Ooft really enjoying this thread- a few questions though if anyone knows…How likely is it QA would allow a cardsheet to pass through to packing/distribution without the graphite layer? Is there any indication this card came from a booster or whether it was obtained another way? Following @genosha comment, anyone know whether any of the other graphite-less cards (which presumably would have been in the same product) have surfaced? EDIT: just saw GemMint’s comment - surely if all the holos had the same error there’d be traces of these cards elsewhere? If he knew this was an error why didn’t he keep the other cards?
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What is this QA, you speak of?
www.elitefourum.com/t/obstructed-fire-the-qc-guy-misprint-entei-gx/28411/1
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Damn, fair point!
I assure you it involves shooting at least as much light through the card as our cellphone flashlights at worlds a half a decade ago. Haha. Thats why I don’t put a ton of stock in even my own opinion at that time.
There’s direct contact between CGC and multiple extremely knowledgeable people from Wizards. They have a Magic team, which gives them a lot of access to Wizards specifically that we don’t always get with modern Pokemon connections.
But I also don’t want to vaguely defend CGC’s decision because I know I can’t just say “X machine and Y machine were used to conduct Z tests.” My legal obligations to being vague will just be frustrating. And asking people to trust me over someone else betting their reputation in the opposite direction isn’t helpful or constructive. I’m not here to stoke tensions. I feel I covered my opinion pretty well and I stand by it. Having seen what I’ve seen involving the authentication of this card, I don’t think its a huge deal and the response seems disproportionately emotional. But I have the utmost respect and consider people on both sides my friends, which is more important to me than burying a cross over this card.
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I haven’t seen this card in person and maybe this is too simple but to anyone saying this can’t happen… Have you ever seen a non-holo Rocket Dark Dragonite error? Are those fake too? Maybe in this case they caught the mistake after 1-2 sheets instead of printing a bunch of them. Where are the others? Maybe QA did find some but they missed at least one?
I can tell you I work in quality and our production team finds all kinds of “unique” ways of building our products. Most we catch, some we do not. We’ve certainly seen all kinds of errors on Pokemon cards from early sets like severe miscuts, upside down backs, cards crimped by the booster, missing damage/stage, first edition stamps on promos, ghost stamp… Just doesn’t seem that hard to believe this could be real to me. Most factories are obsessed with reducing waste/scrap and some line leaders would probably go ahead and use a sheet missing a layer just to not have it hit their scrap metric. In 2000 when this was theoretically printed Pokemon was at the height of popularity, printing these was literally printing money.
If someone was able to duplicate the ink and cardstock well enough to fool CGC, wouldn’t they flood the market with fake WOTC cards? And if so, how would most people even be able to tell the difference? If this is fake but wasn’t a Charizard but say a base set Dragonair, are you sure PSA wouldn’t grade it?
EDIT TO ADD: I think a lot of people underestimate just how many cards have not yet hit the market for resale. Some have, but lots are still hidden away in closets, attics, basements, etc. My experience is that increased value of Pokemon cards recently is not mainstream knowledge. We are tied into this but the average person has no idea. Heck I can’t even get my brother to let me go through his cards that are still sitting in my parents house to see what’s there. He has no interest in the cards. Not sure what he’s waiting for, but I’m sure it’s at least a few hundred bucks. It’s conceivable that there are others hidden away that may or may not ever hit the open market. If I bought one of these in a Craigslist collection or something I would probably keep it and not sell.
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iirc the Dragonite error card has the middle layer where this one doesn’t.
It’s a printing oversight and a failure of proper QC.
The one-of-a-kind Charizard (only getting attention because it’s the fire lizard, if it would’ve been a Hitmonchan nobody would’ve cared) is printed on card stock that shouldn’t had passed QC. Someone at Cartemundi dropped the ball.
But my earlier question is still valid; where are the other 47 non-holo holo rares from this sheet? Nobody ever cared to post about them? Only the person with the Charizard cared enough? What’s the deal?
If this is a fake card, the Chinese mastered making proper fakes 25 years ago and the hobby would’ve been dead 23 years ago due to an insane print spree of fake Chinese non-holo cards. I know of many non-holo Dark Raichu’s that been circulated back in 1999-2000 (I been a victim in obtaining a few of them in trades losing many TR-set holos), but in hindsight these had so many flags. But no, there was no insane Chinese fake wave of Base Set rares.
I think the whole issue here is that none of the high profiled collectors wanna burn their fingers and taint their names by saying this card is legit and rather burn CGC for actually grading it.
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I would just like to say it’s quite ironic that with PSA people were saying how much better it would be to have machine grading and technology etc due to inconsistencies and mistakes, and now that CGC uses machines as big part of the grading and technology, people seem to put more value into experts’ opinions and “gut feelings” cause apparently the machines are getting it wrong. People complaining about CGC grading a controversial card while PSA is grading fake signatures. No grading company is perfect. I don’t have a dog in this fight either way. I collect officially released products only and have no interest in errors or samples or test cards or anything of that nature.
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technology doesn’t explain why the card doesn’t have the middle layer that is in every real pokemon card.
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Machines are a great addition and I want CGC to succeed. I’m pro having a reputable grading alternative that collectively improves all options. Grading and authentication brands are built on trust. The contentious decision to grade this card puts the brand at risk. CGC losing credibility hurts the hobby and I don’t want this to happen.
The card could be real. It could have come from the factory during the same time period on the same machines. It’d also be the only Pokemon card with an authentic front and back without middle layers. It’s an incredibly convincing card if you ignore the inside. It seems more likely the card is proven illegitimate before being proven authentic.
Another note, I thoroughly enjoy CGC grading cards PSA/BGS won’t. Them being more open to encapsulating cards like this makes them a unique option. This is a market gap they’re filling. The card in question is a further stretch than I thought they’d take.
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You miss the point just like a lot of people seem to be missing. The graphite layer has to be there, period. Unless someone knows of a WotC card that didn’t have that layer it’s not possible for this card to exist.
To put it simply WotC uses that layer to fuse the front and back of the cards together. Which means in order for that layer to not exist the card would be in two parts. Unless there’s a card that proves WotC used a different middle layer, that I’m not aware of, it couldn’t have come from them.
It doesn’t matter the lack of quality or the oversight from WotC. What matters is the inability for the card to have come from their factory.
The other explanation is that layer does exist and the off feel/flimsiness that was reported is false testimony, CGC did the proper checks, and the card is legit.
I have no idea wether this card is legit or not, and unless there’s someone here that was there as it was produced, I don’t think there’s a way to be 100% sure wether it is or not.
What comes to mind for me though, is that it might very well be a test print using leftover cardstock from something else (this DOES happen in factories lol, at one point when I worked at a cardboard factory we used leftover stuff from previous orders to check cutting alignment for the new orders before we used the proper cardboard cause often we would have very few “extras” hence very little room for error). The matchprint cards were most likely test prints wich clearly used different material to be printed on. It doesn’t seem that hard to believe that it’s possible that that charizard could also be a test print on cheaper (hence missing the layer) material. Though the fact that only a charizard showed up so far does make it seem a bit sketchy.
If I’m not mistaken WotC also used Cartamundi to print, who’s main thing is printing regular playing cards (the kinds to play solitaire with etc). It wouldn’t be impossible to think that a cheaper sheet of the playing cards cardstock could have gotten used to test alignment for pokemon cards at one point.
Not saying that this IS 100% the case, but saying there’s absolutely no way for this card to have come from the original factory might be quite a jump to conclusions. Wether such a card would be seen as “legitimate” even if it did come from the original factory would be a whole different discussion though.
Either way we’ll probably never be 100% sure though unless someone who worked at the company could confirm or deny any workmethods involved.
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Now that the card is incapsulated there is no way for the buyer to “feel” the card anymore which can be troublesome in the future due to the lack of the middle layer. The card is just labeled as no holo layer which is too vague for me since it makes it seem like it’s on the same field as non holo dragonite which it is not IMO.
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What about the rest of the sheet? To cut out one card perfectly and slot it into a pack needs a whole production line shut down. So where are the other holo rares from the sheet? I repeat myself, the only reason why people seem to care about this is because it’s a Charizard, if it was a Hitmonchan nobody would’ve cared.
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The video above shows the process, in order for it to happen like you laid out there would be a ton of those errors because it would effect the entire roll.
There’s no way for me to formulate an opinion having not held the card. But will mention that most facilities offer a range of printing substrates and have a variety of jobs running at once, including those facilities who were actively printing Pokemon in 2001 (the Bicycle video referenced is more of an exception to the broader printing industry in that they print on a few relatively similar types of material). Also, most of the facilities contracted for printing Pokemon utilized pre-cut stacks of paper on a pallet rather the continuous feed as is seen in the Bicycle video. So its not impossible that a few sheets of paper, or even a pallet of paper could get mixed up.
A side note: Let’s not take forgranted how nice it is to have Charlie as our very own representative for Pokemon TCG within the company. I’d take his professional opinion to heart on this over my personal feelings.
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If someone was going to go through the trouble of faking a zard 10 yrs ago, why a base 2? They’ve been essentially worthless up until the past couple of years.
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It still doesn’t matter. I don’t know why this hard to understand…
That layer is applied to the entire roll. Yes, it might not have been done on site, and the paper came like that, but that process still happened.
My entire premise is the following:
We’ve been told that the card has a different feel to it not as firm and failed the light test.
If that’s true that means the graphite layer is incorrect.
If the graphite layer is incorrect there would be an entire roll of these cards. That have never surfaced.
The alternative is this card is a fake or the accounts of the original testing were false.
This isn’t hard to follow and anyone making the claim that this type of error would occur to a single card isn’t knowledgeable to the process.
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A few points to make:
- Are you sure Pokemon cards were produced in the same way as bicycle cards are in the video? Many times the cardstock for these cards is actually made from multiple rolls of thinner cardstock that are cut to sheet size and then the layers are glued together in a stack. I wasn’t at whatever facility produced Pokemon cards in 2000 to know how they printed them, but if a layer was missing from the stack you could get a single sheet like this.
- Is it really so hard to believe that a sheet worth of these could have been produced and only one card has surfaced? Don’t underestimate just how many of these cards were printed. For all we know someone has a box with 12 of these waiting to be opened. More likely though is that kids played with them, or they are sitting in an attic/basement/closet somewhere, or they were tossed 20 years ago for being suspected fakes (whether fake or not), or maybe someone in the factory QA team found one after they cut the sheet and they tried to locate the others and missed one/a couple.
- If someone figured out how to duplicate the ink of original WOTC Pokemon cards, I don’t see why they would be printing a non-holo card that is obviously supposed to be holo. It just doesn’t add up. Would make a lot more sense to print non Holo rares and stick a first edition stamp on them (which I would imagine is child’s play compared to making the card in the first place). Also, why would someone go to the effort of making this card and then only make one? I’m sure if it’s real enough for CGC to grade it’s one of the best fakes ever produced - I’m sure people would pay $$ for these instead of buying the real deal (due to cost). I feel confident someone would be selling these as “proxy custom cards”.
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s real or it’s fake. We may never know for sure. What I’m saying is there are possible ways for this type of error to be legitimate that I don’t think you are considering.
How to make cards that feel like “real” WOTC cards:
boardgamegeek.com/thread/490643/making-cards-youll-never-use-your-old-method-again/page/1
EDIT: and yes, I have made my own cards before for board games I’ve designed.
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