[Final Update: Not an Error] Charizard Base Set Unlimited - Printing Error?

I agree we can’t replicate it exactly but we might get something.

We can shortcut this by just buying a laminated Pokemon card from ebay and opening it :laughing:

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Actually that’s not a bad idea at all.

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I tried finding one and this was the only result.
Such unnecessary information in the title.

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I tried too. Who knew it would be so hard to find :laughing:

Guess it’s time to get out the laminator and we’ll settle this in 20 years!

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Lmao we were all at it. This is the only UK one.

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Set that spider free

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One holo from not the same set and a non holo from the same set. This should give 100 percent confirmation lmfao. @eeveeteam Ill get it.

The pidgeotto isn’t laminated btw

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Yeah I double checked later and went to the listing so we’ve got one shot. Now we know what might’ve caused it I’ve looked at the card and imagined pulling off the plastic to see where it was stuck mostly. Have an imagine yourself.

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@JoshsOddCollection he’s put up other japanese holos that were laminated on his ig.

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Yeah, they don’t look anything like the English one though unfortunately.

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No but they do the same thing to all of them. That’s of note.

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There are some documented examples of people trying to remove lamination from cards from old English cards (some Base Set holos too). We should keep in mind that different methods or removal may have different results though, and also that laminations are not all the same (e.g. different brands of lamination materials and laminators may have different results when trying to “unlaminate”).

  1. Attempt to remove Base Set Blastoise from lamination. Result was that the back was actually pretty clean, apart from a bit of peeling at the top, but the front just took the whole ink+holo layer off, leaving just the card stock behind.
  1. Trying to remove lamination from a number of Base Set and other early era holos. A decent amount of them actually had lamination removed cleanly from the front (only the result is shown), but the back of the Base Set Charizard was no good.

Peeling off the back looks somewhat reminiscent of the front of the Charizard in question here:

  1. Reddit user that tried to unlaminate a reverse Expedition Totodile.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/pnemhz/went_looking_for_my_90s_collection_on_my_parents/

Front: https://imgur.com/mQO9tVR
Back (the unlamination effort is the one in the middle–the one on the left he said he used too much acetone or something): https://imgur.com/YvfZ4ug

  1. Another attempt by Reddit user (using a hairdryer to help):

  1. Reddit again: trying to remove the lamination just completely peeled the card (holo layer and all):



Another interesting thing to note is this Youtube video that shows how to remove lamination using a hairdryer. Most interesting is the shape of the peel when the adhesion is so strong—you’ll get this triangular shape if you don’t apply the pressure evenly over the whole film/sticky thing that you’re trying to remove (and you’ll see that it’s similar to the shape seen on the Charizard):


Also, I don’t remember where I recall this from, but I’ve had to peel film-like layers off of things before (or maybe it was tape?), and if you don’t do it in one smooth motion, there will often be some residue or mark or whatever where you can very clearly see where you stopped and restarted the peeling again. Somehow, the pressure difference from continuous peeling versus starting the peel again are not the same, so if you end up starting and stopping a lot, you can end up generating this wave-like phenomenon. Again, just interesting to note as the Charizard does seem to have a few of these wave-like remnants (for example, maybe the beginning of the peel is pretty clean, but then starts to get worse as you continue, leading to the alternating peeled ink and non-peeled ink “waves” seen on the Charizard).


Anyway, just wanted to pass on some relevant lamination-on-Pokemon-card experiences I could find. I probably looked into this way too much :crazy_face:

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Fabulous bit of research nice one. If just using this I’d say the Charizard was real. Nothing at all card wise looks like it.

I am in contact with CGC. I will keep everyone posted as to their response.

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For those unaware, Storyofbrian has laminated cards from the collection and a peel from a mew.




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Pains me to see these cards in this way.

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It does appear that the lamination story is legit, IMO

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