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We Bought Chinese MLP Trading Cards - This is What They Look Like!

A couple of weeks ago we got messages about an eBay listing for a box of Chinese My Little Pony trading cards (thanks Jade!). We've seen them before, but only briefly based on promotional images. It seems that they became available for purchase recently, and the eBay listing was the first (and only?) one online. While the eBay listing was still online (and ended quite high), but we decided to buy them directly from China on AliExpress, which turned out to be much cheaper anyway.
Update: At the bottom of this review we've added images of exclusive cards that are not available in the retail packs we bought.

We had options to buy 5, 10, 15 or 20 packs in one go, with prices ranging from $9 to $25. We picked the 15 packs bundle, but in hindsight we should have gotten the larger bundle, as that is a fully filled outer box by the looks of it. On AliExpress there is also an option for a "Discount 12 cards" pack for just $3.50, but that's probably just some random cards from opened packs.

AliExpress being a Chinese market place we expected a long shipping process, but we received the order after 2 weeks, which we think is reasonable. What we also expected, and turned out to be true, was that the cards weren't packed all that good. A simple paper envelope with thin bubble-wrap liner was all that protected the card packs. As a result of that the cards were slightly bent, but luckily nothing serious.

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards PackKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Pack

The packs themselves all have the same design, but are not crimped equally, so a slight variation can be seen. Regardless of that variation, none of the cards were damaged from it and all packs were sealed completely and opened without any problems. On the back of each pack there is a lot of information in Chinese, mostly product numbers, the factory address and the company behind these cards: Kayou.

As said the packs opened smoothly, and directly reveal the front of the first card. No worries there, as it's always a regular card in front. All regular cards are foil with a starry pattern, so our first enthusiastic reaction was tempered after seeing that all cards have that foil. The front 4 cards are regular (R) cards, followed by rare card which can be a super rare (SR), secret? super rare (SSR) or ultra rare (UR). These rares have a different foil design (with the ultra rares having the prettiest) and also a different back: the R and SR cards have information about the ponies on the back, SSR has a standard back and UR has a back with foil details.

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Regular FrontKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Regular Back

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Secret Super Rare BackKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Ultra Rare Back

Aside from the foil finish, these cards are made of sturdy cardboard. They feel more like playing cards than trading cards, and have a solid feel to them. Printed on all cards is a single FiM character, ranging from the mane 6, to the princesses, the cake family, pets and even Bulk Biceps is included. There are also rare cards with seaponies from MLP: the Movie, we we didn't pull any of them in our packs. On the background of each card is a location from Equestria, usually where they live, and also printed on the front are the My Little Pony logo, card rarity, card number, Cutie Mark and their name, in both English and Chinese. There doesn't seem to be any game behind the cards, other than collecting and trading.

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Regular FoilKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Super Rare Foil

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Secret Super Rare FoilKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards All Card Designs

There's also a sixth card in each pack: a translucent card featuring a Cutie Mark Crew pony available in both regular (TR) and gold (TGR). These have a bit more decoration with pop art backgrounds and words that match with the pony. These are not printed on cardboard obviously, but are made of plastic. For some reason they are marginally larger than the other cards.

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Transparent CardKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Transparent Gold Card

There seems to be a pattern in the regular cards (sometimes even sequentially numbered cards), but even with duplicate regular cards, the rares were always random. With our 15 packs we managed to get most (but not all) of the regular cards, several rares and a small selection of SSR and UR cards. We don't exactly know how many translucent cards there are, but we have a good selection, but sadly one double TGR. Below we have an overview of all unique cards we managed to pull.

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Regular Card PullsKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Rare Card Pulls

From a collecting standpoint we really these cards and are tempted to get another set. We like the quality and detail of all cards and the nice finish that the rare cards have. Downsides are, well, that these come from China: we can't read anything that's written on the back and we would have liked a better package to protect the cards during transport. Overall we liked getting and opening these, and are planning on adding them to the database soon!

If there are any questions about the cards we'd be happy to answer them in the comments.

Update: Aside from the packs we got on AliExpress, Kayou also sold these cards through their own online store, which could contain exclusive SGR (super gold rare) and LSR (???) cards. Thanks to RDB, who made photos of their collection, we can get a sneak peak at what these cards look like, as well as the seapony cards we didn't pull:

Kayou My Little Pony Trading Cards LSR CardsKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards SGR CardsKayou My Little Pony Trading Cards Seapony Cards

13 comments :


  1. Direct link to them? I can't find them on Aliexpress.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Direct link is in the first paragraph of the post - it should still work!

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  2. Are you going to add this set to the database? :o

    ReplyDelete
  3. Could you tell me the size of these cards? They seem to be the same size as pokemon TCG, is that the case?

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    Replies
    1. Yh they are, I think it’s a little smaller

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  4. hi, could you tell me the exact dimensions of the cards?
    I also ordered some for my daughter and would love to buy a cardbook for them.
    I can't find the exact dimensions of the cards anywhere online.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello. The cards are 62mm wide and 86mm long. That's about 2 7/16″ x 3 3/8″ which is slightly smaller than Pokemon cards.

      Delete
  5. I love those cards and would love to see a list here, but I hear there are already boxes you can´t order anymore. Sad.

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  6. Mayby i'm going to buy these cards but are they real from my little pony?🍓🫶❤️

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  7. There is also HR(highly ?Rare) card (we are living in China and just had one)

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    Replies
    1. There is 1 HR in every 10rmb card pack. They do not worth.

      Delete
  8. are certain ones worth alot?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Three types of cards worth: SC (200+rmb) SGR (25+rmb) LSR (12+rmb). They worth more if the card stopped producing in the Kayou Factory. Certain SC worth 2000 rmb now.

      Delete

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