Category: Retro

Classic Doctor Who Trading Cards

July 8, 2024

I bought thirteen packs of Doctor Who trading cards last year and I think they’ve aged enough. Time to open them!

As you can see there were four series, released from 1994 through 1996. Unusually these were printed by an American company, but even though I knew of them and looked for them at the time I never saw them sold here. They of course only cover classic Who, since the relaunch was several years away when these were printed.

The above shows the contents of a series 1 pack. Ten cards, each nicely designed (especially for the time) and with a great deal of text on the back. I would have loved these thirty years ago!

A nice touch is that the first three series continue numbering and share design, and it’s almost impossible to tell which particular series a card comes from if you don’t look at the number. Here are cards from each of the first three sets:

Series 1 and 2 have a small (about 1 in 500) chance of autographs in the packs. Of particular interest to me was the Jon Pertwee autograph apparently possible in series 2, and there were traces of excitement in the house as I opened the packs. Alas I was not lucky, and in fact only got two chase cards between all 13 packs:

The leftmost is a glossy card that has a puzzle piece on the back, and the rightmost is a very nicely done foil card (both these came from series 3 packs). These are of average quality for chase cards of that era, and I think would have been satisfying enough to pull from packs.

The 4th series was a surprise. Not only is the design completely different and the numbering resets, but the cards are uglier, many of them are poorly aligned or even miscut and the text written on the back not as good. If I’d bought these in 1996 I would have expected consistency with the first 3 sets (based on the wrapper) and would have been disappointed with the changes.

Overall though, it was fun opening these 30 year old packs of cards, and I’m happy I only got a single double and now have about a third of the full set!

Now let’s go back even further… almost fifty years to be precise!

Back in 1976 Ty-Phoo tea (in the UK) had a promotion called The Amazing World Of Doctor Who. This comprised a booklet, wall chart and set of 12 trading cards randomly packed into boxes of tea. Here’s the full set:

I bought these (for only $5!) at the antique store we visited the other day. They’re in incredible condition for their age, and as a relic of now-ancient Who they’re fantastic. As a fourteen-year-old I would have treasured these!

The back of each card has the name of the character/monster shown, and information on how to buy the book. Based on the rates quoted, you’d have needed to drink a lot of tea to collect a full set of these, so I suppose I’m fairly lucky I own them!

They’ll happily live in a case in a box in a chest for ever 🙂

Lunatics Only: Handhelds

June 10, 2024

In the last few years I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of LCD and VFD handhelds appearing in Japanese retro game stores. Where once these were overlooked by most retro gamers, they’ve now become sought after amongst collectors of my vintage and prices continue to rise.

The kings of this category are of course Nintendo Game & Watches. We all had them in the 1980s, but most were tossed away. Very rare are surviving boxes, which is why the Flag Man (second from left) in the above pic is over $750. I recall many years ago seeing a full set of these in a store window in Mandarake. These days a full set would be worth tens of thousands of dollars!

I own a few of these, and they’re in great condition. Seeing these prices today for poor condition examples was a bit eye-opening!

The game on the right is one of several licensed LCD games, this time based on the anime Aura Battler Dunbine. It’s very likely a poor game – Nintendo cornered this market for a reason – but its high price (~$260) would be all about the license. Some of the licensed Bandai LCD games sell for almost as much as the rarest Game & Watches, especially the old Gundam and Ultraman games.

Here’s a shelf of old VFD games. They’re not very expensive (~$30 each) but I’d wager many have screen or capacitor issues and of course they all lack boxes, which would likely at least triple the price. If I had space I would have taken a risk on at least one of these.

We used to own the Scramble machine on the right (and I bet Bernard can remember the tune as well as I can) and we played it like mad baboons. It was one of the best selling VFD games worldwide, which is probably why even boxed the unit I saw today was only ¥6600. Had I the space, I would have purchased it in an instant. (Also check out that so-bad-it’s-good art on the Lupin box!)

The above is the sort of thing I love seeing in the retro game shops of Akihabara and Nakano: an amazing looking VFD I’d never heard of but absolutely would have wanted as a child. The theme is Ancient Greece with monsters, the box art is beautiful, and the game graphics are very detailed for its time (you can watch the original Japanese advert here). The price was about $300 which is obviously too high for me but there’s some Japanese guy my age who had this as a kid that’s going to buy this without hesitation 🙂

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged something like the above before: a ‘junk’ item. These are common in the retro game shops, and the term is used to describe something that is known to be broken but can also be put on items that simply are not tested (which often means presumed to not work).

This one is an LCD pachinko game – or rather was a pachinko game. If it had worked, I probably would have bought it for several times the ~$5 they were asking.

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

January 16, 2024

As always I was on the hunt for books for my gamebook collection during the recent trip, and I’ve become better at finding them in the various collectors and used book shops I visit. I bought some interesting items this trip!

The above are the standard gamebook finds. Only one original Fighting Fantasy book is fewer than the last few times I was in Japan, but my collection of Japanese versions is becoming quite complete now and it’s not easy finding ones I don’t already have!

The middle book is the Japanese imprint of volume one of Cretan Chronicles and the rightmost is the Japanese version of the Maelstrom RPG written by a gamebook author and released to the same market in the 1980s.

To my great surprise – and happiness – I also found a brand new copy of the first box set of FF reprints from 2020. As I understand this was only available via a Japanese crowdfunding campaign and I assumed I’d never get a set. Now I have one! I already owned the second and third box sets, and the fourth is out in a few months. I’ll look for that one on future trips 🙂

Amazingly, after my great surprise finding a single issue back in June, I found thirty-one issues of Japanese Warlock magazine. This was not an impulse buy – both weight and cost were considerable – and I deliberated for a few days. Lunacy won out though, and they’re now in my house!

I now have about half of the 63-issue run of this magazine. This is a collection that merits more attention, and I’ll probably feature it in a future blog post one day.

The above were a surprise since I didn’t even know they existed. They’re AD&D modules based on FF books! Eight were printed in english (and they’re quite expensive now!) but the numbering on these Japanese ones (the above are 1, 6 and 7) don’t match the english versions and it’s hard to find information about them online.

They’re impressively designed with lots of nice art, and they make me want to try and get one of the English versions….

The last – and by far weirdest – item I found was this gamebook based on the 1980s horror film House. As you can see it was called Goblin in Japan, probably because there was a famous Japanese fantasy-horror film called House already.

This book is super strange. I though the Back To The Future gamebook I bought on a previous trip was weird but of all the films to based a book on why on earth was this one chosen?

It seems like a fully featured book with hundreds of entries, but it’s also very puzzle heavy, possibly in lieu of a normal combat system. Art is stills from the film. I’ve seen the film somewhat recently so I may have to get the translator and give this one a play through just to try and understand what the story could be?

Incidentally the publisher is the same that released the video game licensed gamebooks in Japan, including the two Wizardry ones I showed in the last post. And yet this is from a different series. As you can see it’s number 4 in the series. What were the others? Unfortunately finding info online about these is almost impossible, so for now I can only wonder.

Robot Claw