Bridging the Gap: The Tale of the "Euro POP" Hoenn Starters (Mudkip, Torchic, Treecko)

I’ve been working on compiling as much info as I can on three specific Nintendo Black Star Promos:
Mudkip #005,Torchic #006, and Treecko #007

These three deceptively normal looking Nintendo Black Star Promos were the first prize/trophy cards produced by Pokemon USA Inc./Nintendo of America. In a time too often overlooked, WotC had just lost the rights to print the Pokemon TCG and Wizards organized competitive play was beginning to transition into Pokemon Organized Play (POP).

I went so far down the webarchive rabbit hole looking for any nibbles of info on release and distribution of these promos that I had to abandon my original intention of making a YouTube video and instead try to methodically type it all out in this article. This is a culmination of hours of sifting through old wayback machine redirects and forum threads, so I hope any seekers of knowledge enjoy the read. I’ve had considerable help from a few friends and this is of course going to be a continued effort since we will never have rock solid records from 2003-2004. I hope more folks have info to add, and if I made a mistake by all means let me know!

All references and sources built on old forum posts & discussion should be taken with a grain of salt, and I will do my best to point out when things are unconfirmed, unlikely or probable given multiple sources corroborating the info.

I’ll be going into four main focuses on these promos; Appearance, Distribution, Misinformation, and Labeling. I will also try my best to cover not only the familiar English language versions of these promos, but the lesser-known Italian, German and French language versions too.

I will mainly be using photos of the Torchic #006 promo, and although my bias may have crept in a bit, it was the only one of the three I was able to get good photos of in each language!

Appearance
The most noticeable attributes of these promos in English are the Pokeball stamps and large e-Series yellow borders. Torchic and Treecko sport embossed Pokeball stamps in a golden foil, and Mudkip had an embossed stamp in silver. The embossment of this Pokeball stamp (POP logo) means that each English card went through an additional step in the printing process. The 9-digit code on the bottom left of the card also corresponds to each starter’s respective reverse holo in EX Ruby & Sapphire. (There are a lot of curiosities caused by these ex-era codes, and I hope we start to learn their purpose in due time.)

In Italian, German and French versions of these promos, all three promos had silver holographic Pokeball stamps. And actually, they’re not even stamps at all. The POP logo used as the embossment on the English promos was included within the actual artbox when foreign language versions went to print. So, there is no stamp or embossment on the card at all. You can see the holographic pattern within the “stamps” on these languages, and the thick e-Series border was also dropped.




Distribution
Europe/UK
The original intention by Pokemon USA Inc. was to introduce these three English promos to UK sanctioned tournaments starting in December 2003. Source (Info found on PokeGym forums, but have considerable validity judging by similar posts from that time.) I haven’t been able to find any surviving info or posts confirming promos arrived in the UK that early.

The first confirmed arrival that has survived in the archived forum posts was early January 2004, from a TO in the UK (Source.) Mudkip #005 promos were distributed first, then Torchic #006 promos starting in February, and distribution for Treecko #007 was delayed by several months pushing back distribution in the UK to June. Distribution is confirmed to have been at local sanctioned POP tournaments in the UK, and promos were used as prize support in those tournaments.

United States/North America
Believe it or not, these cards (in English) were not European exclusive. I mean, I guess they were for 4-5 months back in 2004, but they were distributed in the United States from June-August 2004 at POP sanctioned tournaments. Following the same release pattern as the UK, Mudkip was distributed at tournaments in June, Torchic at tournaments in July, and finally Treecko in August. (Source) This included Premier Events, meaning the National Championship at Origins Game Fair on June 26th, 2004 likely handed out Mudkip #005 Promos as prize support for side events. This specific example with Nationals is unconfirmed, but the next few events that we have confirmed info on lead me to believe Mudkip being handed out at Nationals is highly possible. The three 2004 Stadium Challenge events in July 2004 have all luckily survived in the discussion archives and early advertisements included info that Torchic #006 would be awarded as prize support for Side Events at each Stadium Challenge. (Source) Interestingly, promos in the US were distributed in packs of 4, and tournament organizers were specifically instructed to award a promo to the Top 3 finishers in each age group at these Side Events, and then hand out the fourth promo to an attendee at random. (Source) This makes any estimation on distribution quite impossible, but in my opinion is a really fun idea for the folks handing out promos (This info is unconfirmed for the Europe/UK release, although I would assume English copies in the UK were distributed in the same packs of 4 given the cards are identical and most likely printed at the same time.) Distribution of Treecko #007 at the 2004 World Championships on August 20th-22nd is also a definite possibility (again unconfirmed.) Ken Sugimori signed multiple copies of these promos at Worlds 2004 and almost every Mudkip, Torchic or Treecko sketch by Sugimori on these promos can be traced back to this event.

Italian/German/French
Information on the distribution of foreign language versions is almost non-existent, and after tracking down and chatting with 4 different Italian, German and Dutch tournament organizers from 2004 the most info I was able to gather was that distribution came much later than the English version release. A second wave in localized languages was distributed to sanctioned tournaments in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and parts of the UK later in the summer of 2004. 2 of the TO’s I spoke with who are still involved in Organized Play claim there are around 100-200 copies of each promo in a given localized language. Their reasoning was dwindling tournament attendance after Premier Events/Worlds in 2004 meant less opportunity to award these cards as prizes. (This is unconfirmed and uncorroborated info, so take it as you will. I will not attempt to guess distribution numbers.) Through personal experience I can say the French versions are the most difficult to find info or listings for, but I cannot back it up with anything besides personal time spent hunting for images. There is no evidence to support that the localized language copies followed the previous release pattern of Mudkip first, Torchic second and Treecko third.

The biggest takeaways on distribution should be; English promos were not European exclusive, these promos were intended as prize support for officially sanctioned POP tournaments, and none were confirmed to have been distributed in 2003 (despite the copyright dates on English copies.)

Misinformation
Most information floating around on these promos that I’ve found hits a majority of significant details on their European release, but omit the fact that they were later released in the US. This is no fault to those who’ve compiled the info in the past; this was new information to myself too. But I believe there is enough evidence and testimony from attendees of events in 2004 to confirm that these promos can’t possibly considered European-exclusive.

Whether or not we can prove that all copies were distributed as prizes, it is a fact that the intention was for prize support at officially sanctioned POP tournaments. Instructions given to TO’s in the US detailed that they were prize cards. They also outlined that the fourth promo was to be given away at random, so in my opinion, identifying them as “participation prizes” would be less accurate than “trophy cards” or “tournament promos.”

Through researching I also came across a lot of supposed explanation on the Graded Population and number of promos in circulation in general. I am unsure if it is misinformation, but the assumption that there were a larger number of Treecko #007 promos distributed/awarded than Mudkip and Torchic promos is unsubstantiated; I’ve seen it pop up several times, though. From the information available, there is no reason to believe Treecko was distributed in higher quantities, even when you take the US release into account. However, there is an undeniable surplus of Treecko #007 graded at PSA compared to the other two, so there has to be some sort of explanation (If anyone has additional info that could help shed a little more light it would be much appreciated!)

Labeling

So if “Euro POP” isn’t the right way to label them, what is?

To be frank, I don’t really know. My initial instinct would be to just drop the “Euro” and leave it as a POP Black Star Promo. But since the League promos from that time period don’t receive a distinction on their label, I believe a simple “2004 Black Star Promo (Card #) (Name)” will suffice. It’s not as fun or flashy, and yes I am robbing Europe of three exclusive releases when they’re already deprived of unique promos to begin with, but I believe it would be the most accurate. PSA has changed their labeling for these promos three separate times, and currently give you the option of designating it as either a “2004 Black Star Promo” or “2004 Black Star Promo - Eur. Pop Tournament.” I hope in the future they stop allowing the Euro POP label, but given 80% of the Pop Report was graded over two years ago, I think those incorrect labels will be floating around for many years to come. Hopefully using Bulbapedia as a research reference happens less frequently, because if I were a betting man I’d say that is most likely what happened with the research on these promos. :no_mouth:

If you have any concerns regarding the validity of the information provided, please reach out to me! I never intend to present speculation as concrete fact, and actually hope that posting this inspires more people to do some digging of their own! I enjoy uncovering mysteries of this time period, and highly recommend going through the PokeGym archives from 2003-2004 and reading through the old threads. The WotC to PUI/NoA transition was a fascinating time in Pokemon TCG history, and incredibly influential in the way Organized Play operates even to this day. If you stuck around for the whole thing then thank you for reading!

Below are some other photos I’ve found of the other two starters in foreign languages. If you have any better photos or ones that I’m missing, let me know!

IMG_7259

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Great article. I had only thought they were in English as a European release as well. Thank you for the digging!

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Finally found some photos of French Treecko courtesy of a seller in France!

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This is some rabbit-holing that I can really get behind. Interesting read!

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Awesome article, @Tapp! And learned some new things as well, including that the English ones were distributed in the US. :slight_smile:

It’s also curious how the English ones have N3X as code; the French FB5; and the German and Italian GF6.

Thanks to this thread from earlier this year, we now know those EX era codes can be used on a Japanese mobile app Pokemon Hiroba to see close-up pictures of the artwork (if you have internet access). Not too useful if you’d ask me, since you usually have the card in hand if you have a code, but whatever. Likely they intended more uses for the codes in that mobile app over time, but since 2003 wasn’t exactly a smartphone era yet, almost no one used it.

Greetz,
Quuador

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I could absolutely see them intending for even more uses of these codes and then scrapping the idea! haha
I had no idea about the Pokemon Hiroba app (although like the Challenge Hiroba events, I’m guessing this is a slight mistranslation of “Pokemon Plaza”) Very cool!!

The thing I find most puzzling is why they all differ when all of the French, German and Italian copies seem to have the same shared layout of the localized EXRS common without the e-Reader border. I’d be curious to see if actual 9-digit codes on EX Ruby & Sapphire commons in those languages correspond the same way to the sheets of these localized 005/006/007 promos. I don’t have copies of a common in each language to test but would be very curious to see the results :eyes:

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@Tapp If you search on cardmarket you might be able to find listings of the local language cards of these with the codes to compare.

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I have to shoutout @pokelector91 on Instagram for completing what I assume is one of, if not, the only full set of these promos in all 4 languages! Not only have they completed this goal but the cards are in great condition given most copies I’ve stumbled upon in the past few years are LP at best. Absolutely incredible!

Pokekector91’s Instagram!




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Big congrats! Definitely not easy cards to find in some of those languages. Love the three visible swirls on the bottom Italian ones btw. :slight_smile:

Greetz,
Quuador

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