Spine Cards

Pyongyang

I read somewhere that there are stores that sell loose and/or repro spine cards. Anyone got any ideas where I can track these down and out of curiosity, do spine cards matter to you?

Retr0gamer

I have one japanese saturn game in mint condition with spine card included and I don't really see what purpose the spine card actually has???

Pyongyang

I think for me it's more a matter of completeness. That said I wouldn't pay more than €5-€10 above one that didn't have a spine card. Unless the condition of the overall package was significantly better of course.

7sr2z3fely84g5

Think the actual barcode is on the spine,adds completeness and price rise to the package,same apply for jap music cds.

johnny_ultimate

Spine cards are also usually the place you'll find prices (took me a while to figure that out after confusing a few employees by trying to ask them a price :pac:), although mostly with CDs and older games.

It does have the unfortunate effect of having sales in Japan a bit of a rarity. Most places just sell at the RRP, with only a few titles at a time in the bargain bin.

Pyongyang

I'm a bit OCD about my small, but growing collection. Without the spine card I feel like I'm not getting the whole item.

o1s1n

Always wondered about them myself. The only thing I really collect Japanese copies of is Saturn games. I thought it was unique to them and Dreamcast games...didn't realize it was a general Japanese thing!

Pyongyang

Indeed, however I just received two NTSC-J titles this morning. One a PSX title, complete with spine card, the other a brand new sealed PS2 title but *gasp!* no spine card.

Odd.

I guess DVD casing doesn't qualify for spine cards, unless anyone knows otherwise?

Because my collection is niche, I'd say 99% of what I buy is/will be NTSC-J. Unless there's PAL or NTSC-U only titles out there?

Retr0gamer

Never got a spine card with a japanese PS2 game.

Pyongyang

Phew! I can sleep easy now and rest my OCD laurels!

Question still begs though where can you buy loose ones or reprints?

o1s1n

If you're OCD enough to want to replace missing spine cards then reprints really would be pointless and kind of defeat the purpose of wanting the whole original package.

I've seen some sellers on ebay in Japan selling them on their own. However I think it's more of a case of take what you get when they appear rather than having a big list of them to look through and select the ones you want.

K.O.Kiki

I never know what to do with the spine cards I get with Japanese art books.

Atavan-Halen

I just stick them into the manual of my Jap PS1 and DC games. It's nice to have them but they're too easily lost/daamaged.