Sonic the Hedgehog Cards Title
Japan Sonic The Hedgehog Cards
Trading Cards Collectible Cards Postcards Playing Cards & More
Japan Sonic the Hedgehog Cards are a cool collectible, no-matter what kind they are.
This page has all types of cards that are NOT "Phone Cards", which have their own seperate spot on Japan Sonic Phone Cards. This page can include collectible cards, post-cards, mystery cards (unidentified) & playing cards. If it's not a phone card, it will probably be on this page, both vintage & modern type.
Sonic Phone Cards * Sonic Gear Main *
Dreamcast Themed SA1 Postcard Selection Here is a collection of postcards released for Sonic Adventure 1 on the Dreamcast. These came out in 1998. In the collection, you got 1 card for each character in the game. Knuckles on a red card, Dr Eggman with his name across him on a black card with small text, Tails on a yellow one, E-102 Gamma on a gray card with his name down the edge, Amy on a pink card with her name at the top, and yes that's Big back there (you can only see his ear) on a blue/violet horizontal card. Sonic, and some text (it's way too small to read) is on a horizontal blue card that almost matches his color.
The card backs are nice too, with orange and black ink, Sonic face stamp-placement indicator, and SA1 watermark style logo. This is a nicely designed set of post cards. Were they a bonus item? Credit: Hikari Site
SA1 Card Collection CG Postcards Here are more Sonic Adventure 1 cards.
This may be a second set, or it's possible the set seen above on this page wasn't complete. This has close up portrait character cards, full-body picture cards & CG cards. It's fun to include the different kinds of special chao you could raise in the garden. There's the chaos one, the silver one, & 2 shiny mystery colors. It looks like Chaos 0 has a CG card as well, possibly. What are these cards for & where were they released/could be bought?
Prize Card 2015 This item was described only as a "Prize Card"
It's from 2015 (which you can read there in the orange oval) but what is it, exactly? It came inside this tri-folded paper, possibly a brochure or maybe a letter. The card itself seems to be plastic, and fits in the lift-a-flap paper holder stuck to the larger paper. It features CG Sonic, some blue sky & colored balloons. The letter & card text are all in Japanse though, so you can't really read it to see what it's about. Do write in with details for credit, if you can shed some light on the card/letter purpose! Photo discovered by @JapanAnimePosters on Instagram
Segasonic Playing Card Deck MIP Photo This deck of playing cards is likely rare. As you can see here, it's an early item, due to the "Segasonic" name/branding, which they phased out of use forever in the mid 1990s or so. This deck is still in the original clear plastic package (though it came in a plastic hard case, originally) What do each of the cards look like? Are they all di fferent, featuring screen shots like the ones seen here? Write in if you know!
A Green Hill screen shot has some seldom-seen Sonic art on it (is it a 'cover card' or are all card backs like that one?) The art shows Sonic looking at a racing helmet. It is originally from the Sonic screen saver / Sonic wallpaper set (image 51) which was done by a Japanese artist with a very specific style.
The Joker card is revealed on the bottom, it shows Spring Yard, but has ordinary 'running Eggman' stock art placed over it. As you can see with the sticker, this was made by Sanrio (yes the Hello Kitty people make cards too) & "Angel Playing Card Company of Osaka Japan". An interesting deck! Photo & owned by: Conner M.
Sega Freaks Cards Set This is called the "Sega Freaks Cards Set"...but other than 'cards' what exactly is it? The art here is nice and varied, some of it appears to be from the "Sonic Screen Saver" that was sold in Japan for a while. The backs of the cards all also have a smaller picture of something (not the same as what's on the front) as well as a larger word, & a bunch of text.
However, the text is all in Japanese, and this is all the larger the photo is, so there's no real chance to ever read it. Do write in if you know the deal with these curious cards! Is this all of them? What are they for? Where/how were they released? They've got to be pretty uncommon because this is the first they've been seen (in 2016) yet are quite likely from the mid 1990s or so. Photo discovered by @JapanAnimePosters on Instagram
Sonic Visa Card Creditcard A Sonic themed...credit card??
It sure looks like it! This appears to be an actual Visa card (complete with that hologram bird thingy) with a Sonic Adventure 1 theme to it. You can see a logo in the upper left, and the word "international" on the right. It appears to have been issued inside that tin thing. What's going on with this? Is it a themed pre-pay card like the old phone cards? It's highly unusual. Photo by SonicTeam
Sonic Adventure 1 Card Packs Unopened To promote Sonic Adventure 1, and give it some collectibles right away, card packs were released in Japan only. Each pack was 100 yen, and had probably 5 cards in it. Like most cards, they're blindpacked, and had special cards (like foils) that you could try to get, as well as 'puzzle cards' where you build an image by tiling together cards. This is what the packs looked like unopened, which can be an uncommon sight
because most people just discard packaging like this, and to collect the cards themselves, the packages have to be opened. Unsurprisingly, it uses that 'circular Sonic' who fell out of favor as a stock-art after SA1, and the SA1 logo. The rest of the text on the package is in Japanese, though so you can't read it.
SA 1 Cards Carton SA 1 Cards Foil Collage Set Cool cards!
At left you can see the carton that the packs came in, this probably opened up somehow & sat on a countertop to dispense the individual packs. If any one had enough money at once though, you could buy the entire carton for yourself to guarentee rare cards or to complete the set*.
*in the USA at least, a display carton/unit of blindpack stuff generally guarentees to have ONE of everything on that set. So, if there's 24 things, and the rare thing is 1/24 ratio, buying the whole carton you'd get 1 of it. Some things follow rules and others don't.
The right side photo shows the above-mentioned collage set. In this case, the backs of some of the cards are foil too, and each one has a portion of a picture. Tiling them all together (probably in numerical order) produces this scene with Sonic CG in in the foreground, and the other characters are in the back behind him. You can easily see Amy, but Tails & Knuckles are there too. Foil is very difficult to photograpth well.
CG Character Art Cards Card sets made for games will usually use in-game screens for some of the art, and this set is no exception. Here you can see character snapshots with CG scenes behind them for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E102, Big, Tikal, Pachakamak, and ancient times echidna tribespeople. They're an interesting selection because they didn't include Eggman.
The right-side cards are all boss cards. Each one has either a number of chaos (including Perfect) or an E-series robot.
Chao & Game Scene Cards Chao were a fun part of the game they wanted to promote, so there are many cards featuring them. This particular set of 9 shows the various 'special' ones you could get, plus a normal neutral one. The shiny ones came from certain, or hidden eggs and the last one (bottom right) is the special pure light super special chao you could only raise under very particular circumstances.
The right set of cards each have a scene from SA1 with some descriptive text around it.
Character Art Cards Fronts Backs Here are the fronts and backs of the same set of 9 cards. They're character art cards that showcased the new SA1 style art for Sonic, Knuckles, Amy & Tails. Each card is a color based on the character. The front has their name and full color art, and the back has a closer-up line art look at the character's face from the same pose that's on the other side.
Notice that the non-sliding Amy & 'sleepy Tails towel' never got used that much, even in the SA1 popularity era.
Incidentally, that Tails in the swim ring art is supposedly the first art where it revealed that nobody has any toes at all. Amy doesn't have toes, (As revealed later in other art) and thusly, Sonic must also not have toes either. Ongoing mystery: How many fingers does Knuckles have? Is it 5 like everyone else or does he only have 3 and that's why he has mittens instead of gloves? 1 knuckle spike per finger...and he's only got 2 spikes so...2 larger-size fingers and a thumb per hand. This is set on the entry because isn't it interesting what official art does for fan theories & 'accuracy' of things.
SA1 Character Profile Cards Front Back The character profile card!
Long a staple of card sets, SA1 was no exception with these cards shown here as fronts & backs. Each front has a full color stock art close-up of the character face. Each back has a full portrait for the character, their name, and what looks like a breif bio or facts. (In Japanese) Sonic gets 2 cards, everyone else gets 1, and a chao gets a card too, which is a cute addition. There seem to be 9 of these in total. *It would make sense if there's more though because of Tikal
Classic Screen Saver Card Art SA Packs In the Sonic Adventure 1 card set there were included....
Classic cards too? It seems like a bit of an odd move, but these classic art cards could come up in the packs as well for whatever reason. The art is all stuff you've seen before, thanks to the "Sonic Screen Saver" which was that huge set of art all done by one artist in the same cute and colorful style. It's a little out of place if they were 'pushing the new modern look' to include it, but it's still a nice addition to anything because all of that art set was very fun & well done & well liked.
SA1 Enemy Card Backs
Here's a sheet of card backs only, and they seem to be enemy themed. Maybe it has the portraits on the front? There's a screen shot or two on the back, a large grayscale...zoom? Of maybe the enemy & some text but it's anybody's guess as to what it could say.
(A tip for battling the badguy, a description of where it is / what it does /etc. could be typical to find)
These look interesting, and in the days before PC screencaps, having a picture of a screen from a game was a bigger deal than it is today. The Dreamcast was pretty revolutionary stuff / look at the time so cards like this would be extra cool in their era.
All SA1 Card set photos in this area discovered by Hedgy, taken by Ebay seller & likely sold for over 600 Euros for everything in the era along with the binders/holders too. There ARE more cards than what's pictured here because the chao+animal different ones are left off & the back of the foil set also doesn't appear. *But, it could in the future if anyone sends them in.
Segasonic Green Playing Card Deck Here is a deck of ordinary playing cards.
It's not surprising to find Sonic on something as normal as a deck of cards, in this era. Notice the Segasonic branding there at the bottom, placing these in the 1990s. The card backs are all green, and all the same. They have the nice, fully shaded finger-waving Sonic art. He is standing in front of a darker green circle, with black/white lines/textured 'ring' shape around it. The borders are white, and the card faces are all completely normal. There's nothing else 'Sonic' about the deck, other than the card backs.
They're shown here in the original bag packaging. These are likely to be a Segaworld item in Japan, but it's not 100% known.
Sega Online 2019 Summer Art Large In the summer of 2019, Sega Online Japan created this summer time fun character art with a burlap and watercolor style texture. It features Sonic, Tails, Flicky, Cheese, Amy, Cream, Blaze, Silver & 3 other chao including a Sonic-type. They're all doing summer style activities and are drawn in a cute and almost classically styled way.
Sega Online Shop 2019 Postcard Selection
Sonic is shopping with a bag and holding a chili dog, the flicky is flying, tails has a pencil and is ready to draw, Amy is holding soft-serve ice cream and a baguette-bread (why?), Cream is bringing flowers to her friends, which has the Sonic-type chao smelling one while Cheese floats in the air holding a balloon. Blaze...just seems to be watching Cream. Silver has gathered apples in a bowl and is lifting one with his psychic power. He has shared the apples with one of the Neutral Chao, which has then split it and is sharing it with the other.
All of the Sega Online Japan items (all around on Gear) take this art, split it apart, and feature it to create many different things. The Online Campaign seems to be a web event where you send them 500 yen and something from the prize pool is then randomly dispensed to you in the mail. The pool has these post cards, keychains, pin buttons and also ribbon-handle shopping bags.
The post cards all have one full color side with 1 character (or chaos) chosen from the art work above, and one side with a solid color and line art logo. These are random-sold in the pairs you see above.