Trying to cross-reference when the Neopets trading card game started and ended

I'm trying to figure out when the first trading card game both was published and effectively went defunct. Figuring out the latter is fairly easy, since I cross-referenced the date on this Neopia Times article, but it's figuring out when it started that I wanted to ask about. Google keeps thinking that I'm asking about the Battledome TCG, and it's looking like I'm going to have to go through the Neopia Times articles really far in the past. (So far I've looked at weeks 150 to 120)

The reason that I'm doing this is to compare how long the original trading card game lasted, and how many sets we could expect from the Battledome TCG since the Battle for Merridell set seems to imply that Upper Deck is going to go through each plot (starting with BFM) sequentially. However, after doing some research into the environment at the time, I wonder if the Viacom buyout might have been a major factor in why the Neopets trading card game was discontinued.