A second Japanese Neo Genesis print run - but why?

Articles
1

UPDATE: I had originally titled and written this thread with the assumption that these later packs contained corrected versions of Japanese Neo Genesis error cards. However I’ve since uncovered a box opening video from all the way back in 2010 which not only includes these newer packs but still pulls the error versions. For reference, see A second Japanese Neo Genesis print run - but why?.

I believe it was @KEI who a few months ago posted a story on Instagram showing a picture of two Japanese Neo Genesis booster packs with different International Article Number (EAN-13) codes. These booster packs both feature a Pichu on the back, and since then I’ve been on the lookout for one. I finally won one at auction earlier today.

This version has a EAN-13 code of 4521329 00794 6 and an ST product certification of “1”:

Japan’s Neo Genesis set had several text-based errors and eventually had a corrected print run, but the corrected cards are much less common than the error versions. I believe the above booster pack to be from this corrected print run. (See Japanese Neo error cards) and Neo Genesis Quilava Error Card? if you’re not sure what these are.)

It’s much more common to find packs with a EAN-13 code of 4935228 98512 8 and an ST product certification of “9”:

Both packs are otherwise identical and completely indistinguishable from the front.

From Wikipedia, EAN-13 codes are formatted in the following way:

  • The first 3 digits denote the country of manufacture;
  • The next 4 digits denote the manufacturer;
  • The next 5 digits denote the product number;
  • The final digit is a checksum.

Note that I’ve simplified that a little to make it easier to understand.
Japan has 2 different country code ranges, the old range of 490 to 499 and the new range of 450 to 459. The more common packs have a country code of 493 and a manufacturer code of 5228 whereas the one I picked up today has a country code of 452 and a manufacturer code of 1329. Likewise the more common packs have a product code of 98512 and the corrected pack has a product code of 00794.

Japanese Base Set booster packs used the 493/5228 code:

In fact, all Pokémon releases had the 493/5228 code in Japan up until after Japan’s Neo Discovery set. Here is a Japanese Neo Discovery booster pack with the same code:

The Japanese Neo Genesis set was originally released in December 1999 followed by Neo Discovery in July 2000. The next set to be released in November 2000 was Neo Revelation:

With this set the code had finally changed to 452/1329. The next release in March 2001 was Neo Destiny:

Product codes are sequential, which is great for us because it means we an use Neo Revelation’s product code of 00727 and Neo Destiny’s code of 00819 to quickly see that the corrected Neo Genesis pack’s product code of 00794 falls between the two. With this we now know that the corrected Neo Genesis pack was released between 23rd November 2000 and 9th March 2001.

Earlier I mentioned another difference between the two packs: the ST product certification. The regular Neo Genesis release had an ST code of “9”, but the corrected version has an ST code of “1”. You’ll also notice above that the Base Set pack had an ST of “6”, Neo Discovery and Neo Revelation have an ST of “0” and Neo Destiny has an ST of “1”.

This is really obvious once you know what it is, but it wasn’t until @chok pointed out to me on Discord that these ST values relate to the year of manufacture: 6 in the case of Base Set would be 1996, 9 would be 1999, 0 would be 2000 and 1 would be 2001. Later years prefixed this with the decade number as well to avoid confusion (i.e. Japanese packs released in 2006 have a code of “06” instead of “6”).

With this information we now know that the corrected Japanese Neo Genesis packs were released at some point between 1st January 2001 and 9th March 2001.

How they were released is not known to me at this point - I don’t know if these packs were sold individually, released as part of some other product or released as part of a trade-in for the original error versions. I’d love to see a picture of a corrected booster box, but I can’t imagine one of those popping up any time soon.

What is interesting is that this correction came after the English Neo Genesis set was released in December 2000 (1 year after the original Japanese release) - I wonder if it was the translation process which uncovered these errors in the first place.

10 Likes
2

Oh, that’s pretty interesting. Not just that you’ve been able to determine the release date of the corrected Neo Genesis pack, but how you can determine the date from the pack codes themselves. I never paid too much attention to these codes, except for the Pokémon Web booster packs, which are transparent and for which I’m still missing the 1st edition sealed version containing the Moltres in my collection. For those I know that the first part of the code is always 4521329 (like the Neo Revelation and Neo Destiny packs you’ve shown above), followed by 013, and the next two numbers indicate which holofoil card is in the Pokémon Web booster pack:

01-04: Dark Venusaur
05-08: Dark Charizard
09-12: Moltres (the ones I’m looking for)
13-16: Dark Blastoise
17-20: Articuno
21-24: Zapdos
25-28: Gengar
29-32: Machamp

Here for example a pack I’ve got incoming right now, for which I know it contains a Moltres (and the seller told me it was unlimited edition), because it has the code “4521329 01309 1”:

I’ve also seen this pack containing a Moltres, with code “4521329 01310 7”:

Also interesting that the ST-# indicates the last digit of the year, which is ST-1 for the Pokémon Web booster packs. Didn’t knew that either. :blush: Always nice to learn something new.
And cool that we can see which packs are reprints and which aren’t using this method. Hmm, I wonder if we can also apply this to the reprint of for example the Hidden Fates set, assuming they printed and created new packs, instead of re-using existing packs.

EDIT: Hmm, apparently the Hidden Fates packs don’t contain barcodes with these codes, unless they’re hidden under the flap. Might be because they were only released in tins and collection boxes, and never in booster boxes (and thus loose in game stores).

Greetz,
Quuador

2 Likes
3

Well, my “corrected” theory has been disproven. I’ve found a video on YouTube from 2010 where a guy opens up a sealed box to find a load of these 2001 packs. Eventually (on the 5th video) he pulls an uncorrected Typhlosion:

I didn’t see any Donphan cards pulled but he did pull 4 or 5 Quilavas which also appeared to be the uncorrected versions. This is very interesting in that it means there was a second Neo Genesis release in Japan in early 2001 but it didn’t feature the corrected cards.

Does this mean that there was another even later release which added the corrections? That I don’t know. I’ll have to keep my eye out for a third serial variant.

Before anyone asks, yes there is also video proof of the uncorrected Typhlosion [EPILEPSY WARNING] being pulled from a 1999 pack as well (despite this video being 4 years newer, the video quality is much worse).

What I have discovered this evening as well is that later Japanese packs with 1st edition and unlimited print runs all have identical EAN-13 and ST codes, as if to imply that they were all created at the same time.

3 Likes
4

I had a thought earlier that perhaps the corrections were made at two separate times, with perhaps the Donphan and Darkness Energy cards being corrected in this 2001 print. I re-watched the video series I shared in the previous post and finally on the 5th video both a Darkness Energy and Donphan are pulled. Interestingly they are both the error versions:

I’m still unsure as to why these Neo Genesis packs were assigned a completely new EAN-13 code. The only thing I can think of which may have some merit is that where the release happened after the manufacturer code change perhaps they legally had to update the packs, but I don’t know if that holds true for any of the other sets which would presumably have also had later-date reprints.

1 Like
5

Okay, the plot thickens.

As I mentioned in my first post, the product code part of EAN-13 numbers are sequential. However to throw a bit of a spanner in the works released on 6th April 2001 was the Intro Pack Neo. However it’s EAN-13 product code is 00777, an earlier number than both the 2001 Neo Genesis pack (00794) and the March 2001 Neo Destiny packs (00819):

Kudos to whoever originally took this incredibly high quality picture/scan (I got it from Google Images but the link goes to an eBay 404 page).

Anyway, what’s interesting about this set is that the Darkness Energy which can be found in this set has been corrected:

I’m very curious now if the original intention was that a new print run of Japan’s Neo Genesis set was to coincide with an earlier release of Intro Pack Neo (before March 2001), but the discovery of the errors lead to the Intro Pack Neo being delayed until April, however potentially by this point they may have already printed a fresh batch of Neo Genesis cards including the old errors so decided to just ship those out anyway.

This in my mind could mean two things:

  • A third print run was made of Japan’s Neo Genesis around April 2001 and possibly distributed alongside Intro Pack Neo (meaning there’s a chance these 00794 packs may contain corrected cards);
  • Japan offered a trade-in for the error cards whereby people could send in their error cards and receive corrected cards in return.

I’m going to see if I can dig out any old web articles which may have mentioned a trade-in. I’m curious if any of the documentation bundled with Intro Pack Neo mentioned anything about a trade-in as well.

Based on other set prints I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that the EAN-13 code doesn’t change unless it has to - and I think in this case it changed because the manufacturer code changed. If there was a third print run and the corrected errors came in Japanese Neo Genesis packs, they would have almost certainly been those 2001 (00794) packs and not the original 1999 (98512) packs.

This is entirely speculation, of course.

4 Likes
6

EDIT:
I read on another article, then I know :
neo genesis
typhlosion 60+ instead of 60
donphan 10x instead of nothing
dark energy 1 instead of 10
quilava 4 line text instead of 5

meganium text file 1 vs neo intro? (what difference)
someone mentioned error in
seaking jungle ?
zubat fossil ?

Hi, I am gataukuda and I am new in here.

I am collecting old back pokemon cards in japanese (base set until neo destiny, including several promotional cards).

Recently, i just aware that some cards have missprint in japanese. then some website mentioned about thyplosion neo genesis (damage 60 instead of 60+), and Ancient Mew (nintedo error instead of nintendo trademark from bulbapedia). when I search in this forum, it showed me 2 another cards, Darkness energy neo genesis and donphan neo genesis. also youtuber mentioned Jungle Venomoth.

Do you mind if mentioned the difference for darkness energy and donphan ? or maybe jungle venomoth if any of you know.

and if by any chance, anyone know any cards missprint for old back pokemon japanese from base set until neo destiny?

thank you for your reply

1 Like
7

Welcome to E4!
The differences can be seen in this post by @nickpoketrader: www.elitefourum.com/t/japanese-neo-error-cards/29163/10. The corrected Darkness Energy has 1 instead of 10 and the corrected Donphan’s attack has “10x” instead of nothing.

As for Jungle Venomoth, that was a text change on the first attack - the corrected version’s first attack has a slightly longer description (by 1 or 2 symbols).

I don’t really follow errors from other sets much, so can’t really tell you any more about other sets.

–

On this topic, where we still don’t know what the source of corrected Neo Genesis cards are I’m aware of one final source which remains unchecked: the 2001 print of the Neo Starter Deck. A barcode for these boxes does exist, however I’ve yet to see one and nobody has ever listed one mentioning its 2001 barcode.

1 Like
8

If you are unaware… each change in card also coincided with advertised information in pokemon magazines explaining the changes. I have a clipping of the quilava somewhere. Obviously it doesn’t show the change in pack art but it’ll give you a decent date these cards were released.

3 Likes
9

@mthursty that’d be very interesting to see! The Darkness Energy card was corrected in Intro Pack Neo (April 2001) but hadn’t been corrected in the 2001 Neo Genesis packs from ~March 2001, so my guess is sometime around that time they were fixed.

1 Like
10

Unfortunately I don’t have time to post these nicely rn but here is the Imgur album link. The update is in the Trainers Magazine Vol 6 released on May 1st 2000. There is text in the corner of the cover page potentially saying the product was printed as early as September 1999. I’m not too sure on that.

imgur.com/a/PC9Ad0a

@pichufan

1 Like
11

@mthursty that’s really interesting! I have wondered if the cards were part of some trade in where you could trade error cards for corrected copies. It’s very weird that the 2001 print included the original errors.

1 Like
12

It could be a case like Ultra Prism where they said a reprint was coming but it didn’t get released until the final print run. :thinking: I guess the mystery continues

1 Like
13

PichuFan Avatar
Nov 22, 2020 15:26:14 GMT 7 PichuFan said:

Welcome to E4!
The differences can be seen in this post by NickPokeTrader: www.elitefourum.com/t/japanese-neo-error-cards/29163/10. The corrected Darkness Energy has 1 instead of 10 and the corrected Donphan’s attack has “10x” instead of nothing.

As for Jungle Venomoth, that was a text change on the first attack - the corrected version’s first attack has a slightly longer description (by 1 or 2 symbols).

I don’t really follow errors from other sets much, so can’t really tell you any more about other sets.

–

thank you PichuFan, i am still looking into google image and auction yahoo if i find any difference in venomoth jungle.

for zubat and seaking,
I read from unlimited_spaghetti (https://efour.proboards.com/post/335432/thread).
I can’t understand italian language but i think the last part he mentioned about error in seaking jungle and zubat fossil