Japanese Vending Machine Card List
The Vending Machine cards (拡張シート, Expansion Sheet) were not sold in packs at all: you put coins in a machine and it dispensed a randomised sheet of three cards you peeled apart. Three series shipped in 1998 — Series 1 (Blue) 23 March, Series 2 (Red) 17 June and Series 3 (Green) 24 November — for 125 cards across 18 numbered sheets apiece. Every sheet's contents were fixed, so completing sheets 1-18 gets you the set. The cards are on glossy stock rather than the usual matte, print no collector number, and many never left Japan; the ones that did were reissued as Wizards Black Star Promos. This page lists every card with its printings priced separately — 125 printing records — and every one opens its own record with the prices, the printing notes and where to buy.
Japanese Masaki Promos — the five holographic cards MediaFactory posted back in exchange for a non-holo card from this set plus the Pass Card Bill's PC
Card List
Japanese Vending Machine At a Glance
How many cards are in the Japanese Vending Machine?
The set holds 125 cards, released March 23, 1998. This site tracks 125 printings of them (Series I 36 · Series II 36 · Series III 53), each with its own record and price.
What printings does it have?
One printing per card in each series, with no 1st Edition and no reverse holo. The cards print no collector number at all — the number shown is the National Dex the price source files them by, and the seventeen Trainer and rule cards print none, so they sit after the numbered grid. Four cards appear in two series each and are different cards (Mewtwo, Machoke, Graveler, Omanyte), so they are told apart by the series' own colour. Source: Bulbapedia, Vending Machine cards (TCG); prices and scans from PriceCharting.
What is the most valuable card in the set?
Ooyama's Pikachu [Series III] #25 at $1,000 raw, about $10,960 in PSA 10. One raw copy of every printing here totals $9,538.
How do these cards relate to the English printing?
No English version of these cards exists. None Japan-only; the ones released abroad became Wizards Black Star Promos, so these are the only printings of these cards that were ever made. They are one of just two Japanese releases of the era with no English counterpart at all.
How do I tell a Japanese Vending Machine card apart from the English printing?
Turn it over, which is the quickest tell there is: this set predates July 2001, when Japanese cards carried the Pocket Monsters Card Game back — a design no English card ever had, against the blue Pokémon back. The back changed once, with Pokémon VS in July 2001, so the back alone dates a card to this era.
Either way, the symbol beside the number is the Japanese set's own, not the English set's.
Prices are PriceCharting sold comps read 2026-11-06 and are per printing. This set is not in TCGdex, and no structured fact source covers it, so rarity, type and illustrator are omitted rather than guessed. One raw copy of every printing on this page totals $9,538.