Series: Dragonball Z
Company: Panini
Year: 1997
Main distribution: Italy
Barcode: 8424248210045
These are trading cards from Dragonball Z by Panini. This is Serie 4. The series exists out of 100 cards, 50 of these being metal cards. The images are based on the Dragonball Z series Fusion Saga and the movies. All the cards have a red border, and it’s also referred to as the Panini Red series.
Panini is an Italian company headquartered in Modena, Italy, named after the Panini brothers who founded it in 1961. Mostly known for its collectable stickers and cards, they also produce books, comics, magazines and other items through its collectibles and publishing subsidiaries.
Here I’ll show my Collection Dragonball Z Serie 4.
The cards are recognisable as having a red border, with Collection Dragon Ball Z Série 4 on it.
The backs have the same image but smaller, accompanied with the character’s name, Dragonball Z, the card number and the background is a black and white image of the front.
The metal cards have some texture to it.
They came in packs of 7; 4 normal cards and 3 metal cards. The pack design was very basic again, and simply red with Super Saiyan 3 Goku on it.
I got 91/100, almost a complete set.
Alongside the Artbox series these Panini series started to appear in my local shops at the time. Because they were Italian, and therefor foreign, they were less desirable to us. However, they were everywhere.
Although I never saw Serie 1 and Serie 3, but Serie 2, Serie 4 and Serie 5 were easy to get. Eventually I started collecting these as well. I was annoyed to start a series midway, but I had ended up with so many of these now I might as well complete it. I guess because there was so little text on these, they figured it was fine to bring these Italian cards over.
I traded these everywhere to get a full set. On school, on markets, with friends etc. Although I was mostly focussed on getting the Artbox series complete at the time, I still swapped for and with these, so there was a lot of swapping going on! Serie 4 was the rarer one of the three available to us, and I never managed to fully complete the set though. I got close! Only missing nine cards; 2, 5, 7, 14, 20, 47, 61, 65 and 85. If anyone wants to part with those let me know!
I still have a few doubles left as well if anyone wants to trade or buy (13, 15, 86, 89)?
Got any more details / information you think I should add? Or did I get something wrong? Do you own any of these cards? Or do you have the full set? Would you like to trade any? Do you agree or disagree with my findings? Let me know in the comments below!