BALLON D'OR
PRO600
Michael Owen
Liverpool & England
Suit
Winner 2001
2002 Special
The Corinthian ProStars Ballon d'Or Series is quite possibly the most popular series amongst collectors, easy to see why when you take some of the all time legends and release them on such a unique and interesting sculpt.
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football that is one of the oldest and generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players, with the first award being presented in 1956.
Each Corinthian figure was sculpted holding the Gold Ballon d'Or trophy, wearing the suit they wore when accepting the award and done on a special red backing card which was only used for the Ballon d'Or series of ProStars.
Collector's had to wait until the 2002 Corinthian Convention to get their hands on the new set of Ballon d'Or figures, with 3 figures being released. Zinedine Zidane, Michael Owen and Roberto Baggio were all snapped up by collector's attending the convention. Corinthian did not disclose the worldwide production of these blisters, only stating that they made 2,190 of Owen & Zidane for the UK, and 2,500 Baggio for the UK, my guess is that given the popularity and demand in Japan for these players that the total production would have been at least double, perhaps treble for Baggio.
This blister pack is unopened as shown in the pictures