Every time I step away from these and go ah whatever I get pulled back in and start searching! Lol very interesting update on these though. I’m excited to see what else we figure out this year
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Sad bump for this thread.
This picture seems to show clear evidence that the original awarded copies were indeed glossy.
As a result, it would seem they are indeed identical to the cards that were released in the Vending Series.
Credit to @prochaos , for the photo.
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In one way it’s a bummer, but at least we know for sure now that they’re in fact indistinguishable. Definite knowledge is always better than speculation.
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Does this mean the winner of the auction did indeed buy a error or was the pictures not good enough?
Nice binder card on the left
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The Mr. Mime illustration winner was 1 of the 39 people that were awarded an Illustrator, which is why it’s being shown to give credibility tothe authenticity of the Mr. Mime.
There’s a very good chance that the Mr. Mime in this photo was 1 of the 20 that were awarded to the winner. But since it’s literally identical to a mass produced card, even with this photo we still can’t 100% for sure that’s the case. As a result this is never going to be a card that holds value.
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$5000 on a regular Vending Series Card
BIG OOF.
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So it’s proven that the winning copies of the illustration contest are glossy and not differentiable between the vending versions. This would mean the one sold on Yahoo is just a non-glossy error card.
Didn’t know the winner posted that story but it is nice to know the truth about these cards. Oh well, at least we have a close to these cards.
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that’s really intriguing! do we know if any of the other winners have sold their 20 copy/illustrator?
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I have just seen this discussion (link from PWCC megathread), so the conclusion is that we still don’t know which Poliwrath is from the real corocoro illustrator contest lol
I’m wondering if PSA know somothing more (any archive?) 
PSA is not the keeper of the knowledge in this hobby.
The collectors are.
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At the moment neither the collectors nor PSA (?) have the answer…
PSA graders are collectors too (I know 2 big collectors that once were psa professional graders).
But I basically agree with you.
The question has already been answered. See the previous page.
There is absolutely no physical distinction between an original winner’s copy and the Vending series copy. Both were printed on the same glossy card stock and both have the exact same everything.
To demonstrate how all over the place PSA is, I literally just Google Image Searched “Vending Series Mr. Mime PSA” and these are the images that came up:
Same PSA label, but one is clearly the Vending series card and the other is clearly the Quick Starter gift set card.
The simple fact is that PSA is completely helpless in being able to distinguish the difference between an original winner’s copy, a Vending Series copy, and a gift set copy.
But of course, no one can distinguish an original winner’s copy from a Vending Series copy (PSA used to think they could but have since learned that they cannot do so, which is why they will no longer slap an Illustration Contest label on it).
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That’s exactly my point…
Right. So therefore PSA made a mistake by labeling any card as the Illustration contest winner.
What exactly is your point?
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After knowing that the winner has posted a photo of her Illustrator and the glossy Mr. Mime, it is like trying to distinguish a 2007 Battle Road TOP 3 Mysterious Pearl from a Winter Challenge Mysterious Pearl. They are literally the same cards unless they come from a winners’ case (or from the Illustrator winners in the Mr. Mime case).
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Okay but what if…just kidding lol
We don’t know anything, the label might be correct or wrong.
Maybe the illustr contest winner went to PSA to grade his card (or there are other proofs that psa knows), which explains the different label… of course these are just hypothesis.
You just don’t seem to get it. There is literally *no reason whatsoever* to believe the cards that have been labeled “Illustration Contest Winner” by PSA are not just vending series cards.
I have Vending Series Mr. Mimes myself. I promise you it is equally likely that any of my Mr. Mimes is an original Illustration Contest winner as the ones that have been labeled as such by PSA.
Even PSA acknowledged their error because after this was pointed out to them they stopped giving out the Illustration Contest Winner label.
The only people who seem to have a hard time letting this go are you and the person trying to sell their common card for 6 figures.
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If you don’t have reason to believe doesn’t mean that PSA/winner/whoever don’t have.Now you are making confusion, PSA has never said that it was an error, yours is a hypothesis too.
I’m just saying that this mistery is unsolved, stop 