Explore our unique Pokemon mini frame collection. The largest in the world!
Explore our unique Pokemon mini frame collection. The largest in the world!
Explore the world of Pokemon Meiji mini frames. These collectibles, issued between 1998 and 2000 in Japan, capture the essence of your favorite characters.
The Meiji mini frames color match with the Pokémon games that were released in America. Red and Blue made their debut in September 1998, with gold and silver following in October 2000, about a year after their release in Japan. The “birth” of Pokémon happened earlier in Japan, on February 27, 1996, with the release of the original Game Boy games, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green.
Meiji’s Pokémon mini-frames were a low-profile, item produced in small, scattered runs — and neither the Meiji or the Pokémon company, nor contemporary sources published (or preserved) production and edition numbers.
Very few have survived in good condition — which makes the surviving pool look extremely rare. Auction activity and graded population reports show relatively small surviving populations on the market. Chat GPT suggest that the rarer gold/silver frames might have been produced in edition as low as 100 to 1,000 each with very few surviving in good conditions. They should be treated as extremely rare collectibles.
Only a few hundred have ever been authenticated by US grading houses.
Meiji mini-frames are hard to find because they were limited‐run items, many have deteriorated or been lost/damaged over time, documentation is unavailable, and there’s increasing collector interest in a very small supply pool.
Pokémon Meiji slides are a fascinating rare niche of Pokémon collecting! Vintage Pokémon Meiji slides / mini frames are considered very hard to find today for a few reasons:
Meiji, the Japanese confectionery company, released Pokémon collectible slides/mini frames in the late 1990s and early 2000s as bonus items inside some chocolate or caramel boxes. Most of these fragile slides were discarded, damaged, or lost soon after being opened as people had not really started collecting Pokémon items. There is also no record of how many different slides were produced. A “collect all 60” sign has been recorded but we know that many more slides were produced.
Unlike trading cards (which were printed on durable card stock), these slides/frames were made of thin transparent film with fragile plastic framing. They bend, scratch, and fade easily, and very few survived in pristine condition.
They were a Japan-only promotional item, and Western collectors often didn’t even know they existed until years later. Production runs were relatively small compared to the global Pokémon card print runs. Estimates run from a low of 100 for the rarest slides to no more than 10,000 or 20,000 for the most common.
As Pokémon nostalgia exploded, collectors began hunting obscure promotional items. Since the Meiji slides/frames were never mass-collected, the surviving supply is extremely tiny.
Scarcity and increasing demand has made them a “legendary” rarity. Surviving examples today are highly desirable to Pokémon collectors.
We own over 200 different Pokemon mini frames / slides. There is very little information available as neither the Pokemon Company or the Meiji Company have kept records. Our best estimate is that there might be a total of 250 different slides.
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