The 9E English Foil came today.  Also I got in touch with a contact in Brazil and began discussions of getting Portuguese stonies I need.

Heard more responses to my initial feeler emails.  Looks like I may be getting some of the French and Spanis versions I need.

Okay at long last, (guess folks have had time to puzzle this out in my absence), it is confirmed that Portal and Portal 2 were printed in Portuguese only as starter-set gift boxes, and these boxes did not include Stone Rain. Therefore the Portuguese Portal that I was chasing forever, never existed. My thanks to fellow Stone Rain collector Jeb for clearing that up for me.

This knocks the number of printings down to 173, but still keeps Stone Rain at the most reprinted nonland card of all time, and it also means that I only need to acquire 37 printings to finish. The best part? They're ALL NEW. 8E, 9E, and Champions of Kamigawa (CK). Since they are new, I have to believe finding them will be a lot easier than trying to find the older sets was. Here's the skinny on what I need:

I plan on recontacting all my previous donors and sending out a new round of feelers (first ones in 2+ years!) to see if I can scare some of this stuff up. Considering some of the excellent people I've met over the years in far flung places, I think my chances are good. I even made contact with a donor who lives in Moscow, and hopefully he can help me with the Russian 9E printings.

Other interesting news is something I read the other day on the Magic Rarities forums, which I was tipped off to by scanning Eric LeSavre's excellent Unopened Boosters Collection page. Apparently in 2004 it came to light that there was a copycat production of Magic Cards in Australia. These cards were fakes and not made by Wizards of the Coast. One of the sets faked was Eighth Edition, implying that there should be faked 8E and 8EF Stone Rains out there. I've managed to find somebody who has some of the fake product and I am tring to work out a deal with him to see if I can get my hands on a "phoney stoney". Apparently they are visually different so I'd be pretty excited to get one. Hopefully something will come of that.

Apparently, after Mirrodin, Wizards stopped producing cards in Traditional Chinese! So there are no 9E or CK printings of Stone Rain in that language! Has T-Chinese (like Korean) fallen by the wayside?

Wha' happen? Basically, I quit magic altogether for over 2 years as I got into other things, and the Stone Rain Project slept as the number of printings of the card swelled from 141 to 175! Stone Rain was reprinted in 9th Edition, and also in the standalone set Champions of Kamigawa in the meantime.

Some people were very nice and continued to send me stone rains here and there... I acquired perhaps 4 or 5 more after quitting. They've been crudely scanned and added here and I have attempted to attribute the appropriate donors. Thanks folks!

And now I have 40 printings left to go to finish the global Stone Rain set. Can you help!?