Some nice artworks in here! I only have three at the moment. I got the Jessie postcard first and found the James postcard a few years later. They came from a Japanese postcard book:
I bought this Alcremie postcard this year. It was originally a lottery prize from Pokemon Center Online in Japan. I like that it showcases some of the different forms:
Not a purchase, but last year my partner’s family thought it’d be a good idea to go to NYC to do Christmas shopping (it was PACKED)
Unsuprisingly, my only request was to go to Nintendo New York. They were handing these out for free with any purchase. It kind of felt like fate because I received the last one and Snorunt was on it
These are pretty common and lame it seems but I didn’t know that when I got them free about 6 years ago in a collection. The only postcards I own lol. I’ve slowly been giving them away to character collectors over the years so I no longer have a full set
dude out here getting handmade dunes sand postcards like wow. What a concept. I think this is the peak for a postcard. Can it get any cooler?
The new years postcards always have great designs! This one’s a beauty
Would love a full set someday. The mercari/yhj dilligence is never ending.
Oh I believe it. How much are usually paying per new year card on Mercari/yhj?
I bought this from a friend, but the best way seems to be to hope for a lot or sealed pack to be auctioned. The cheap Mercari listings for like $10/card are bought immediately, have never caught one.
Not as exciting to me as the ANA Corsola postcards I posted earlier, but I did receive these in my package last week. I had purchased a few of them before, but I didn’t realize just how many existed. After going down quite the rabbit hole, I think I finally have a solid understanding of the history behind these.
They were distributed in 2020 during COVID as part of a stamp rally in Miyagi Prefecture, home of the Lapras Pokéfuta (Pokémon manhole covers). The rally consisted of 36 total stops across the prefecture. Of those, three locations did not distribute postcards at all, and one stop, Pokémon Center Tohoku, did hand out a postcard, though it’s unclear whether it was a Lapras design specifically tied to Miyagi locations.
To obtain these postcards, participants had to physically travel to each rally location, get their stamp book (shown in the last image) stamped, and arrive early as only the first 300 visitors at each stop received a postcard.
They may not be the most visually exciting postcards, but the history behind them and their limited distribution make up for it.
Man, that is so cool! I can only imagine the amount of detective work required to figure this out and find these. I especially like that stamp booklet for each stop.
Also neat how they try to match the picture with the manhole design when they can (like the cat, horse, and ducks).
Don’t they also have every manhole cover as its own separate postcard?
This was delivered a few days ago. It’s designed by Ken Sugimori (which is pretty cool) and it’s from the Pokemon With You campaign in 2012.
I like the simple art and how they’re growing a tree! It’s also made from a different kind of postcard paper that makes it feel more luxurious…
They do! But only up until the manufacturer stopped producing the manhole postcards, so the newer manholes don’t have any postcards
The Happy New Year 2000 I picked up last night. I’ve never seen it before. I believe this was Himeno?
The 1998 postcard with Mew Ditto and Pikachu was a surprise for Christmas!
Rest I picked up this year! They’re all going to look so nice framed!
That 2000 postcard listing was definitely on my watchlist on Ebay lol. Great finds!
lol oops. Thx!
wow that is crazy lore. And these are nice postcards…mostly. I love them. Kind of sad that they made so few. But again, the lore makes sense. I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for sharing and documenting them. So is it officially that there were only 33? Or do you mean they just didn’t do the stamp rally part and distributed them in other ways? And would the pokemon center one make it 37?
That is immaculate 
Awesome. Maybe they wanted to start your new year off right 
