I received them as a part of a large collection. The guy was really fanatical about the e-Reader sets and had complete sets of every e-Reader set as well as the 2002 Japanese Backs, Kirby and Manhole pack. He had quite a few other rare items such as a couple Trainer Deck B’s, complete 1st ed Base Sets and other rare Nintendo items in general.
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I emailed the guy that I purchased these from and this is what he said:
“The cards with the holes were promo giveaways at the 3e convention… they were given out as promos, along with a nintendo lanyard with a metal clip at the end. They came out the same year that nintendo was introducing the e-reader for the gameboy system. The cards were intended to introduce people to the e-reader, so they copuld swipe them at the convention, and see the mini-games and the pokemon features. If i remember right, the cards are essentially the same ones that were later included in the blue foil packs of sample cards that later came with the e-reader itself. But if you compare the cards to the ones that were issued in pokemon card packs, there are actually some small differences between them and the 3e convention cards issued with holes. The holes were in the cards, i believe, so people could put the cards on the lanyard.”
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Forgot to update on this, but I found two manhole cards that are the same type of glossy print as the Pichu and Hoppip. They each have the hole punch in them as well. I’ll post a photo in a little bit as I don’t have my other manhole cards with me at the moment tot discern the differences myself.
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Mega bump but I am adding these to my collection now and was hoping you could provide a picture of the manhole card, which I have not yet found.
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@funmonkey54 Here are the pictures of the Manhole. I take it you were able to find the Pikachu and Hoppip? Are there any others like this that you have found?
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Nope. Another member messaged me about these two.
If anyone has the Pichu please let me know!
Also, I’m just about to send off another PSA shipment and want to send the Hoppip as well. I’m 99% sure it’s not gradable though… can anyone shed any light on this?
I have those same 2 cards somewhere (I hope). Same hole and glossy finish, got them in a random lot a while back. I always thought they were odd but didn’t think much of them being legit due to the size and texture. I’ll have to dig them up, hoping I didn’t throw them away thinking they were junk!
Found them! By the looks of them they were used a bit as you can see scuffing from the eReader. I had an Expedition Pichu close by so I took a couple photos with that as comparison. I didn’t have the Manhole card with the lot that I had unfortunately.
Few more photos here: imgur.com/a/f0bQB
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Tracked down another set of these with the Manhole card. Still haven’t found out if there are any others floating around out there but it doesn’t sound like there is. Being this is 3 of the 4 cards out of the E3 pack Kirby is the only other one I could imagine being made like this but due to it being a prize card it probably wasn’t…
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If you feel like selling the Pichu please let me know first!
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Bumping due to the recent auction listings in the Giant Auction thread.
Adding photos comparisons of the cards to the Expedition counterparts.
The hole punched cards are very glossy, almost a laminate finish. This can be seen much better on the back than the front.
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I talked to the seller a bit. He’s willing to let the 3 cards go for $100. Those that are interested can shoot him a message to set up a 3 pack listing if he hasn’t made one already. I think that’s a pretty fair number on the lot of them.
I think he has 8 sets or less left, once those are gone I don’t imagine many in this quality surfacing (new and not swiped).
His profile: www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_odkw=&_ssn=singularphonez&_armrs=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=&_sacat=0
New 3 pack listing here, he mentioned taking $99 for the 3 so give that a go if you’re interested. Updated link:
www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-Pichu-SAMPLE-BUNDLE-E-Reader-Rare-AMERICAN-BACK-Not-For-Resale-NFR-/182565967558
Bumping this because they’re available again.
Seller seems to have some more of these for sale, I was lucky to pick a set up.
He’s accepting best offers around 2/3 the list price.
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Omg I finally know what is supposed to be on he other side of my Manhole card 
I’m going to have to pick one up! This is mine for ref, it has a regular back. 
This guy must have a ton of these. I know myself and a few others bought sets from him a while back. I got my set from him for $15.
All 3 for $15???
Yea I got all 3 for $15 from that guy.
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Was any more information ever dug up about these?
I saw these listed on eBay a couple of years ago but didn’t invest as I assumed they were fake, however after seeing this thread yesterday, I decided to do a bit of research. The seller mentioned above still has 3 of them up for sale (for $129.99 now). Based on the other listings the seller has I’m now confident that these are legitimate cards (well, as legitimate as glossy cards with holes in them can get), so I’ve made them an offer - it would be nice to get my hands on the Pichu.
The seller has this listing, which shows that the primary purpose of the hole was to attach the card to a mounted e-Reader:
It’s obvious that they mimic the E3 2002 demo cards, but the fact that they have the regular English back and not the new Japanese back makes me think they’re not from the same event, but were instead used to demo the e-Reader at event kiosks and possibly in video game shops around the time of the Game Boy Advance e-Reader launch. Unfortunately, I was unable to dig up any internet activity for these cards prior to January 2015 when this thread was created.
The card itself has an interesting history, as the 2002 E3 convention (22-24 May) made these cards available in English 4 months before the Expedition Base Set was released (15 September). As we know, these E3 cards had the new Japanese back, but the final release had the English back. Based on the fact that these glossy cards also have the English back, I can only assume that these were produced much nearer to the launch of the Expedition Base Set than to the E3 convention itself.
Edit: Searching on Google Images for “Nintendo e-reader kiosk” revealed an image on this webiste, which has the manhole card attached to the device in the same way (it can be seen just above the d-pad):
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Doing more research into this I’ve found something which hasn’t been mentioned here before: the E3 Game & Watch “Manhole” card is not the same as the Manhole card featured in this set. This set has the same Manhole card which was sold alongside the e-Reader at launch, which further leads me to believe that these cards had nothing to do with the E3 convention.
The website which had the mounted e-Reader image I used in my previous post linked to a different website, Pixelboy’s e-Reader Zone, which was last updated in 2004: erzone.caitsith2.net/plain.htm. You’ll notice that it lists two different Manhole cards: 00-A000 and 02-A001. For the sake of this forum post, I’ve rehosted these images on Imgur:
00-A000
This was the card given out at the E3 event and is also the same as the “For Position Only” card, albeit without the Pokémon back and without the FPO text:
02-A001
This card was sold with the e-Reader device. To quote the website: “This e-Card is sold together with the e-Reader, as part of the “Sample Pack 5 Card Set”.”:
Back to the topic at hand, this website also contains the entries for several other relevant cards.
- 00029 - Pichu (E3 2002 Promo - May 2002)
- 00030 - Hoppip (E3 2002 Promo - May 2002)
- 00058 - Pichu (Expedition Base Set - September 2002)
- 00112 - Hoppip (Expedition Base Set - September 2002)
- 01079 - Hoppip (Sample set - August 2002)
- 01087 - Pichu (Sample set - August 2002)
Unfortunately the website is coded using a frameset, so I can’t link directly to them. From the images shared earlier in this thread, it looks like these hole-punched cards use the same e-Reader code as the Expedition Base Set launch and not the ones from the E3 convention.
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