Today I found out that there are 10 – not 9 – Eternal Arcadia telephone cards – or as they are known in Japan: テレカ (Tereka), which is an abbreviation of ‘Telephone Card’.
This elusive 10th card has a concept sketch of Vyse and Aika that also appeared in the ‘Goregous Visual Book’ that came with the Limited Edition Japanese Dreamcast version of the game.
I found this image via image search (I was actually searching to see if there were more cards) which originated from a long-expired Yahoo Auction entry.
When I did a reverse image search on it, all that came up was some sketches which also came from the ‘Goregous Visual book’, so I’m guessing it’s the rarest card.
In the bottom right it says ‘Telephone Card 50’, which is interesting.. I doubt there were as many as 50, however maybe it was in reference to something else like an anniversary year.
Sadly there wasn’t any information on the auction listing.
2 responses to “A 10th Telephone Card…?”
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Hello.
I believe that the telephone cards with this design were produced by Overworks, the company that produced Eternal Arcadia, as souvenirs for visitors to the company, and some of them were also sold at stores such as Dreamcast Direct, Sega’s official web store.
Since they were also sold, albeit in small numbers, it is possible that more were made than magazine prize giveaways.At that time, Japanese companies sometimes gave telephone cards as souvenirs. I think this was because they were relatively inexpensive, took up little space, were practical (even if you were not interested in the picture, you could use a public phone to make calls), and could be made in many varieties, making them easy to make as souvenirs or prizes.
For the same reason, many types of cards were made as prizes for magazines and as a bonus for game reservations, and they were also popular as collections.As for the meaning of “Telephone Card 50” on the card, this does not indicate the number of cards issued, but rather that this telephone card can be used for 50 degrees (equivalent to 500 yen).
The number of cards issued is basically undisclosed, so it is unknown unless the creator has made it public.I hope this information is useful to you.
I apologize if there are any confusing parts due to machine translation using DeepL.-
Thank you so much for the information!
I didn’t know that the cards were given out as souvenirs or even sold on Sega’s website. It’s really interesting to learn about the history.
The culture of Japanese phone cards in itself is interesting.
Thank you also for explaining about the number 50 on the card – that makes sense.
コメント嬉しいです！説明してくださってありがとうございます！
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