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| Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card |
The Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card was originally revealed as a reward during the Jump Toriyama Akira Mechanko Project Shijou Battle (this item would have been distributed to 200 winners). The promotional sheet in the pages of Jump had it referred to as the "Z Fighters Certificate" card. The reward was revised and used for the follow up round of the Mechanko Project known as the Teknaichi Shikenkai, which took place in May of 1993. This time limited to 500 cards.
The Tenkaichi Shikenkai (天下一試験会) event was the follow up round of the Shijou Battle, and was partly organized around the release of the Super Famicom title "Dragon Ball Z: Super Butouden", which had just been released a month earlier.
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| Prototype of the Tenkaichi Shikenkai card |
Unlike the first round (the Shijou Battle) which was a questionnaire form to be mailed in, this event consisted of a written test to be filled out in person! 7000 selected participants attended over two days, depending on their location the dates of the test were:
- May 7: Nagoya, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Sapporo, and Sendai.
- May 14: Tokyo, and Osaka.
There's a wonderful blog written by a person who participated (called Rien), and I highly recommend reading it if interested.
According to Rien the Tokyo event was like a regular examination test with desks and chairs, but some of the other locations were in places like gymnasiums.
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| The Shitajiki and VHS rewards, along with the questions sheets (from Rien's blog) |
There were many rewards given out, the first of which was a large Shitajiki and a VHS with promotional footage of "Dragon Ball Z: Super Butouden".
The top rewards included:
- A signed artwork by Toriyama sensei himself [Rewarded to the 10 participants with the highest scores].
- A full set of all 10 released Dragon Ball Z movies on VHS [Rewarded to the top 30 highest score earners].
- A gold certification card [Rewarded to the 500 highest score earners].
The exam questions and the scoring results were later returned to the applicants (as shown in the photo above).
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| Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card back |
The Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card is made of metal but is still of relatively normal thickness (slightly thicker than a normal card).
The back of the Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card reads:
"We certify that you have achieved outstanding results at the 1993 Tenkaichi Shikenkai."
The white section underneath was for recipients to write in their name. Fortunately for collectors most do not appear to have written in their name (fortunate for sellers too as this card is one of the most valuable Dragon Ball cards). Regrettably however most of the cards that were either stored among other cards or stored in the card holder have had sections of the white part come off. In some extreme cases the back of the card may have no white name section left at all.
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| Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card holder |
This is not technically a "Carddass" card, and it's not listed in the Daizenshuu Carddass Perfect File books. However because it was released by Bandai in an age where they mainly released Carddass cards some fans still mistakenly consider it part of the Carddass series.
There is mention of "OFFICIAL CARD" written all in caps in the upper
left, as well as a Bandai logo in the lower right, two design traits shared with the Multi World 1993 Certification card released later that year. Both cards
also are in the same format and dimensions (slightly horizontally
narrower).
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| Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card |
The Tenkaichi Shikenkai Gold Certification card must have been an incredible reward to receive. An appropriate prize for those top 500 highest scoring winners of the test! It’s a unique and incredibly sleek card.
SS Son Goku’s portrait comes through very nicely on the metal surface. Despite being thin, the weight of the card makes it feel imposing. A very exclusive and mystical card!
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