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Sonic Gear Main Merchandise Page
Sonic Trading Cards Page 2 |
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Sonic the Hedgehog is not a really obvious choice for trading cards, especially in the early days without very many characters. However, that didn't stop Topps from making two sets. These were released in 1993, at about the same time. They came in wrapped packs, and you probably had to trade to get all of them. |
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| Looking for the Sonic X card battling game? That is on Page 2. They are based on Sonic X, and it is actually some type of game you can play, to try and get 3 emerald cards. |
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| Ah, nice big scans! These are direct from the Sonic Gear collection. If you turn your head sideways, you can even read the backs. As you can see, this first set is comprised of stock arts and title screen captures. What does it say in the corner? "Peel". These are also stickers. The backs are conveniently numbered for your collecting ease. These are shown in a Trading Card plastic slip cover (with binder holes) probably by Fleer or Topps. |
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It should be noted that these follow the old (And bogus) story that Sonic turned blue by running too fast, and Robotnic was once good, and desired to bury the evil chaos emeralds, but he dropped one and merged with his raw egg while Sonic was on a treadmill. So he blamed Sonic and wants to beat him with animal robots. Yea. Makes sense...in BIZZARRO WORLD. |
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In the beginning, no one really had an official explanation for WHY anything was like it is in the games. So different companies just kind of made up anything they could think of at the time, yeilding like 4 origens for Sonic, none of which were cannon anyway.
Notice the edge of the cards. This is a "Flick-It" flip book style animation where the stock art goes through several stock poses before 'running off''. |
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Another curiosity with these cards is they show both versions of Eggman and Robotnik. You can see the "Anti-Japan-ed" one on the 'rotten egg' card, but the rest are regular eggmans.
See the "Super Sonic" card? Too bad he's not shown for real, although SS DID exist at the time these were made. They just didn't have a 'freebie' art to use of him.
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Also note:
Flying walrus in top card. |
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You can also watch the slow degradation of the stock Tails (center card) as it becomes more and more mutated. |
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No, the bottom row isn't cut off, that's just how the animation ends. The center bottom card is an unusual one. |
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Somewhere with these cards (and maybe the following set) are supposed to be special cards. They were billed as "Holograms", but they aren't. They are more of a silver foil type deal, with designs you can only see by tilting them in the light. There are presumeably 6 of these, all different. However, they are SO rare. The normal cards being as scarce as these are, means their foils are nearly impossible to get.
Of course...if you have some, sending in scans/photos is really recommended! These large scans are a courtesy for the zillions of fans who don't have the cards, and can't be expected to buy them, as there aren't any left. This set was aquired when a large Sonic collection was liquidated over a Newsgroup.
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The second set of cards is somewhat less impressive. All they did was take screencaps of Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 for the Genisis, and add in really poor stock art. It is often mis-used, wrongly sized, misplaced or just inappropriate. The sprites would have looked better.
The backs have various profiles (not really) for the different robots, and little tips for the games. Some are useful, and some are rather obvious, but that is to be expected.
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They were going for a classy look, with a nice font to label each level, and they could've done it without the stock art. Why is Tails laying down in the water fall? Why is the special stage called "Warp of Confusion"? |
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Some of the profiles are useful (EX: Rexxon has a riddle which implies you can stand on the body once you kill the head) but others are downright funny (Clucker "Oh no a chicken with a mission--beware!") It also claims Grabber (spider from chem plant) is 'unpopular'. Umm ok. And that you race Aquis (sea horse in Oil Ocean) But aquis rarely moves, except to shoot a single pellet as you pass. |
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There are 31 regular cards in the screenshot series. The final count for both sets is unknown though, due to the mysterious foils. |
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| Finally appearing! A foil card. As you can see this is 3 of 6...so there's 5 more to find! To create the effect, this card is simply printed on the rainbow-foil bits type paper. They've chosen the "Sonic on a bridge" stock scene, common around the GameGear Sonic releases. What's the border? The card is actually inside a special plastic case for these photos, due to its rarity. Card photographed and owned by: Jeremy Hatfield |
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With the addition of these other 2 cards, it appears that they've used the same sparkle/foil type paper throughout the set. This stuff is notoriously hard to photo/scan, as the real effect is achieved by turning it in the light, but you can still grasp it here. Card #1 (left) has a quite similar (if not the same) running stock |
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| Sonic that the #3 above has, only this time, there's no background. Still, the 'after image' looks neat when seen through the foil cardstock. The #2 has the familiar Sonic 2 logo with wierd Eggman/Robotnick hybrid grabbin' background. The foil effect here enhances the "2" as well as the ground. It appears that all the backs of these are the same, and numbered. Both these cards photographed and owned by Scott Simms |
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| The set is half-way complete...cards 4, 5 and 6 are still needed though. |
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"Cool Kids Know It's not right to fight" and "Keep your wits, choose to split" with "No one wins with violence". |
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For a community service card, this one is actually rather neat. The front is a shiny foil that shifts tones (sunset like). It doesn't really show well in the scan. The characters (poor Tails) are also foil tone.
This was a freebie included with some other item, but it is not known which. It is not a part of the above series, and it is not common.
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Well, can't forget playing-cards.
After all, they were the first type of cards. This seems like an ordinary deck (diamonds, clubs, spades, hearts etc) but the backs of each one have a Sonic theme. The pointing stock art is well colored, and placed over what looks like comic panels of a board game. However, no one knows if a board game of Sonic actually exists, or, if it does, why you would need an ordinary deck of playing cards to use it. The panels say things like "Go back 2 spaces" and other 'directions' with arrows. |
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Here are some cards from Cookie Crisp Cereal.
As you can see in the photos, the images are change-able, depending on the viewing angle. This is called lenticular, but no one ever remembers that. Each card has 3 images inside. The first one will show Tails standing and then running as an alternate image, and the second may be a spin-attacking Sonic and something else. (thanks to Juni for the changing info) The backs have profiles that are the same as the plush dolls from this era. The "Game Tips" are not actually tips at all, but rather descriptions of why Sonic 2 is so good. |
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Sonic Trading Cards Page 2 |
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