Well, after 2 whole months of back and forth I think I can finally announce this:
Yes, after looking for the card for more than 20 years, I finally got the demo Mattego.
First of all some back story for those who didn’t know “that one card” we’re talking about:
The Nintendo e-Reader released outside Japan is actually an upgraded version of the original e-Reader, which added support of connecting to Game Boy Advance or Nintendo Gamecube through link cables and feeding card data into games. This upgraded version was later released in Japan with the name “Card e Reader + (Plus)”.
In order to advertise the upgraded hardware and its connectivity feature, Nintendo launched a program with 3rd-party retailers in which Nintendo sent retailers demo kiosk kits and requested them to set the kits up in stores. These kiosks allow customers who hadn’t bought a Card e Reader + to bring in their cards and use them to download data into their games.
For those who don’t own any card and just wanted to try out the device, Nintendo also included some sample cards with the kit which the retailers would chain to the kiosk and allow customers to try out freely.
The kiosks are not exclusive to Japan as we have already seen in previous posts:
However, Nintendo made a twist when introducing the kiosks in Japan: the smaple cards which came with the kiosks in Japan contains 3 cards which are exclusive to the kiosk, so customers could only obtain their data by visiting the kiosks and had no ways to obtain the physical copies of the cards. This made the 3 exclusive demo cards the last and greatest hurdle for anyone who wants to complete Japanese e-Reader collections since they can only be obtained through store leaks.
The 3 exclusive demo cards all belong to different e-Reader sets. One of the cards is Cool Trainer Mattego 08-P008, which belongs to the Japanese Pokémon Battle-e Ruby & Sapphire set. It is not to be confused with Cool Trainer Mattego 08-P004, which is bundled with all Japanese Card e Reader +s and Australian e-Readers. In fact, TPC advertised the card as “representing Mattego while he’s still a trainee”, hence the reason he’s holding unevolved Hoenn starters in 08-P008 in contrast to his fully-developed party in 08-P004.
As for how I ended up getting the card, that’s another long story:
As a collector who’s primary focus is on e-Reader cards, I have search keywords set on all my auction site accounts to constantly alert on possible listings. I found and obtained one of the 3 cards fairly quickly:
No Time to Dawdle 07-A052
The first exclusive demo card I managed to obtain belongs to the Super Mario Advance 4 e-Reader set. The game itself has a feature to read new level data from e-Reader cards and install up to 32 read levels so that players can retry the installed levels without having to scan the level card again.
The exclusive demo card 07-A052 offers a new level called No Time to Dawdle, a challenging level giving players only 20 seconds to clear it. 07-A052 was initially not only sought after by collectors but also players of the game since it’s the only way to install the level into their cartridges. The level was later made widely accessible as Nintendo pre-installed the level into the game when releasing it on Wii U Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online, however the card itself is still greatly wanted by collectors hoping to complete the set and enthusiasts insisting to play the level on the game’s original platform.
But then the alarm went silent for over 20 years until March this year when a Nintendo collector decided to rearrange his collection and listed one of the cards for 35 USD. Needless to say it got snagged immediately, and unfortunately it was listed while I was at work so I didn’t even have a chance.
However there was one other thing that caught my eye: seller answered a question in one of his other “normal” listings:
Another buyer: “Do you have another copy of that card? I can offer you $2K USD”
Seller: “Yeah I do, I can make an offer if you’re serious about your offer”
I saw this and said to myself “yeah I’m late on that listing, but why not give it a try?”
Me (on another “normal” listing): “Do you have more demo cards to offer? I can also offer $2K”
Seller: “I found a Mattego, so I can make an offer if you’re willing to pay $2K for that”
$2K USD versus the possibility of another 20 or more years of searching? I’m not sure how others would think, but I’ll happily take the former. So $2K paid, card in hand. Needless to say I utilized all my knowledge regarding the card and did all the verifications I can to make sure it’s the real thing before closing the deal.
After I got the card and made sure it’s the real thing, I sent it to PSA immediately to have it graded… Only to get a N9:
I understand that it can be concerning when a card submitted has the note “No Grade, No Charge” and I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
After reviewing the order with the information provided, it appears that the card submitted is unable to be processed due to our research team found credible sources through their research noted that this specific item is a demo card that was not meant to be distributed to the public. Due to this card not having an official public release, we are unable to authenticate the card as we require cards to have official public releases with a checklist that can verify this information.
So I then started a long back-and-forth with PSA’s research team to provide all the information I have in hand, including Wayback Machine backups of official announcements and stuff. The effort paid off when they determined that the sources are sufficient for them to grade the card, so I sent it in again and finally got it graded.
That’s it! That’s the long story of me getting the 2nd card of the 3 exclusive demo cards. For those who’s asking “wait a minute, I saw the last card on sale, why didn’t you get it”… Well, unfortunately I got priced out of that one, but who knows, maybe some day I’ll still manage to get that last card and finally completing the Japanese collection once and for all. At least I’m not giving up for now.