I own the rarest neopets cards in the world

Pictured on this page are the rarest Neopets TCG cards in the world: sketch cards 1 - 12 from the Darkest Faerie expansion. Images and background information about the cards are provided below.  

Overview of the Neopets TCG

Wizards of the Coast ("WotC") has published a lot of trading card games over the years. From Magic the Gathering and Pokemon, to Transformers and Duel Masters, with all manner of interesting, discontinued games in between. One of those discontinued games was the Neopets Trading Card Game, which was (big surprise here) based on Neopets: a virtual pet website that hit its peak popularity in the early 2000s. Neopets, for those wondering, is still alive today, although much like the Space Jam website, Neopet's layout hasn't changed much since the days of free AOL CDs in retail stores.

[beautiful]

It may come as a surprise to younger readers, but Neopets was actually quite popular in its heyday, spawning its own magazine, console video games, a breakfast cereal (which, naturally, had a promotional TCG tie-in), and of course, the subject of this article, a Trading Card Game. 

Launched near the height of the website's popularity in 2003, the Neopets TCG allowed two players to pit various Neopets against each other in contests of strength, agility, intelligence and magic. I won't focus much on the gameplay here, as this article is primarily concerned with the collectible aspect of the game, but it is sufficient to note for our purposes that Basic Neopets (somewhat similar to basic Pokemon in the Pokemon TCG) were the foundation of the game.

[sample front and back of a basic neopet card]

Neopets was fairly successful by TCG standards, with a total of 10 booster sets released before the game was eventually cancelled in 2006. From a collector's perspective, the cards are very similar to those found in other WotC TCGs, with fixed starter sets providing a rule book and several unique, starter set exclusive cards, and booster packs containing a mix of common, uncommon, rare, holographic-rares (appearing approximately 1:3 booster packs), and beginning with the fifth set, secret rare cards. While secret rares would continue to be the top rarity for most of the remaining expansions, a special subset of even rarer cards were included in the game's eighth booster set: The Darkest Faerie. 

The Darkest Faerie Sketch Cards

Released in November 2005, The Darkest Faerie was one of the game's larger expansions, featuring 150 standard cards, 5 secret rares and, randomly inserted in 1:144 booster packs, extremely rare sketch cards. Note that this figure comes from an August 2005 article on WotC's website and this article in the Neopian Times (dated the 11th day of Storing, Y7 - which translates to November 11, 2005) which notes that the pull rate for sketch cards is about 1 in every 1,152 cards - there are 8 cards per booster pack and 36 booster packs per booster box - meaning you could expect to pull 1 sketch card in approximately every 4 booster boxes. Other collectors have estimated that the pull rates for sketch cards are actually far lower, but since this number comes from WotC and Neopets directly, I have no reason to suspect that it is inaccurate.  

A total of 12 different Basic Neopets from the game's history could be obtained as sketch cards. These included the following:

1. Green Blumaroo

2. Green Bori

3. Red Bruce

4. Blue Buzz

5. Blue Eyrie

6. Red Draik

7. White Ixi

8. Purple Kacheek

9. Blue Koi

10. Green Nimmo

11. Red Skeith

12. Purple Wocky

As the name implies, each sketch card featured a completely unique, hand-drawn illustration of one of these Basic Neopets, drawn by some of the Neopets website's most prolific artists. As each sketch is unique, each card has a unique gold serial number in the lower right corner of the card's image. The earlier serial numbers seem to be numbered sequentially in the order noted above, with the next Green Blumaroo being card 13, the next Green Bori being card 14, and so on and so forth. At some point, the order may have diverged with the later serial numbers. 

I have not been able to determine the total number of sketch cards produced. My best guess is that there are 2,400 total sketch cards since this would mean that 200 copies of each of the 12 Basic Neopets were printed, but I have not been able to either confirm or deny this estimate at this time. The highest serial number I have actually seen is a Green Blumaroo numbered 1904.

Obtaining even one of these extremely rare sketch cards is an accomplishment in itself, completing the set of 12 is even more daunting and impressive, but more impressive still, is owning the first copy of each of these cards, all in sequential serial number order. 

Information about my collection

I came across this set of cards for sale from a gaming store in Washington. The cards were mounted in a picture frame, but it was hard to tell whether the cards were real, or simply a display piece. The seller claimed to have purchased the cards from a former WotC employee who said the cards had hung on a wall at WotC's headquarters. The employee was given permission to keep the cards and certain other WotC memorabilia when she left the company, and she later sold those items to the seller. The seller had not opened the frame to verify the authenticity of the cards, but I am not a smart man, so I took a very risky chance and bought the item. 

After purchasing the cards, I promptly took the display piece to Michaels and had the staff disassemble the frame. After removing the glass, I was able to confirm that these were the actual, legitimate cards. A faded sticker on the frame's matte backing confirmed that the original frame was assembled at a Washington area Michaels on November 22, 2005, right after the launch of the Darkest Faerie expansion. 

This was quite a surprise, as the date's close proximity to the set's release indicates that these 12 cards were never actually packaged in booster packs, effectively making it impossible to pull cards with serial numbers 1-12. 

This begs the question whether a similar set, numbered 13-24 is still out there at WotC's offices or somewhere else. 

A Green Blumaroo with serial number 0028 can be seen on worthpoint.com and it is framed in the same style as the cards in my complete collection, perhaps indicating that other WotC team members who worked on the set, or perhaps even the artists themselves, received commemorative copies of  cards with early serial numbers. 

If anyone has more information about these early serial numbers, please let me know.

In any event, I had Michaels reassemble the original frame, this time with museum quality glass, and took the cards home where they are currently on display in my game room. 

More pictures of the cards are provided below. Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions. The best way to contact me is to message thecardpletionist on either instagram or reddit.