Expensive Dragon Ball Trading Cards are Better!

Back again with some more trading cards, that shouldn’t really be a surprise anymore, it’s what we do around here. Last time we looked at Dragon Ball cards, it was a 1-yuan box that I had purchased at random just so I could check “Dragon Ball” off the list of media properties I had a box of cards for. They turned out to be so cool looking that I decided to invest in a few more boxes. Today I’ll be taking a closer look at the most expensive Dragon Ball trading cards I was willing to pay for.

This is the 10-yuan box from the LZ02 set, the 02 tells us that this was the 2nd set produced by this company. I already have a 1-yuan box from set 3, and set 4 is starting to come out now or at least has some pre-release product circulating. I picked this set because it was the oldest one I could still find, I figure if I ever want the newer sets in the future – they’ll still be there, but this older one might go out of print by then.

At first I was assuming this was a Little Dinosaur product, that’s what the 1-yuan and 2-yuan boxes I have are. Those boxes label their set numbers as LZ02 and LZ03, this box is labeled LZ02 – so I assume it is the 10-yuan box from that same series. The problem I’m having now is that there is no little dinosaur name or logo on any of this, usually it would be on every pack. Maybe the property owner prints the 10-yuan boxes with somebody else? Or maybe Little Dinosaur just wants this to look classier, it certainly does.

Speaking of the box, it’s nice thick cardboard with excellent printing and design. There is a subtle foil gradient over the three faces with artwork, that is opposed by an accent color in the line art. You can really see that shining on the side where the character appears red, that changes color in the light. Two of the faces are just blank, but that kind of adds to the “I’m a set piece” look of the whole thing.

The back of the box has that same cool gradient and then a full color image of the logo. The manufacturer markings are also on the back. The box opens like an iPhone box would, the top cover lifts off and inside is a stack of 15 packs surround by a cardboard spacer. My spacer was ripped when I opened this, but I assume that happened during shipping or packing and the box was otherwise sealed correctly as far as I could tell.

From the advertising content for this product it looks like these should be some amazing looking cards. In the 10-yuan box it seems there is a different style of card then the 1/2 yuan boxes, this is further evidence that two different printers made these. The 1/2 yuan cards are rounded and thing, while these are squared and thick like those Gundam cards were. I think at the R/SR level the artwork is the same though, but then the 10-yuan box has more rarity levels then the others.

There are 9 EX cards, which I gather are the rarest cards and only exist in these 10-yuan packs. Then there are 9 SP and 9 CP too more high rarity series that I don’t think are in the 1/2 yuan packs. Then you get down to the usual LR/UR/SSR levels, that still look amazing, just not as amazing as the EXs do. There is supposed to be a engraved metal card in this box too but I don’t see it. From the way the Marvel box looked – I’m think it is safe to say that this vendor searches their boxes and removes Promo/High-value cards. That sucks, but it’s an unfortunate part of this hobby, only a few vendors have never done that to me.

Looking at the packs, these are also much higher quality then the 1/2 yuan packs. They feel almost as good as the Star Wars packs. There is no logo on them for a manufacturer, and they use a cool printing technique where they leave the bare foil of the pack itself exposed. Those metal-looking areas on the front are exposed foil, it wasn’t printed here, a pretty cool technique to see on the pack itself.

Each pack has only 3 cards in it, but that isn’t so odd at this level of product. These are 10-yuan packs, so they compete at the level of the Gundam and Star Wars cards on price. If this was in a shop it would be on a shelf next to those boxes. AT $28.88 it is the cheapest 10-yuan product I own, but it’s also an older set, another reason to wait on newer sets unless you think a specific product will run out.

The 3 cards you get are of exceptional quality. They are printed on heavy card stock, just like the other 10-yuan cards were. The artwork is incredible, and the framing looks great. Even the “basic” SR cards I received have multiple different foil treatments on them, including a really cool looking burnt chrome in the logo lettering running along the side. The backs are generic so far, the same back for both SR cards at least, that is different from the other two which had card specific designs on the back of each too.

The two SR cards I received were a cool looking Kakarot, although not as cool as the one I had in my opinion. The other is Lazuli looking ready to fight. The SR back is light blue with an etched foil dragon silhouette holding one of the famed Dragon Balls.

The special card in this pack turned out to be upgraded to UR! This disco ball of a card is Mr. Satan the best martial artist in the universe, maybe, at least he thinks so. As a UR the card has many different treatments vs the SR cards. On the scanner what you see as black is highly reflective rainbow foil etching, the you can see the foil pattern overlays on the stripes and the UR marking itself. The character art is then set within all that so it appears almost 3d given all this layering. The back looks similar to the SR back, but is black with gold/blue foil etching and a 6-star dragon ball!

So, now we know what more expensive Dragon Ball trading cards look like and they are pretty impressive! Can’t wait to get back to these packs some day and see some more of these cards. Even though this box was searched and probably doesn’t have any metal cards – even just the SP/CP cards should rival the best I’ve seen so far.