2013 Pokemon World Tournament promotional Thundurus EX Card

This is a promotional card illustrated by Eske Yoshinob, a Japanese freelance illustrator and programmer who works with 3-D models and produced by the Millenium Print Group, which is a subsidiary of the Pokemon Company. This card was released to celebrate the 2013 world championships, an annual event tournament where pokemon fans battle each other in the video games or with the trading card games.This card depicts legendary pokemon, Thundurus, which is based on the mythical japanese god of thunder and lightning, Raijin, overlayed with vital card information such as his stats, attacks and base HP. 

 This is by definition a trade card, however it is very much different from the first trade cards, which were a product of the resumed boom of trading industries post-civil war. They resembled more of a business card with the company name and logo, usually acting as advertisement, but thanks to color lithography they were gaining popularity in the 1870’s to 1900’s, as these trading cards would become more pictorial and colorful and intrigued people to collect these cards in albums. Some illustrations were of mundane things such as food or work, others were more imaginative, however by the 1900’s the trend of collecting such things had slowed down.

Pokemon cards first came out in Japan 1996, then they were released to the US in 1999, since its release Pokemon has continued to release expansion sets of trading cards every year, nowadays people value Pokemon cards as collectibles and some spend thousands to find certain cards.

Bulbapedia. (2022, July 6). Thundurus-ex (plasma freeze 38). https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Thundurus-EX_(Plasma_Freeze_38)#Gallery

Bulbapedia. (2024, March 18). Eske Yoshinob. https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Eske_Yoshinob

Millennium Print Group About. Welcome to Millennium Print Group |. (2023, November 22). https://mprintgroup.com/about/

Staff, S. (2021, March 30). The history of pokémon cards!. smrcollectibles. https://www.smrcollectibles.com/post/the-history-of-pok%C3%A9mon-cards

Waxman, N., Waxman, M. L., & Williams, K. (2017). Trade cards, an illustrated history: highlights from the Waxman Collection. [Ithaca, New York]: Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. Retrieved from http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/tradecards/