That’s just the way Pokémon Japan make their holo and textured cards for SM/SWSH, those print lines are unavoidable. It’s normal such that even PSA doesn’t recognise them as defects. If there’s anything customers in Japan would complain most about on their cards, it’s edgewear/whitening. However, given how much supply they have to catch up on in a short period of time, card quality right now is as good as it gets. Value remains in the art and set rarity itself so the ‘distraction’ you’re so irked by isn’t nearly as important to most who just want to obtain the cards. I don’t know how you’ll ever expect modern cards of any language to not have print lines.
Are you talking football/soccer, or NFL? Since football/soccer cards are pretty sought after too.
I have no clue what sports cards print quality is like, but I think its irrelevant since sports fans dont seem to care for the most part. I watch some sports card collectors on youtube and nobody really complains about print quality. The one thing I know is that, if you just look at PWCC’s premier auctions, its a no brainer that people are seeking sports cards at even a higher rate than Pokemon. Im not sure where this idea that nobody collects sports cards, since its larger than Pokemon.
All sports have global reach, but some are more popular in other places. NHL is obvious Canada’s sport more than Americas, while NFL has some reach in the UK & Australia as well. MLB has reach in Latin/ South America along with Japan. NBA is basically global now since its being played everywhere. But then you got all the football/soccer leagues that exist in every country on the planet.
I am sympathetic to the OP to an extent. I too am disappointed by English modern print quality. Regardless of whether PSA would dub it a 9 in their opinion, it does detract from the value of a card that is entirely valued (at least by me) by its art. It does not make sense to me that we can look at a card that has art intentionally dedicated to original base art–the function of the card is the art; and find it so outrageous that having a giant print line right through the middle is upsetting to someone?
It is also a leap, skip and a jump to assume that the same people complaining about print lines are celebrating factory errors they like. Again, you are projecting here with your CGC statement. Just because you disagree with multiple things some people are doing, does not mean you can just lump everyone together and generalize statements across groups you don’t like to validate your feelings.
Based on my experience, most people can acknowledge that factory errors such as crimping (or even more benign ones like no symbol), can be interesting to see. It becomes an issue when these events become more frequent. I have only ever pulled one crimped card before and I was like “wow, that is interesting. good thing it wasn’t anything good,” and I slid it in my binder and moved on.
The point is that having a high volume of factory errors on cards is not good. And this, at least in my experience, has been the case; I have observed, firsthand and secondhand, MANY factory errors on modern cards. Having the foil texture all dented up on my Hidden Fates shiny pulls feels not good. Is that so controversial to say? Should I suck it up because “it’ll probably grade a 9,” or “it happened worse 10 years ago?” Or I could say “hey, this thing I am paying for isn’t really hitting that mark I would like it to in terms of quality. I should encourage the company to do better because it seems that their quality is falling short and harming my enjoyment.”
You’re entitled to disagree if the quality is up to your liking, personally. I just don’t understand why some people on here get so rattled by conflicting opinions. You can say you disagree without being rude. No need to start rolling your eyes and kicking your feet because people don’t like lines through the artwork of cards they like.
In before OP’s friend probably bought stolen QC rejects.
Third party grader whose been around 30 years, and graded more pokemon cards than any entity on the planet, “This card is Mint condition”.
Random person on the internet, “this print quality is bad”.
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Oh no, a printline. Is this BW-XY all over again? 
In a less sarcastic tone, you do realize the printing company isn’t hand making every card to make them perfect? They’re all mass produced and considering the current stocking issues they’re going to print as much as possible to meet demand and if they’re cutting corners to do that… so be it. It’s a card game primarily aimed at children who don’t care about the quality, not people who are picky about whether the card is off by half a mm 
How is that probable given the info we have? This just seems like a way to invalidate OP’s opinion by assuming they, as a person, are immoral.
All I hear from this kind of logic is, I can’t make as much money from this card as I want so I’m gonna complain. I promise you if there was a premium for print lined cards, these same people would be complaining that the condition is too perfect. Im not sure on what planet a PSA 9, a literal mint card, would be subject to complaining about condition problems.
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The planet where this happens on a 1 year old card
So by PSA’s standards, modern card quality is quite good after all
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Hell even late XY was a crapshoot.
They didn’t fix the white specks issue on the back of Primal Clash FAs until it went through it’s reprint run with Roaring Skies
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Have you ever observed a card dubbed mint or gem mint by PSA and thought “hmm… this isn’t mint?” Aside from PSA’s standard of grading, I am saying that people are allowed to have a personal measure of quality and value from an item. PSA saying it’s mint doesn’t magically nullify any issues I have with card quality.
Besides, one opinion of a card’s condition based on a picture of the front =/= a PSA grade
At this rate, neither grading nor Pokémon company are ever going to meet your standards lol. They have certainly improved over the course of the last 25 years, but setting expectations so high for cards that are meant to be played with in the tcg is stubbornly unrealistic.
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“All [you] hear” is not what is being said. Your emotional reaction toward the situation is overpowering your objective understanding of what is being presented here. The original post, nor any other I’ve seen in this thread, have not put forward any concerns about the salability or potential monetary gain to be had as an argument.
Again, this is an extrapolation error. Mindset you have observed from some people =/= mindset of everyone. This is also faulty logic because your statement involving a hypothetical, alternate reality where print lines hold a premium is as stated, hypothetical, and thus is not falsifiable.
Let’s steer the conversation away from PSA 9 cards because the OP is not about graded cards. It is about personal standards of card quality.
I do understand that low stock is an issue, which is likely leading to Pokemon prioritizing print quantity over quality at this time. That still doesn’t mean that people buying cards aren’t allowed to have an opinion about the quality of the product.
@koala, “Pokemon company are [never] going to meet your standards.” Improving the quality of cards is outside of the capability of a billion dollar franchise? That’s interesting because as I have previously stated, I am quite happy with my experiences with the TCG from Japan. I am not asking for perfection, I am asking for improvement and based on my experiences, this is improvement that has already been made in Japan. So, clearly what I am asking for isn’t outside the realm of possibility because it is already happening in the home of the product.
You also perceive my expectations as “stubborn.” This is the crux of this discussion. My personal expectations of a company, based on a symbiotic relationship that exists between myself and this company, is frustrating you, a third party. My need for this expectation to be met is important for my personal enjoyment and therefore return-of-value in this exchange between company and I. If your needs are being met, then that is great. If it is your opinion is that my expectations are too high, then that is also fine. But people don’t say “I think the quality is fine.” They make vast assumptions about the poster, they build these weird hypothetical arguments, they deflect, project, make fun of; literally anything to prove the poster is wrong because they have a different opinion. The poster is not wrong, nor stupid, nor entitled, they are expressing disappointment due to their opinion on card quality. You can have a differing opinion, but that doesn’t change the experience and feelings of the poster; they still opened this card and felt disappointed by a print error. I don’t understand this need to defend companies. Pokemon’s feelings aren’t being hurt by me wanting my cards to not have print lines. They are a soulless entity whose sole purpose is to convince me to give them my money. So, I am not sure why my expectations are stubborn to you. It’s not your job to convince me Pokemon has a product that is worth my money.
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@needszeebs , let’s go about it your way then
Will you stop buying Pokémon cards if print lines continue to exist?
Will you and consumers alike not buying product have an impact on a billion dollar company such as Pokémon?
How will you collectively present this issue you have with print lines to Pokémon so that they will address it in future print runs?
I have stopped purchasing English product mostly, due to my feelings of poor QC harming my enjoyment and thus not being worth my money.
How else to address an issue with a company’s product? Hit them in the wallet. It’s not causing me any real issues outside of enjoyment. So, the best decision for me is to stop buying it at this time. I don’t have data on how many people share the same feelings as me and have subsequently stopped/ slowed buying English product, so I cannot confidently predict how this will impact the Pokemon company.
This post is still missing the point. OP doesn’t have to present a step-by-step procedural process on how they will address the issues present, and neither do I. This is an online forum where people share opinions about/ relating to the Pokemon hobby. The opinion of this post is that print quality is disappointing and it includes a picture of a card they’ve pulled with an identifiable print error as a support for that thought process. Yet, there is a bunch of people up in arms about it, going on and on about extraneous topics and preconceived notions. Read the post and stop assuming things.
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Hit them in the wallet lmao.
Thanks for the dissertation.
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To be fair, that Pikachu is an unplayable card and nobody really plays the TCG. The 25th anniversary set has zero tournament playables, except maybe Mew and Oak is just a reprint of a card thas been printed into oblivion.
Not saying the OP is right, but the arguments against him are not that strong. His arguments are not very strong either. Nobody on here seems to make any sense.
This set has nothing to do with playability, tcg players were never the intended target. It’s all about being a walk down memory lane and revisiting old classics.
I think your point is also not strong at all mr pokemon gift sex port
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So who here 20 years ago saw themselves discussing a chubby yellow creature on a piece of cardboard with a line on it.
Admittedly I did want to be rolling in money and its near enough the same thing