Less than an hour ago two new “error” cards were posted on one of the error Facebook groups. I have “error” in quotes because I’m not convinced that these cards are actually real, but I haven’t completely disproven their legitimacy either. There are a lot of questions that I have and I think that this is significant enough to have an open discussion.
Please only respond if you have something to contribute that can be used to prove or disprove the legitimacy of the cards.
There is also another visible print layer on the top right of the card, which indicates 4 total additional prints of the Ampharos…
Something that makes me really suspicious of these cards is that I can’t seem to overlay them in such a way that makes everything line up. I tried my best to line up the same card via an overlay, but notice how the very left of the holo doesn’t touch. I don’t understand how this would be possible in a legitimate print run. It seems that this additional print is a different size which, as far as I know, could only be done after the factory printing. I would be happy for someone to disprove this theory - perhaps someone can find a better line up than I did 
The red line above shows how big of a gap it is when I line it up.
Seems pretty suspect to me too. Lots of things happening in totally different directions. The text above Ampharos would suggest 5 different prints. The second “Evolves from Flaaffy” text looks weird, like some of the letters are not italicized (not slanting), but the “F” in Flaaffy is super off slant? If the owner has any intention of proving legitimacy, this is yet another case where a $5 jeweler’s loupe goes a long way in terms of transparency.
To my knowledge, a solid black layer was used for bolding blank ink on the card. Adding this solid black layer multiple times could produce something like this. However, I would expect the multi-print to apply evenly to the card’s black ink, and within the same directional deviations.
For the Ampharos, why did it only apply to the top of the card?
For Blissey, the top part of the card shows printing variance up and down, but the bottom of the card is torqued where the left portion was seemingly held still while the right portion of the card was printed at an angle. This does not align (pun intended) to how cards are printed on sheets.
I would be highly suspect of these.
Calling our lord and savior, Tavis.
That “shifted foil” would be a white ink thing, no?
That would mean there’s a lot more going on here than just a shifted black layer. Maybe someone was just having fun
LOL
Overlaying the cards to see if things line up, is a great idea, but it only works if you have a scan of the card.
A photo (even if it looks pretty straight) always has the problem you’re having, because of perspective.
The issue is that some parts of the card are further away from the camera lens than other parts of the card, and things that are further away appear smaller.
A scanner creates a “flat” image without perspective, because the card is flat against the imaging device.
That is also a great suggestion, keep telling people to use a loupe or USB microscope.
Having the card unsleeved also helps.
It’s good to be skeptical of double printed types of cards, because some people will try to create them by sending a normal card through their home printer. In that case, blacks almost always look wrong (not solid), and there’s usually other tells. A loupe can spot that a home print doesn’t have the same pattern as an offset press. Also the press uses separate plates, while a home printer applies all the colors together.
The pictures here aren’t great (file size is small), but I’ve seen other errors like this, and this is probably legit.
One of the important things to notice here, is that each ink stamping fades to a lighter shade.
Looks like the issue occurred in the black color unit of the press.
This happens when a sheet (previous sheet before this card was printed), gets damaged, usually a torn off corner or something like that, which allows the damaged sheet to move/rotate out of normal position.
Offset printing applies the ink to the printing plate,
the plate applies the ink to a “blanket”,
the blanket applies the ink to the sheet,
Then the sheet travels to the next color unit, where the process repeats with a different ink color.
Normally when the sheets aren’t damaged, and everything is in proper register (aligned), the plate will apply the ink to exactly the same spot on the blanket every time it goes around on the roller.
In the case of this misprint, a previous damaged sheet (or maybe two), passed through the black color unit out of register, and was stamped with wet black ink.
This damaged sheet doesn’t get grabbed properly, and passes through each color unit a bit differently.
Each time this damaged sheet gets stamped by a subsequent ink color blanket, it deposits some of the wet black ink on an improper location of that blanket.
It deposits less ink in each subsequent color unit.
Then this sheet passes through, and gets stamped by the blanket of each color unit.
Whatever ink is on those blankets, gets applied, and that includes the black ink which transferred from the damaged sheet to those blankets.
Each sheet passing through the press will look like a lighter version of this misprint, until there’s not enough black ink on those blankets, to transfer to the new sheets.
It may be just a few sheets, until the misprint stops occurring, because there’s not much ink applied to start with.
”double print” is kind of a generic term, which can be applied to a lot of different things.
One of my print facility friends calls this type of error, a “blanket echo”.
I similar effect can happen if the blanket slips on its roller.
Then suddenly the plate is applying ink to a different area of the blanket, and the ink buildup in the original location will transfer to each sheet passing through, until that ink buildup is gone.
But in this case, the double printed image stays vertical, without angle rotation.
Hopefully that helps.
oh, here’s a link to the Facebook post, if anyone wants to see where they came from, or read the comments.
