Bandai has archived product pages from 1985. As far as I can tell, cards started to be sold in 1986.

Today I worked on this set: https://www.bandai.co.jp/candy/products/1986/06183.html

First I archive the product page itself. https://web.archive.org/web/20160414200921/http://www.bandai.co.jp/candy/products/1986/06183.html

This does not seem to have the main product image so I archived that separately. https://web.archive.org/web/20220124155956/https://www.bandai.co.jp/candy/products/1986/image/06183.jpg

Images are hugely important in researching.

If you just look at the picture, this looks like a figure set, but according to the text, there are “Super Mario Certain Victory Cards” (スーパーマリオ必勝カード super mario hisshou card) included.

When doing research, I try to use the common English translation, but there are many times when I am translating something in this context for the first time. In this case, there are 3 options: don't translate, transliteration, find a relatively common/acceptable translation.

In this case, I couldn't find a reference to these cards in English, so I went for an English translation because there were similarly titled strategy guides from the https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Hisshouhou_Special .

Bandai's page says there are “21 types” of the figures (?) and it has a list of the different types. However, while it says Certain Victory Cards are included, it doesn't say how many cards there were. I thought maybe 21 cards to match the number of figures, but wanted confirmation.

Bandai's image also has a JAN code “4902425 061832” but googling this didn't bring up anything.

I tried スーパーマリオ必勝カード and actually found this page from Mandarake's blog. https://www.mandarake.co.jp/dir/nkn/micro/2017/12/17/1224dang-dang-11.html

Let's archive this. Hrm. the internet archive does not seem to want to archive that page.