This week, I’m zooming in on a single card from my personal collection: the Topsun Kangaskhan vs Gengar card from 1997.
I’ll quickly bring you up to speed on the Topsun VS cards first, just in case you’ve never seen these cards before.
Topics I’ll cover
Topsun VS/Battle cards
There's no official name for this set.
Collectors call it "Topsun VS/Versus" or "Topsun Battle cards," so I’ll use those names.
Topsun, a Japanese candy manufacturer, sold these cards as a promotional item within their packs of gum.
They started with licenses like these in 1985 and put Mario Bros characters on their candy, and it was a big hit.
this was most likely the first Mario Bros collectible/toy released
That success became almost their whole business model going forward, and in 1997 they released the first series of these Pokémon Versus cards.
Kangaskhan vs Gengar
The artwork of these series 1 cards is heavily inspired by the in-game battle scenes. Something I personally like a lot since I’m a big fan of the pokémon games.
I love the simple background with the golden star shapes. It makes gengar really pop color wise.
If we look closer we see some text in the top left of the card as well:
No.094: the card number but simultaneously also Gengar's Pokédex number. The cards use the dex number from the attacking pokémon as the card number in this set. A fun detail, since there are only 52 cards (as far as I know) within the first series. So this card would be number 94/52.
シャドーポケモン: “Shadow Pokémon”. Gengar's official “species” classification.
ゲンガー: “Gengar”. The name, obviously.
たかさ1.5m おもさ40.5kg: “Height: 1.5m / Weight: 40.5kg”. Pretty standard Gen I Pokédex stats for Gengar, straight out of the original Red & Green games.
I also love the back of these cards a lot. This back isn’t exclusive to just this Gengar card, but it’s still worth mentioning.
A really cool and unique artwork for the back of a Pokémon card, with Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise on there as well. Just for the back I would already love to own a copy personally.
Why I bought this card
I found out about this card in the summer of 2025, during my holidays in Taiwan.
I found some non-TCG cards, like the Bandai Carddass set, in a card shop. The artwork was so unique that I looked them up later that day.
Couldn’t find any Pokémon related pictures I took, so here is me in Taiwan
I started to look into multiple non-tcg sets. I found out about these Topsun versus cards and (alongside with the Bandai Carddass set) these looked the most interesting to me at the moment.
Nobody I knew at the time collected these and none of my friends had even heard of them.
That obscurity is a big part of the appeal for me.
So after a few days of stalking some online auctions and listings I saw this Gengar card and pulled the trigger.
The first slab I ever bought.
Some more Topsun Versus cards I own
Price August 2026
Usually I don’t really talk much about prices or the market in general, but I’ll just touch on this topic quickly for those interested.
I found the following prices by looking at eBay last sold (in August, 2026):
Raw price: €40.
Value on these older non-TCG cards is trickier to pin down than modern TCG. But based on recent sales, raw copies land around €40, with a handful of lower outliers around €20-25 and some going toward €50. Listings generally sit somewhere between €30-60 for a raw copy, condition-dependent of course.Beckett 9 price: €121.
Graded copies have even less data to go on. Recent sales I've tracked: a PSA 9 around €344, another PSA 9 for just €95, and a Beckett 9 (like mine) at €121. Current listings aim for more (€400+ for a Beckett and a PSA 9), but until something actually sells at that price, I wouldn't count it.Graded 10 price: €1.250.
Only one recent 10 sale on eBay. A PSA 10 at €1.250.
Non-TCG
This card shifted how I look at Pokémon collecting. It led me down the rabbit hole of “forgotten” 90s cards and other non-TCG items.
A niche that I’ve been a big fan of ever since.
If you enjoyed reading about this Topsun card, you'll probably like my issue on the Bandai Carddass 1997 set as well. The exact set that I saw in Taiwan and retriggered the Pokémon collecting spark for me.
Bandai Carddass 1997
Thanks again for reading.
See you next Thursday!