Humor, Merchandise

Sega Freaks Out and I Have No Idea What to Do

As part of the work I do for Sonic and Sega Retro, I spend an inordinate amount of time hunting down rare merchandise and printed artifacts in order to improve the site. Find a Japanese Sonic Advance 3 guide, learn the official names of enemies and bosses, get a boxed copy of Sonic & Knuckles Collection from Korea and suddenly we have quality scans of a rare release, and so on. I was doing some shopping on a Japanese auction several weeks ago and saw a listing for “71枚 セガフリークス” for sale. セガフリークス, or “Sega Freaks,” is a Japanese series of collectible cards released in the Saturn era, featuring individual cards from games of the time like Sonic Jam, Last Bronx, Virtua Fighter 3, and Dragon Force. Collect all of the cards for a particular game, and the reverse side makes a large picture.

So, this auction is going for about one US dollar, and I figure I could scan the cards for the site, so I say “hey, why not?” This is where it gets a bit complicated. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Japanese, 枚 is a counter word for flat objects like pieces of paper or photographs, so I assumed the seller was selling 71 loose cards. The problem? They were using it to refer to 71 packs of Sega Freaks, each of which have 10 cards in them, so the package I wound up receiving?

Far more cards than I could ever possibly need. There are only 60 unique cards total in this entire shipment, so statistically, it won’t take me opening all of these packages to get all 60 cards. This leads to an interesting question: what should I do with all the rest of these cards? “Give them all to me!” is not what I’m looking for. What sort of interesting things could be done with this cheap bounty? The leading private suggestion I’ve received thus far is to film myself opening them all up to make collectors cry, but I’d prefer something more constructive that would benefit everyone.

(PS: Do I love misleading headlines? You betcha.)

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32 Comments

  • Reply

    Open them all and create as many complete sets as you can. Then hold a mega contest for some sets.

  • Reply

    Put up a booth on a con and sell them as rarities to the inexperienced sonic fan?

  • Reply

    Send them to people who donate to the site :I

  • Reply

    How about selling the doubles?
    Or even better, make a contest and people could win some of those cards.

    Just an idea.

  • Reply

    Give them to people who donate to the site a lot or scan and write stuff a lot, maybe?
    Or like, hacking contest winners?

  • Reply

    Donate them to me and I’ll give them away on my podcast DESTROY ALL SLACKERS (http://www.destroyallslackers.com) and plug Sonic Retro

    Hell, I’d even BUY these to give away on my podcast.

  • Reply

    Damnit man, I read this entire article only because of the title. You have won this round, with your misleading title.

  • Reply

    Perhaps donate them to Summer of Sonic (or another Sonic meet up, if you don’t want to ship ’em across the pond) for a raffle/prize to win, or maybe auction them off and donate the proceeds to Sonic Relief?

    Simply tossing around ideas. 😛

  • Reply

    Yeah, I also think that making a contest with them is the best you can do

  • Reply

    I’d say give them away in a contest or to donators.

  • Reply

    Put info about the Project Sonic cards here, and everything else at Sega Retro.

  • Reply

    I believe they should go to the winners of the hacking contest, and if there are anything left over, then to the members who donated. ^_^ 

  • Reply

    Videotape yourself putting the extras in a blender

    Really, you could make quite a bit of money selling off complete sets 😛 Any funds are good funds. (Stick them in a card collector board or binder for extra $)

  • Reply

    The images on these… the Sonic the Hedgehog screensaver that comes with the Sonic 3-pack [S&K Collection, Sonic R, Sonic CD] has / uses them. 😀

  • Reply

    Contest? 😀

  • Reply

    I WILL KILL YOU if you don’t give me some cards……….nah, just kidding, though I do wanna get my hands on some. Apparently hosting a contest or people who donate to the site can get there hands on some. Hell, I will buy some from you.

  • Reply

    Troll Sega?

  • Reply

    You should use the cards for a wiccan ritual. Maybe a success spell for the blue blur? He could use it. Hell even if it fails to look it would be fun to watch on youtube.

  • Reply

    Make all the complete packs you can and hold contests or something.

  • Reply

    Giving them away with donations or through contests is a nice idea. I prefer the donations idea. I think opening them all is a good idea so they can be given away as the complete set.

  • Reply

    Why not hold a give away?

  • Reply

    Treasure hunt at the Summer of Sonic.

  • Reply

    Put each and every extra card you have up for sale on ebay, and donate the proceeds to Sonic Relief.

    Just my two cents.

  • Reply

    Send them to SEGA America, to the mystical “room with sonic merchandise” room.

  • Reply

    build a card house and balance a Game Gear on top to amaze viewers.

    Contests and the like sounds best to me. Maybe even resale each pack for a fair price to Sonic fans.

    Pretty awesome you got so many.
    Must have been a fun surprise to order a handfull an get a box worth.

  • Reply

    Personally, I think you should keep a few packs sealed for yourself. Sure, they probably aren’t worth a lot, but who knows – maybe they’ll be worth $100 apiece in the next 10 years. That’s my suggestion. And then do some sort of contest/giveaway thing on the rest of them

  • Reply

    I agree with the contest idea. Just make it something that everyone should have a fair shot at (we’re not all hackers). Or even better, Ebay them. I want those cards!

  • Reply

    I would like them to make a good picture frame to put up on my wall with my other sonic merchandise. 

  • Reply

    i never seen this Sonic Jam pic before, anyone knows where i can find a good scan of it?

  • Reply

    I agree with the “give them to those who donate” idea. It would make a cool incentive for donating, and be inexpensive as well.

  • Reply

    Make a card house out of the remaining cards 😀

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