Packs are sequentially numbered; this means you will get a run of cards numbering 1-2-3-4. If 40 falls in the middle of a sequence, the numbering will resume at 1 (ex. 39-40-1-2). All rares are located on the right side of the box. A prism or silver sticker will replace a regular sticker; a 3D chase or rare will replace a regular card. The estimated ratio for the 3D rare may be lower than stated; I had previously assumed 1 per box, then had a spate of no 3D rares for several boxes. Pricing the 3D rare is also difficult; I have seen them go for $20 or higher on eBay, but they crop up so infrequently it's hard to estimate a fair price. No promos are known for this set.

Of all the North American card series, the Cardzillions most resemble a Japanese card set. Instead of being sold in a pack, these cards were purchased individually for a quarter each at vending machines installed at Toys R Us. The sets are broken into thirds with 42 cards each - Series 1 being 1-42, Series 2 being 43-84, and Series 3 rounding up with 85-126. The numbering, as you will note, carries over from the last set. This is the only North American card set to have continuous numbering between the series. The resemblences to the Carddass set are almost surely not a mistake. By Series 3, the cards match up almost one to one to the Carddass numbers 117 to 154. Bandai, in effect, plagarized their own card set.

Series 1 and 2 were released before I began collecting, but the word on the street (aka Jenny at the Crystal Millenium of Cards) says Series 2 had a shortage, leading to reprints of Series 1 filling in the spots in the vending machines. The reprinted Series 1 cards may differ slightly in the blue spectrum and the silver foil on the front instead of the normal gold. There's no doubt at all about the variation in the back and foil colors, but I can't confirm this rumor about a reprint, and the silver foil logos are not matching up nicely to alternately colored backs. If you have any other information, do drop me a line.

Clearly, from a collector's perspective, the Series 1 and 2 cards are scarce in the secondhand market, and none more so than the elusive foils. Series 1 foils are in the style of Japanese soft prism stickers. Podwall joked that many of these beauties were probably used as stickers and the card backs thrown away. Even more elusive are the Series 2 foils. Through a great stroke of good fortune, I was able to find my last missing card in an ebay lot while trying to price other SM goodies. All the rest came from card networking. They're really that hard to find.

Series 3 is much more common. Generally Cardzillion auctions will be these cards alone. It isn't even so bad finding the foils for this set, if you're willing to be a bit patient and willing to pay. This set was the first I personally found out about, so it is technically rivals with Dart 2 for my undying affection and the creation of this site.

On February 24, 2000, the press release that Dart Flipcards and Guardians of Order would produce a CCG hit the internet. This was, in my opinion, the high-water mark of Sailor Moon card releases in North America. Year 2000 saw such a deluge of card series that it seemed like Sailor Moon was here to stay. Alas, in just a year Sailor Moon was off the shelves and fading into nostalgia-land. But I must say, every time I think of that period, it's the CCG series that brings back the warm and fuzzy feelings.

I never played against anyone and so I can't comment on some of the more practical points of the game. Obviously it must have been good and innovative; it won the Origins "Best Trading Card Game" award and was nominated for "Best Graphic Presentation for a Card Game" in 2000. Probably the best aspect, given the age range in Sailor Moon fans, is that one card can be used to play three difficulty levels. The Basic game features streamlined rules, ignoring much of the power-gaming advantages of rare cards. The Basic game seems to be mostly luck-based. Standard and Advanced games up the difficulty and length of gametime, and the rare card power gaming will be more noticeable here.

From a youma lover's perspective, this set was a godsend. Just about every Monster of the Day has its name listed on a card, with a basic idea of its powers on the show. Is this really necessary? Probably not, unless you're doing intensive youma research. I'm sure you can get much of this from the Guardian of Order's Youma Resource Book to tie in to the Sailor Moon RPG (and if you love youma that much, you probably already have it). The bad side to having so many images is that sometimes you get some manky looking cards. "Self Sacrifice," #130, is the hideous one I think of first.

The initial intent was for the Premiere set to be limited in quantity, with the cards getting rereleased as an Unlimited Edition Base set in later expansion packs in unlimited quantities. However, a couple cards were never going to be released in these base sets. The Ultra Rare foils (Level 4 Senshi, Queen Beryl, The Negaforce, Wiseman, Tuxedo Mask Level 2, and Sailor Pluto) and Malachite and Nephlite were released for the Premiere CCG only. Everything else was supposed to be available again somewhat freely. In the press release from GoO (above) they really made it sound like there would not be that many Premieres out there, as they would be limited to sale in specialty stores. See how that panned out in the Unlimited entry (below).

In the rare category, two cards should be priced a bit higher than listed. These would be #137 and 138, "Nephlite" and "Malachite" respectively. These cards were only available in the starter deck (not the booster packs) and, as they're two of the more popular shitennou, are sought after. Malachite is my favorite card in this set, to be precise.

The Past and Future expansion in 2001 was meant to be played in conjunction with the Premiere CCG set released the previous year. The plan, before Dart's bankruptcy and the loss of the Sailor Moon licensing title in North America, was to continue with the CCG series, expanding and revising the gameplay features and adding new cards, and probably retiring or revising overpowered cards from previous sets. Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to how the S and Supers arcs would have been incorporated; I think we're all a little upset we never got North American trading cards of the later seasons (barring the couple oddballs in the Awesome set, of course).

This set saw the introduction of Location cards to further alter the game strategies, and an altered foil pattern for the ultra rares. The set also saw the return of the Premiere cards in the "Unlimited Base" set, which will be discussed in a separate entry (below).

In a strange packing quirk and lack of foresight, Uncommons for this set are actually more common that Common cards. Allen Densen was the first person I recall who pointed this out online, but most collectors would intuitively "get" this after having a second complete set of Uncommons to trade while still searching for Commons. Rares and ultra rares are also very hard to complete as a casual collector. This set suffered perhaps more than most by the snafu of Sailor Moon licensing in America and had a fairly limited release in my area. While almost everyone was still selling the Premiere boosters, the Past and Futures were long sold out. Booster boxes for Past and Future are going for two or three times that of the Premiere. So much for an unlimited release!

When pricing foils for this set, prices for the Location cards #65 "Moon Kingdom" and #68 "Crystal Tokyo" may be either a little higher or a little lower than the others. Like Malachite and Nephlite, these two were only available in the Past and the Future expansion decks, not in booster packs. I would personally say go a little lower, as the Past and Future expansion decks seemed comparatively plentiful (or unpopular sellers!), and they still pop up now and then as unopened boxes in searches.

Oh, the Unlimited Base set. What a hot mess of failure this was. Not the cards themselves, not even the idea of reprinting past cards...no, it was just an all-out cluster of failure.

As you saw above in the Past and Future set, you were supposed to get 11 cards per booster pack, yet the P&F ratios only accounted for 8 of your 11 cards. The other three cards in each booster were the Unlimited Base set. It's now been almost a decade since I've opened P&F packs, but as memory serves, there was no telling what your base cards would be. Even the wrapper gives no clue -- just "3 assorted Base cards." Whoopee. Could be all common, could be common and uncommon, could include a rare. Maybe they could be all uncommon, or all rare. Who knows? My vague recollection is that rares seemed easier to get than uncommons, but I have my nostalgia glasses on and could be misremembering. I seem to recall it was usually two commons and either an uncommon or a rare. This may or may not be accurate.

As you've seen in the previous discussions, the Past and Future set was shorted, and that means the Base cards, which were only released with the P&F set, were similarly shorted. What was supposed to be an unlimited print run has ended up being about ten times harder to find than the "limited" Premieres. Some of the cards are probably exponentially easier to find than others; namely any base cards released in the Past and Future expansion decks will be easier to find than those that were not. This encompases #1, 3, 15, 21, 23, 24, 36, 42, 51, 56, 75, 85, 88, 89, 90, 92, 105, 109, 111, 112, 117, 121, 128, 130, 135, 139, and 146.

The largest difficulty I've found in acquiring these cards was the initial mindset that they would be "easy" to find and "expendable" compared to the Premieres, so no one really bothered with them. I'm sure I traded quite a few in the early days just like they WERE Premieres. I didn't even initially keep the Base cards that came in the expansion decks. Oops. There's also the trouble with the nomenclature. They are referred to as Base cards in the CCG, but were also called Unlimited in a few early press releases. You generally have to look for both Base and Unlimited to cover all your...bases. *brick*

No promos of the Base cards were released to promote the Base set (it wasn't really publicized, just tagged along with P&F). The numbering will seem backwards for these cards; that's because they're kept in the sheets directly behind their matching Premiere counterparts.

If your passion is for variants, the JPP/Amada stickers are the ones for you. This set is an exact replica of the fronts of the Amada PP cards available in Japan (sans the foil on the original set's rares.) For a long time it was generally accepted there were two printings of this series. The first is the white/no border version on a matte sticker. The second printing was orange bordered, with a shinier, laminated look. The white borders are a bit harder to find, but are generally a collector's quirk of preference. There are no differences in size, and the inserted double stickers are the same as well.

After I ordered a few boxes to open in 2005, I had a curious surprise. The double stickers (so called because the top layer can be peeled off to reveal a metallic sticker underneath) also had a variation in the foil pattern. The white borders and the majority (or so I assume) of the orange borders double stickers came in a linear, regular foil pattern. The boxes I opened have a random foil pattern akin to the Dart 2 Prismatic series. From this, I conclude there were not two printings, but three. The first was the white bordered; the second was the orange bordered with regular pattern double stickers; the third was the orange bordered with random pattern double stickers.

The backs of some cards, while displaying the same text and logo, also vary slightly in hue. These variant back colors are subtle and seem focused on the early printings.

One further variation is the Japanese text wapper I was sent from Podwall in CA. These wrappers never cropped up in my area, so it may have been a west coast phenomenon.

It may not make much sense initially why the first set of stickers by Artbox is called "Trading Stickers Series 2." JPP/Amada started a child company for American releases in 1995, Artbox Entertainment. While it looks like these are released by a different company, it's just a name change. Why didn't they release them under the Artbox name back in 1998? Well, who knows, honestly. That's just a small slice of craziness from that wacky Artbox company.

So, Artbox stickers are the follow-ups to the reprints of the Amada PP 1 and 2, commonly known as the JPP/Amada set. Are these Amada PP 3 and 4? Sadly, no. These are all original compositions, and many images are unique to this set. However, it lacks a bit of je ne sais quoi and the Japanese text that makes the first series so endearing. In return, if you are a big fan of the Ann and Ail arc, you will find many cards to covet here.

Carton toppers, while sounding very rare, are usually available on eBay for a reasonable price - surprisingly, given that the cards feature Queen Beryl and all the shitennou. The mail away stand up cards, however, are harder to find. Most of this set is a bit hard to find these days; this is both a joy and a pain in the ass. Fortunately, if you are unable to complete your Awesome card set, you can always temporarily fill in the gaps with the more accessible Archival cards (see below.)

My ratios are taken from the packs. I have never opened a box of Prismatics and would be interested in acquiring an empty display box. I have dated these 1998, even though the majority of the cards say 1997, because the jumbo and promo cards are dated 1998. That also meshes well with my memories of running out of Cardzillions at TRU and then changing my quarters in for these card packs at Suncoast. (Suncoast! Another dinosaur of a bygone era!)

The lenticular chases seemed particularly hard to find. The mail away jumbo cards are equally hard to find, though they do usually come as a set. This set, like the Awesomes, is hard to complete now. To make matters worse, the prismatic nature of the cards makes them more prone to damage than normal cards. I have seen Prismatics with lifting and cracked foil. Often these cards were damaged straight out of the pack, as they tended to stick together. Dark background cards seem especially affected. You can see now, on my new scans, some of my cards in archival storage containers have started to crack. I do not know of a way to prevent this damage over time.

Take note, Dark Kingdom fans: This is the last Flipcard set where Kunzite gets his own card. He pops up in the Archival reprints, of course, and in the CCG on his limited-edition card and as the flavor-picture on a few more, but he was omitted entirely from the Series Two stickers, the Action Flipz, and the Series Three (Powerful) Flipcards. It wasn't villain discrimination like the Cardzillion 1 and 3 sets, as far as I can tell. Zoisite got plenty of action in Series Three, though as a single, which rather defeats the purpose...well, never mind. I'm taking this offense far too seriously, as this is not even a children's card game, just children's trading cards.

These are the stated ratios from the packs, which confirm my findings. The foil chases from this set seem to be the trial version of the ultra rare CCG foils (see above.) Wicked Lady (chase #9) is highly sought after and quite striking in foil. Unfortunately, these foils are prone to misprints or misalignments which can significantly detract from their appearance. Series 3 (below) also contains a set of foil chase CCG cards. Right now, it appears you are best off buying the full set of foils from Dart directly; it's a good sized chunk of money, but really does work out to an acceptable cost per card.

Interestingly, each pack contained a CCG-like card promoting the upcoming release of the CCG. Like the chases, these seem to have been a trial printing. One of these cards is in every pack, even packs containing the foil chase preview cards.The second foil promo was apparently from a promotional set of the Archival cards. My secondhand set came in a plain cardboard box with a cellophane front. The foil promo was the first card in the pack, so you could see it through the cellophane. I was told the set in my possession was purchased from a comic book store, with the assumption it was a dealer promotional set. This card is difficult to find because it unfortunately looks like it's a fake or modified card of the flooded pack promo.

I suspect that these two CCG promos may be the "promo P1 and P2" that have been circulating around the internet on Archival checklists since time began, but these cards are not marked. There is still, I suppose, a chance there are numbered P1 and P2 promos for this set. All I have found while searching for them have been mislabelled promos of Series 3 or another of the Dart sets. The scans for these cards will be discussed in the CCG promo cards entry, which I will write up at some point before I die.

While my ratios are taken from the packs, these confirm my own findings. One box usually yields a complete set of chases 1-3 sometimes with a duplicate, two from the second tier, and one from the third. Chase #9 is evil and best found through eBay. The initial price for the #9 chase was around $50, but the panic wore off quickly. Right now, it appears you are best off buying the full set of foils from Dart directly; it's a good sized chunk of money, but really does work out to an acceptable cost per card.

Film Cards (or, in Artbox land, FilmCardz) were another specialty type of trading card released near the end of the Sailor Moon heyday in 2000. These were less plentiful in stores than the Action Flipz in my area. There are no official ratios on the foils; this is just my best guess. I only opened one box, and in looking over my notes I got three foils out of 24 packs. All the foils were placed on the right hand side of the box. I ended up buying the rest of the foils as singles rather than buy another box or ten to find them all. That means my sample size is too small to be statistically viable. Meh.

That word -- meh -- perfectly describes my reaction to this series. I always bought a couple test packs of card series at Suncoast to see what they were like, and the only time I ever remember feeling gipped was with these cards. Card quality was abysmal. Pictures were ho hum. I ended up with duplicates from only two packs of cards. Not cool.

This was the last card series for Artbox, and to me it always felt like they sold out and went gimmicky on us. We had trading stickers -- decent, not great, but decent. Then the Action Flipz, which were sorta cool and a challenge to collect them all. And then...the Film Cards. Flimsy cardboard with the kind of transperancy sheets you can print off your computer attached to the back. And by the way, buy the film card viewer to make these cards super special! *jazz hands* At least this wasn't the lowest point of Sailor Moon merchandising. According to the archived version of their site, Artbox made friggin jigsaw puzzle clocks for Sailor Moon, too. "Teach your child how to tell time while assembling a puzzle! For ages 8 and up." I told you: gimmicky.

I finished off this set just to be a completionist, so my meh remains. The color is washed out -- you need to stack at least two cards to get vivid colors out of them. The cardboard border is flimsy and feels cheap. And the printing is way too easily misaligned, leading to fuzzy images that will give you vertigo attacks. When they're nice and crisp, they're pretty awesome, but in my experience, a good quarter of your cards are going to be subpar.

Meh.

And unacceptable.

This is hands-down the most obscure set of Sailor Moon cards released in North America. So what is this set all about? Why is it so rare? It was only available when you joined the short-lived Sailor Moon Fan Club offered by DiC. If you collect MIB merchandise, you've probably seen the number to call on some of the oldest US Bandai toys. The fan club was definitely dead by late 1997 when I tried calling. It probably didn't make it through 1996. The merchandise itself is pretty hohum (you'll recognize most of the images from the Awesome/Archival set of cards, and the ones you don't, well, you probably don't want to own those anyway), but the rarity. Ahhh, the rarity. That is the clincher here.

While I was on the hunt for them, I realized a few factors that are going to wildly affect the prices for these cards -- I had quotes anywhere from one dollar to closer to ten. First, the cardstock is flimsy -- almost as thin as the trading stickers from JPP/Amada and Artbox. Two, these cards were probably owned by people who don't seriously collect trading cards, meaning that they're going to be handled far more than cards you'd get from, well, someone like me. ;) Three, the first two factors combine to mean the majority of cards in this set are going to be in marginally acceptable condition for collectors, and a good (not perfect, but good enough to admire in your binder) set is probably going to run you $75 or more.

I'm still not sure they're worth it, as I view these as "bragging rights" for Sailor Moon card collectors. Speaking objectively, you aren't missing anything by not having them. Saving some scans from the internet and, ahem, printing them on photo paper from a high quality printer, ahem ahem, will suffice if you aren't dumb like me and want the real deal.

Here are verbal descriptions of the cards:
1. Sailor Moon logo on a blue background, like the Bandai toy boxes. No identical card match.
2. Sailor Moon and Luna, like the top of the Awesome box. No identical card match.
3. Sailor Mercury getting ready to launch Shabon Spray, identical to Awesome/Archival #61.
4. Sailor Mars, identical to Awesome/Archival #46.
5. Sailor Jupiter in her end transformation pose. Closest match is JPP/Amada #72.
6. Sailor Venus, I think from the Japanese opening credits for season 1, identical to Awesome/Archival #34.
7. Luna and Artemis, identical to Awesome/Archival card #16 with the orientation turned horizontal.
8. Tuxedo Mask throwing roses, identical to Awesome/Archival #20.
9. The opening screen group shot against the neon city skyline, mirror image of Awesome/Archival #27.
10. The amazingly bad US drawing of Queen Beryl looking like Voldemort, like Awesome/Archival #29 but Jadeite cropped out and the orientation changed to vertical.