiled POG logo design seen on previous series. The kini slammers that accompany the milkcaps seem to feature general POG designs rather than Bill images.

The Bill POG set is being sold in foil packs containing five milkcaps, a kini slammer and a rules/checklist card. Packs retail at 10 Francs and are available through French newsagents. Blister packets containing two foil packs are also available, priced 20 Francs.

The new series does not appear to have attracted the same level of interest as five years ago, although it is likely that the relaunch has been somewhat overshadowed by the popularity of the Pokémon card game.