I’ve been going down the rabbit hole again of various cards, prints, and variants, and even after a solid year, I’m unable to confirm or deny the existence of the Italian version of this card or any others in the promo box that were also snowflake stamped:
That got me to wondering if there are any other elusive cards that you’re not sure of whether they exist or not. Maybe you finally found your white whale after a long time of uncertainty, or perhaps you’re still in denial searching optimistically- I want to hear about it!
It would be interesting to know if any of the WOTC W-Stamp promos have a silver stamp version. As far as I know, only Dark Charmeleon had both a Gold and Silver stamp version but who knows, maybe the others did as well.
There’re several cards that I’m not actually sure if they exist due to lack of evidence, some personal theories or others.
One of them is Spanish Espeon (Obsidian Flames) [Stamped]
I’m unsure if this exact variant exists in Spanish. Some friends told me that in Latin America, card shops were distributing silently Spanish Umbreon (Obsidian Flames) [Stamped] and it was true. Umbreon could be obtained by spending a certain amount of money in TCG products in some card shops (there were other Spanish cards as well such as Tinkaton from Paldean Evolved)
I’m not sure if Espeon variant exists … I’ve never seen one. Release info of these type of cards in Spanish is not well-documented. I’ve talked to some people in my country asking if they know about this variant and they could not know to give me an answer …
There’re other cases of cards that I’m not sure if they actually exist such as:
Starlight Holo & Cosmos Holo Fossil Aerodactyl in non-English western languages
I’ve made a similar thread mid-2017, and it’s funny how many cards I was unsure about existing, I currently own.
To quote myself, and color the different cards:
green, if they do exist and I own them by now
yellow, if they do exist, but I don’t own them yet
red, if I’m at this point rather sure they don’t exist
orange, if I’m still not sure about whether they exist or not, even now…
So after 7 years, only the 2D 1st edition stamp on a Base Set yellow cheeks Pikachu; back stamp on a yellow cheeks; and grey stamp on a red cheeks I’m still unsure about whether it exists or not from this list above. Everything else I’ve either found or I’m confident by now it doesn’t exist - or have yet to find for my own collection, for those pesky German/Spanish Surfing/Flying Pikachu WotC promos…
As for a new list of cards I’m unsure about whether they exist or not, at this time of writing:
English Ivy Pikachu with upside down “GIOCATORI” stamp: I’ve heard rumors six were given to staff members of LPPCollecting, which I do kinda believe. But I have yet to see any pictures of them.
English Gym Heroes grey 1st edition stamps: I know grey 1st edition stamps exist for Base Set; Gym Challenge; and Neo Genesis, but I have yet to see any for the Gym Heroes set.
Japanese Base Set cards with small Commons symbol: I know the Holofoil Rare cards all exist with both large and small rarity symbol; and I know some of the Uncommons exists with both large and small rarity symbol as well. But I have yet to see any Commons with smaller rarity symbols. (Source: thread 1 and thread 2.)
Japanese 1995 Delta Playtest Sample Pikachu (jungle Pikachu with Ivy background): with all the different Sample cards we’ve seen lately, I kinda expected we’d already seen this one, which previously has only been seen in some CoroCoro magazines, but alas. But maybe it’ll emerge as physical card one day (soon). (Right one in the first picture here.)
1st edition feraligatr ex from the feraligatr constructed starter deck. Feraligatr ex (EX Unseen Forces 103) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia
Im sure they were printed but ive never seen a realiable photo of one. Every listing on ebay that has gone up for years is unlimited. From what i vaguely remember they were distributed during some sort of natural disasted Japan and most were lost(?) But surely some must have survived. There are some in the PSA pop report but i have no evidence pointing to them not being mislabelled.
Thank you so much for the info!!!
I’ve just updated the info of the Spanish article of Feraligatr Constructed Starter Deck including the warehouse fire incident
Knowing Japanese collectors and the restrictions around some deals, it’s quite likely that it has resurfaced and is in the hands of some private collector.
I can come up with a long list of these from my Southeast Asian promo notes, so I’ll mention cases which I can directly pull from my head.
Traditional Chinese Dedenne GX promo with Hong Kong Regionals stamp
Traditional Chinese Regigigas promo with Hong Kong Regionals stamp
Traditional Chinese SM-P promos from 063/SM-P to 082/SM-P except 064, 066, 073 and 074
These slots are presumably allocated for the Gym promo set which accompanies the release of the last major SM set in Asia AS6a/AS6b. However as all Gym events were cancelled at the time due to COVID, only the 4 GXs in the promo set were released in Traditional Chinese in a separate event after Gym events were reinstated.
We are able to speculate most of the remaining cards from the Thai set, however whether these cards were actually printed remained a mystery.
Thai SM-P promos 098/SM-P, 099/SM-P and 106/SM-P
These share the same story as the Traditional Chinese SM-P promos above: the same promo set was allocated to slots 094/SM-P to 113/SM-P, and 15 out of 20 cards in the Thai set were released in a separate event.
However, out of the 5 unannounced cards 2 were later found sold by a local card shop in Thailand (110/SM-P Blue’s Tactics and 113/SM-P Roller Skater). I tried to ask the shop if the remaining 3 also exists but never got a reply.
Thai 7-11 Pikachu promo, Charizard VMAX Rainbow Rare and Espeon VMAX Alt Art
3 Thai Full Art promos very well known on the forums as they were listed in official card lists but never actually released.
Indonesian Indomaret Sword & Shield promo set for S5 release
The official Indonesian card list also had the same issue of including cards whose release was questioned (although no such cards in the Indonesian list were chase cards). The Bulbapedia diff page below shows the change made by me during an official card list update in 2022 which added several cards whose release status was unknown.
The Indomaret promo set which should be released alongside major sets S5I and S5R was among the questioned cards, with none of the cards revealed until the official list revealed them a year after, and not even one card from the promo set could be found in marketplaces.
This black star Pichu promo looks to be missing the opaque layer, or something close to that. It has me wondering if it was a lone example on an uncut sheet similar to Ancient Mews with the error, and if other such black star holo promos with this error exist. Would be so cool if they do.