Forget Amiibo: Good Luck Getting The Official Animal Crossing Cards Every Fan Needs

Every Nintendo game series has some obscure merchandise, and in the case of Animal Crossing, just one example of that merchandise is millefeui cards. These super retro items are elusive for buyers, especially since it’s been almost twenty years since they were first released. Japan-exclusive, obscure movie-tie ins, and only produced for a couple of years, these cards are the perfect storm to create an expensive collector’s item for dedicated Animal Crossing fans.

Animal Crossing players are no strangers to collectible cards and the struggles that come with trying to collect them all, but millefeui cards are a very special case. amiibo cards, another type of collectible Animal Crossing card, can also fetch high prices but are not nearly as rare and coveted as the Japan-exclusive millefeui cards.

What Are Millefeiu Cards?

A Mid 2000s, Japan Exclusive For The Most Hardcore Of Fans

Millefeui cards are an extremely unique type of Animal Crossing merchandise that came out in 2006. The collectible cards are partially transparent and came in packs of six cards, each to be stacked to create fun scenes using places and characters from the iconic Nintendo series. Putting together six cards will build a room with furniture, villagers, wallpaper, building exteriors, and extra details like villagers peeking out from behind houses or trees.

These incredibly cute cards allow fans to build scenes with endless combinations, just like decorating their towns and houses in Animal Crossing, which also makes them a very coveted collector’s item. They've become a popular item online thanks to content creators like More Mori, who showcases their collection in a YouTube Shorts series.

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These very unique collector’s items were first released alongside the animated movie based on Animal Crossing: Wild World, titled Gekijōban Doubutsu no Mori, about a little girl moving to a new town and making friends with various villagers that live there. The film was only released in Japan, so subsequently the promotional millefeui cards were also only ever released in Japan. The country-exclusive nature of these cards adds significantly to their desirability.

Buying Millefeui Cards In 2024 Won't Be Easy

A Rare Set Of Cards From Almost Twenty Years Ago

Unfortunately, since it’s been almost twenty years since the millefeui cards came out and with their exclusivity to Japan, it’s not incredibly surprising that these collector’s items are very pricey on reseller sites like eBay. Every type of gaming collectible can be pricey after a while (or right away due to scalping) but Nintendo collectibles in particular always fetch a premium. Any modern Animal Crossing fans that want to go retro will have to be prepared to fork over a hefty wad of cash.

The price for a small collection of millefeui cards seems to currently sit around $250 to $300 at the time of writing. These sets of cards are not anywhere near complete, as most sellers over just a few cards at a time due to their rarity. Buying the cards in their original packaging is even more rare of an opportunity, as listings for unopened cards do not appear often. One seller, fashionlady11, has the entire set of 320 millefeui cards for sale for $9,999.00. That’s practically an entire mortgage payment to Tom Nook, but it could be worth it to some highly dedicated fans.

Amiibo Cards Are A Very Different Collectible For Animal Crossing

Both Sets Of Cards, But With Very Different Purposes

Collectible Animal Crossing cards may sound familiar, and that’s because there’s an entirely different type of Animal Crossing card that fans adore. These other cards are called amiibos, and while they also come out as figures, the most collectible ones for fans are cards. So far, there have been five series of amiibo cards for the entire Animal Crossing series.

First released alongside Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer in 2015, amiibos are a scannable toy figure or card of a character from the series like Isabelle or Tom Nook. Originally in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer on the Nintendo 3DS, amiibos were used to invite characters into the game and allow the player to design a house for that specific character.

Since then, amiibo have had various in-game functions in the Animal Crossing series, though the core function of scanning a figure or card to interact in some way with that specific character has remained the same, even in ACNH when inviting the same Villager multiple times.

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Animal Crossing amiibo came to more significant attention with the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons as the latest release in the series became wildly popular. Since finding “dreamies”, what fans call their favorite Villagers, became incredibly important to players, amiibo cards became much more important and highly sought after. However, some of the most popular Villagers weren’t yet available through amiibo cards, which potentially added to their popularity since players could only find them organically or through intense hunting across the deserted islands.

Are Animal Crossing Amiibo Cards Worth Money?

The Stalk Market Has Nothing On These Cards

amiibo cards for Animal Crossing are worth some money, though not nearly as much as millefeui cards. Specific characters that are particularly popular, like Marshal or Maple, may fetch higher prices between $15 to $25 online. Full sets of amiibo cards from all five series, around 448 cards, are also selling for high prices, but not nearly as much as a full set of millefeui cards.

The biggest reason that amiibo cards do not fetch the same high prices as millefeui cards is due to the fact that, besides being a much more recent and mass-produced type of merchandise, amiibo cards can be replicated using NFC chips. Once Animal Crossing: New Horizons became a massive hit, fans were quick to create their own amiibo “cards” to sell to each other online, which diluted the market and made the official amiibo cards more of a collector’s item than a necessity to achieve your ideal Villager living situation.

amiibo cards are still subject to scalping, especially when Nintendo releases cards for exciting Animal Crossing crossovers, like the Target-exclusive Sanrio cards, or for cards of beloved Villagers like Raymond. However, since these cards are usually produced en masse, it doesn't take long for the price of even the most highly sought-after cards to come down.