Temporary Removal Of Selling Features

I have temporarily removed the selling features and new vendors’ registration. That is until I can find a way to improve the overall selling experience on the site. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope that we can build a better experience for you to understand, collect and keep track of all the trading cards in the world! All marketplace items are fulfilled by our store and will help maintain and improve our site.

We Are Now On Patreon!

Thank you for visiting this archive, and we hope you are enjoying your time here! From our backend statistics, we notice that the visitorship has increased steadily month after month since the site’s inception. These numbers tell us that our hard work is appreciated, and users value our services.

As you know, the only way to continuously improve your experience is to innovate constantly. To sustain and grow the site, we have created a Patreon page. A direct donation setup will free us from the various inconsistent revenue models necessary to develop this site. Currently, we have two tiers. The first tier is a basic one that supports our web hosting, plugins and other web development tools.

The 2nd tier is a bit more experiential, where you will receive a random trading card mailed to your physical address every month. That way, you will be able to experience the same journey with us as we uncover the extraordinary hidden world in little pieces of cardboard. I appreciate your support again, and I hope you can join us on this trip to create the world’s largest archive of arcade, trading and game cards.

Become a Patron!

Adventure Log: Collecting Cards From A Defunct Series: Sangokushi Taisen

In my journey to archive a list of all the arcade cards in the world, I came across this rather interesting series called Sangokushi Taisen. Sangokushi Taisen is a game that references the Romance of Three Kingdoms, a 14th-century historic Chinese novel that is part history, part legend and perhaps even containing an element of fantasy.

As with most arcade games with a collective card element, you can scan your cards and use them in-game. Of course, the rarer cards you have, the stronger your in-game character is going to get.

Sangokushi Taisen The Arcade Game

Interestingly enough, in addition to the arcade game machine, Sega decided to develop a trading card game. Possibility to have some crossover and entice players to collect both editions of the cards. Judging from the number of series and editions of reprints, Sangokushi Taisen was quite a well-received game.

Unfortunately, there are only so many characters in the Romance of Three Kingdoms. In addition, there is an upper limit in the number of cards and iterations that Sega can come up with. When you have limits like these, it won’t be long before the audience gets bored and moves on to something else.

Since the original publisher, Sega, has removed all traces and images of this game, there is no resource online to share the beautiful artwork that these cards present. As such, I have decided to take up the mantle and showcase these stunning illustrations for the world to see.

Now, the problem with collecting a series that is not ongoing is a difficult one. Due to the significantly reduced demand for the game, you will not fetch a pretty penny for your cards. Even my local game store has thrown away most of their Sangokushi Taisen cards to use the precious real estate for something else. Like Pokemon.

Although I managed to pick up some cards on the cheap, finding the rest of them isn’t an easy task. Thankfully, my buddy over at Sanctuary Gaming managed to reach out to some of the old players who happened to donate these 2 boxes.

Thank You Kind Stranger For These 2 Boxes of Cards.

Trading card games are always about the community. And local game stores are an excellent avenue for the community to gather, trade and play these games. So please support your local game store whenever you can, and again special thanks to Sanctuary Gaming for this coordination. Meanwhile, I am still missing a ton of Sangokushi Taisen cards. If you think your cards need a new home both online and in the hands of a cardboard archivist, feel free to contact me!

Yours Truly

Jerry
The Cardboard Archivist.

Adventure Log: I Got Scammed. Fake Animal Kaiser Cards And What They Look Like

Why do fake cards exist? Well, the reason is simple and no different from all the other fake products in the market. As long as people continue to support these products, counterfeiters will carry on manufacturing. So the question is this, why fake Animal Kaiser cards?

It All Starts With Something That Everyone Wants
Back in the day, Animal Kaiser was an insanely popular arcade game. You could find these machines everywhere and kids have been known to blow their entire week of pocket money on this game. And in certain cases, maybe their entire fortune. The problem was that collecting an entire set of cards was not an easy thing to do. Rare cards are only of a limited quantity and are often sold for ridiculous amounts of money. Back then, an entire set would set you back around $300 to $400 dollars.

And That Something Is Very Hard To Get Or Very Expensive
Some parents find that coughing up this amount of money is ridiculous, and there is no way on earth they will allow their little Timmy to splurge that much on silly animal cards. Hence, they do the next best thing. Purchasing fake cards at a fraction of the cost and allowing little Timmy to have that bit of fun. Knowing that sooner or later, he is going to outgrow his interest and eventually, these cards are going into the bin.

The parents are not exactly wrong, as there is literally little or no demand for these cards today. I am probably one of those few buyers out there picking up cards to complete my collection. My intention is to share this archive with the world if you need to get hit with that whiff of nostalgia.

I Meet Nice People
In my journey to acquire these cards, I met some really nice people who tell me stories of old. And you can tell how excited they are as their eyes sparkle when they remise such memories. Acquiring these cards from them was like picking up a child that they have spent so much time and effort on.

And Those That Are Not So Nice
Unfortunately, I have also come across sellers who have passed off their fake cards as the real thing. Due to the sheer number of fake cards in the market, one of the first questions I always ask these sellers is if the cards are real. At first, these sellers will say that the cards are dispensed from the machine. Upon closer inspection and realising that they are fake, they will come up with other excuses. Like it is my friend’s card. I don’t know anything about them. It is scannable on the machine, etc.

To prevent yourself from picking up fake Animal Kaiser cards, I have compiled a list of these fakes that I have picked up from these unscrupulous sellers. The quality for some of them is downright terrible while others are a bit more decent.

  1. There Is No Foiling. The Card Is Literally Photocopied
    The portion for the foils is literally photocopied. That’s why the coins and the areas where they are supposed to have foiling look terribly dull. These are the lowest quality fakes and you can spot them from a mile away.

2. Embossing Done. But Font For Certain Characters Look Odd
Then there are those fakes that are a little more sophisticated. The bootleggers put in a little more effort to emboss the card and make it shine. However, they can’t seem to replicate a particular font. Take a closer look at the 0 behind the card of an original one.

And the following fakes with the 0 that is a more roundish. And they can’t seem to spell “health” properly.

The foiling for this card looks pretty decent. The dead giveway is still the “0” font if you compare them with the originals.

I hope this entry would serve as a guide to those who are new to Animal Kaiser and a means to identify the difference between real and fake cards. Although Animal Kaiser cards are only a fraction of what they used to cost, a fake card at the end of the day has zero monetary value. Stay safe and don’t get scammed!

Yours Truly

Jerry
The Cardboard Archivist. 

Arcade News: Free Pokemon Promo Tretta With Every Play Part 2

The good thing about social media is that good news travels fast. Apparently, there is a grand total of 5 promo tretta chips available. Each store will have the same chip no matter how many you times you claim. In order to catch them all, it would be necessary to travel to five different locations to pick them up. These are the chips I got from various stores.

-Bugis Virtualand (Groudon)
-Bugis TOG (Kyogre)
-Plaza Singapura (Kyurem)
-Sanctuary Gaming (Arceus)
-Bedok TOG (Rayquaza)

Yours Truly

Jerry
The Cardboard Archivist.   

Arcade News: Free Pokemon Promo Tretta With Every Play

If There Is A Beginning, There Will Always Be An Ending

There is a promotion going on now for the Pokémon Tretta arcade machine in Singapore. Whenever you play a game, you will be entitled to a promo chip. However, there is a daily quota on these promo chips so fastest fingers first. If you missed out on getting the chips for that day, you would need to go back tomorrow for their next daily quota. While stocks last of course. So, the question is this. why is the distributor offering free promo chips with every play?

What Is Inside This Mystery Bag?
There is No Mystery, The previous player before also got the same chips.

If you are not aware by now, this Z4 series is the last series of the Pokémon Tretta. There is no more future release. The Z4 Pokémon Trettas were in fact first released back in Japan in 2016. As usual, Singapore is a small country and not exactly the origin of these cool intellectual properties. As such, we are never the first ones to experience these machines. With the end of Z4, the distributor is trying to stretch out these machines’ playability as much as possible. When that happens, demand for Tretta chips in the secondary market will collapse. There will be plenty of people with extra chips with nobody buying them, like my grandmother’s stamp collection. Yes, the item might be old and out of print, but nobody wants it. And as such has no value.

Yours Truly

Jerry
The Cardboard Archivist.   

Adventure Log: Adding Vintage Stars Wars And Comic Cards

I was browsing Carousell and was trying to pick up new card sets to add to my growing collection. Although the focus of this website is still on arcade cards, I happen to chance upon this seller with a complete collection of old vintage Star Wars and comic cards.

Old School Trading Cards From An Era A Long Time Ago

I do not really collect comic books, so it was the first time I even knew these cards existed! Since they were going for a rather reasonable price, I decided to pick them up and upload them to the site, allowing everyone to appreciate the artwork. It feels quite amazing to be holding on to a piece of pop culture that is almost 40 years old. I hope you can enjoy the beauty of these cards virtually (once I manage to upload them) and stay safe during this time!

Yours Truly

Jerry
The Cardboard Archivist.