Pokémon Topsun Card Gum Battle Cards Checklist (1997)

This page publishes 150 numbered cards read off photographs, plus a No.151 that is bound on its own photograph, and it stops there. No wrapper, box or leaflet printing a set total has been photographed, so every total in circulation is a seller’s count. The series is therefore at least 151 cards and this archive prints no denominator until a printed total exists.

What would settle it: one photograph of a non-prism No.151, or one wrapper or box printing a total.

This is the single most useful thing to know before buying. 100 of the 150 in lot 1134946375 of the numbered cards carry the painted battle artwork that pairs the named Pokemon against a second one, and 50 carry a gold-framed anime screenshot with a red starburst number banner. They are one run, not two sets: every card in the complete set photographed for this page carries the same green back.

Each row below says which of the two designs the card this archive photographed was printed in. A number is not evidence of a design.

The battle-cards photographs read No.053 Persian with the classification ばけねこポケモン. The sibling Topsun 1995 cards, photographed in the same week, print きゃむねこポケモン on their own No.053 Persian and ばけねこポケモン on No.052 Meowth, which is the split the species carry elsewhere.

Both readings are recorded here rather than one being quietly preferred. Either this product prints a different classification on 053 from its sibling, which would be a real and interesting difference, or the battle-cards reading is one plate off at the resolution it was read. A close-up of a single No.053 card settles it, and until one exists this page states the disagreement.

A prism card is not a shiny copy of the card above it. Prism No.150 pairs Mewtwo with Venusaur where the non-prism No.150 pairs him with Hitmonlee, so the artwork differs at the same printed number. A prism row is therefore never filled in from a non-prism photograph, and these 21 rows are read only off prism cards.

All 21 backs read トップ in the oval. No.130 was bound by its name plate because its number band sits outside the frame, and the row says so.

No.070 is a real name error and it is bound on two independent lots. The card prints the No.070 number band and Weepinbell’s classification over Bellsprout’s name, Bellsprout’s printed height and weight, and Bellsprout’s artwork. Only the number and the classification belong to Weepinbell. The correctly printed No.070 exists in the same lot, which is what makes the error legible as one.

The other three print correct content. No.069 differs only in a background dot field that photographed under different lighting, and No.004 and No.083 read as off-register trims on a card lying at an angle. A single photograph is not enough to publish a cut error, so all three are listed and held rather than named as errors.

Sellers elsewhere advertise no-number and number-error cards for this line. Neither was photographed for this page and neither is recorded here as existing.