Came across a doubt while going through some old threads. When or why would you label a card as a trophy, prize, or just a limited promo. The way it was awarded, the event, the circunstances? What defines those therms? Are they exclusive? I assume a trophy card is a prize card by nature, but there are also prize cards that I wouldn’t label as trophies, for example the illustrator or the snap cards. Wanted to hear some opinions.
I see Trophy cards as cards awarded with an actual trophy/trophy case/Certificate which announces the winner/winner’s placing. This is usually the case for the top 3 or top 4 trainer cards in high profile tournaments like TMB/SSB/Battle Roads/Japan World Championships/Battle Carnivals/Battle Festas/Champions Leagues/World Championships and also the Illustrator (there’s a giant trophy that came with it shared by @gemmintpokemon).
Everything else is considered prize cards.
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Thanks for taking your time, I will have to agree with your statement. But yeah the therm “prize card” is widely used and it has no references at all. Still there are some variables like print run that imo should be taken into account to differ between trophy cards and just limited promos. So you would say the illustrator, the snap cards, TMB phone cards or for example the family kanga are trophies?
Didn’t know the illustrator came with a trophy, would love to see that! But for example, the illustrator and trophy kanga, why one is a trophy and the other one a prize card? Werent both given out as awards for an event? Also I think price shouldnt be taken into account here.
This is my personal opinion but I think the Parent Child Kangaskhan, like the Unikarp, is a prize card because you don’t need to place top to win the card, you needed to win a certain number of rounds to obtain it.
The term ‘Trophy Khan’ was coined by collectors outside Japan, japanese collectors don’t call it that. They call it the Parent/ Child Kangaskhan but after many years, some japanese Collectors started adopting the term ‘Trophy Kangaskhan’.
PSA labels are named by collectors too if it wasn’t in their database in the first place.
The Illustrator was given out to the winners of the illustration contest which gave the vending series Mr. Mime, Poliwrath and Snorlax. The Mewtwo looking back was also the winning art for another illustration contest which awarded the Illustrator. You actually have to win the contest to be awarded an illustrator. Of course you have the consolation prizes but then Master Key and Wonder Platinum also have Participation awards, both are what is considered a Trophy Card.
This is all just my personal opinion. Many people take the Trophy Kangaskhan as a trophy card which is fine. It is still extremely rare and iconic in the realm of old back promos.
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And by that logic the snap cards would be trophy cards to you? Very interesting points you stated there.
No, the snap cards wouldn’t be categorize under trophy nor prize. It would just be a rare promo, like lottery promos. If it were me, I’d categorize snaps, art academies and illustration contest cards under a new category, ‘Illustration contest cards’
Hear me out. These snap cards are really rare, but how did they decide who would win? Lottery maybe? There’s no objective way of deciding who was the clear cut winner like winning a game or winning a tournament. Whoever picked these winners used subjective logic like the most colorful or most wholesome or best looking, to decide the winners, much like the art academies. However, if the 10 snap winners were awarded some kind of card like ‘Snap Grand Master Trainer’, then I’d consider that a Trophy card because this hypothetical card was awarded to winners of the contest, objectively speaking.
Again, totally my opinion. There should really be another category of cards for all the illustration cards.
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Hahahaha I honestly doubt they were chosen for the best looking because most of the snap pic were totally crap, but yes I agree 100% there, they are winners, but they did the same as the rest, it’s nothing like winning a tournament. Thanks for sharing!
Are you really doubting the artistic genius that is Ryouichi Abe? Gyarados sponsored by Coke™ is probably the best tcg artwork that we will ever see.
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I bet Ryouichi Abe was a 5 years old japanese baby. Also it’s not their fault for sending shitty pics, it’s the judges fault for choosing the worst ones XD
Dictionary
Trophy;
noun
- Once an honourable and prestigious title given to elite cards by collectors, now tainted by flippers and IG kids. Trophy is just a common card looking to make a buck in life.
@chok, As much as I agree that Snap/Illustration/Art Academy cards aren’t Trophies, I do feel they need something like you’ve mentioned. Although the winners didn’t need to win a TCG tournament to gain the cards over all, they did need to win out of potentially tens of thousands of entries (I’d assume).
In essence, I see these cards as each artists recognition and that of a trophy for winning a competition, although it wasn’t a TCG competition.
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Interesting topic! Personally I think the difference between a trophy and a prize is pretty clear-cut.
A trophy always describes a victory over another group or individual. There is a reason why one of the origins of the word trophy is the French word trophée, which means “a prize of war”. Another origin is the Greek word tropaion, which refers to arms, standards, other property, or human captives and body parts captured in battle. In any case, a trophy is always associated with emerging victorious from a confrontation.
A prize is a much more generic term. It is an award that intends to reward an individual’s or a group’s actions or achievements.
Going by that logic, a trophy card must be one that was won in a direct confrontation with other people (such as a tournament). Therefore, any trophy card is also a prize card, but not every prize card is a trophy card.
Examples for a prize card that is not a trophy card would be lottery cards or point cards like Master’s Scroll. Both are a reward for an achievement (being lucky and winning the lottery or being persistent enough to accumulate enough points). A prize card also does not necessarily have to be one that has to be won. Consolation Prizes for example are given to people who did not win, because even the attempt to win and the will to participate in a contest shall be recognized. Therefore I would classify participation cards such as Wonder Platinum and Master’s key as Prize cards but not Trophy cards despite their insane rarity. And notice how the card text on neither card indicates a status as trophy:
Master’s Key: “Pokémon World Championship 2010 Japan National Tournament prize card”
Wonder Platinum: “Pokémon Trading Card official card game tournament award”
But what about the term Promo? Promotional cards do exactly what the name suggests. They are distributed to promote various things like Pokemon Movies (e.g. Southern Islands), Pokemon magazines (e.g. CoroCoro Promos), certain other franchises collaborating with Pokemon (e.g. McDonalds Promos) or organized events (e.g. POP series). Most of these cards do not classify as prize cards nor trophy cards, and all have in common that they could not be purchased in stores. There are some prize cards that are also technically promos simply because they have the promo star icon on the card. For example, the previously mentioned Master’s Key is also part of the L-P Promotional cards as it has the associated logo on the bottom right corner. One could argue that such cards also classify as promos because they promote the Tournament itself.
The Pokemon Snap cards I found a bit difficult to classify. Since they were awarded to winners of a contest, one could argue that they are the trophy of that contest. However, I disagree, because those cards were not predetermined as trophies before the contest started due to the nature of the contest itself. Rather, the winning pictures were made into cards and given to the photographers, which in my view is not a trophy that was won. It also begs the question if contests are a form of tournament or not. While in tournaments the prize can most likely be called a trophy (unless each participant gets one), a contest is different in the sense that there is not necessarily a direct confrontation, which would be necessary to justify the winning of a trophy and not just the winning of a prize. There is a difference between battling an opponent one on one and simply submitting a photo for a jury that compares all entries.
Just a few more words about some famous cards:
Parent/Child Kangaskhan: Since the parent/child team had to win a certain number of rounds to win this card, one could argue that this card is both a prize card and trophy card. It is common in sports and other tournaments that there are more trophies than just 1st place. Most tournaments in sports decide to reward 1st, 2nd and 3rd place with trophies, but that rule is not set in stone, so handing out a trophy for advancing a certain number of rounds is definitely possible.
Unikarp: Same as Kangaskhan. People had to win battles on day 1 to receive this card on day 2 of the event, making this more than a participation prize, and since these people secured a victory over another group of people, it should be a trophy card in my opinion. I can understand that some people would feel uncomfortable with this categorization because dozens (hundreds?) of Unikarps were given out and most people associate a one-of-a-kind mentality with a trophy.
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@darky97, yes, to sum it up a trophy is something that was won in a direct confrontation or battle, and a prize card is an award for doing something, like gathering points, or winning a contest indirectly.
Wonder Platinum and Master‘s key are trophy cards, there is no arguing about that. While they were given to all participants of the Final tournament, all these participants were already winners as they won the respective regional tournaments. Hence those finals only had „winners“ as participants.
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Is there no arguing about it because it’s canon in the community or because there was an official statement declaring the cards as trophies? After all, the tournament where the Master’s Key and Wonder Platinum were given out were separate from the previous tournaments that brought forth the winners. It would mean that the trophy for winning one tournament was given out at another tournament. That sounds strange to me.
You gave very detailed examples for your definition of prize cards, would you do the same for trophy cards? Where do you think an illustrator stand by your definition?
Illustrator, hm…It was awarded as prize for a contest, but it’s different from the Snap prize cards because Illustrator was predetermined as prize of the contest. Personally I wouldn’t classify Illustrator as trophy card because I still see some sort of direct confrontation like a tournament as prerequisite to acquire a trophy. I’d say it’s a contest prize card.
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No one should worry that much about the usage. These are all collector terms. Every card mentioned in this thread makes sense being called a trophy.
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Guess these therms will always be used lightly and without much concern. But I found it interesting to discuss