e-Reader Serial Code Prefixes

Articles
1

I’ve been doing some research into a question I asked yesterday about e-Reader serial codes on the Sample Set and figured I’d share my findings. Most of this is thanks to a very old (2004) website called Pixelboy’s e-Reader Zone: erzone.caitsith2.net/plain.htm.

  • A

[English] Expedition Base Set cards originally from Japan’s Pokémon-e Starter Deck (including FPO cards)
[Japanese] Pokémon-e Starter Deck

  • B

[English] Expedition Base Set cards originally from Japan’s Base Expansion set (including FPO and E3 2002 cards)
[Japanese] Base Expansion Pack

  • C

[English] Aquapolis cards originally from Japan’s The Town on No Map set
[Japanese] The Town on No Map

  • D

[English] Aquapolis cards originally from Japan’s Wind from the Sea set
[Japanese] Wind from the Sea

  • E

[English] Skyridge cards originally from Japan’s Split Earth set
[Japanese] Split Earth

  • F

[English] Skyridge cards originally from Japan’s Mysterious Mountains set
[Japanese] Mysterious Mountains

  • G

[English] EX Ruby & Saphire cards originally from Japan’s Mudkip Constructed Starter Deck
[English] EX Ruby & Saphire cards originally from Japan’s Torchic Constructed Starter Deck
[English] EX Ruby & Saphire cards originally from Japan’s Treecko Constructed Starter Deck
[Japanese] Mudkip Constructed Starter Deck
[Japanese] Torchic Constructed Starter Deck
[Japanese] Treecko Constructed Starter Deck

  • H

[English] EX Ruby & Saphire cards originally from Japan’s Expansion Pack set
[Japanese] Expansion Pack

  • I

[English] EX Sandstorm

  • K

[English] EX Dragon

  • M

[English] Expedition Base Set Sample Set cards
[English] EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua
[Japanese] McDonald’s Pokémon-e Minimum Pack

  • N

[Japanese] Theater Limited VS Pack

  • R

[Japanese] Japanese Space World Sample Set cards

  • Z

[English] WotC Black Star Promo cards
[English] Nintendo Black Star Promo cards
[Japanese] P Promo cards*
[Japanese] T promo cards

Trivia

  • Japan stopped printing cards with e-Reader strips after the first EX expansion, even though English cards still had the e-Reader strip for 3 additional sets up to EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua.
  • Only the cards not marked as owned by Team Aqua or Team Magma in EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua have e-Reader strips (9 of the 97 cards available).
  • Some of the P Promo cards have multiple serial numbers for each card. E.g. Kecleon (001/P) has 4 variants: Z-01-a, Z-01-b, Z-01-c, and Z-01-d.
  • * Some of the P Promo cards reuse codes from previous sets and aren’t prefixed with a Z.
  • Cards from EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua have clashes with IDs from Japan’s McDonald’s Pokémon-e Minimum Pack. This works for some cards, i.e. Bulbasaur from both sets have the serial code M-01-#, but this does not work for cards like Pikachu from EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua which shares the code M-11-# with Sandshrew from the McDonald’s set.
6 Likes
2

I’m assuming there are cards prefixed with J and L. If anyone knows what these cards are I’d love to know!

Other than the English Sample Set cards, the Japanese Space World sample cards also feature an e-Reader serial number. Unfortunately none of the pictures in @quuador 's Pokémon TCG Picture Dump thread are clear enough to work out what the prefix is. This is probably the clearest picture:

If anyone knows what that one is, I’d love to know. My guess is that it’s either B, E, F, R or Z.

Update: It’s an R. It says R-06-# on the Game Boy Advance screen.

2 Likes