Can someone ELI5? I’ve been lurking and reading but brain still scrambled.
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TLDR: We like em thick around here.
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Thanks for the replies regarding the stamps!
Some other throughts and questions:
I think it’s interesting that the back and front angles are mirrored at -/+ 15 degrees (but never the same(?)).
If the sheets were printed one side at a time on the same printer, shouldn’t the pattern be in the same angle on both sides?
Or were the cards printed front and back at the same time (basically double-sided printing)? In my mind this would create a mirrored pattern between back and front in the same printer.
If double-sided printing caused this effect, I suppose just flipping the order of which side is back or front in the printer would create the same angle but reversed. I.e thick stamps would be -15/+15 and thin stamps +15/-15 (back/front).
Sorry for rambling, just find this very interesting
It goes deep and they do change around. Ive seen all combinations in base through base fossil
I feel like the “true first” versus the “stamped true first” is a distinction that while important to hard-core collectors, won’t matter much to those are who are not in the know or understanding, like how shadowless or 1999-2000 are not understood or valued nearly as much as they should be, compared to unlimited.
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The cards which were printed on the sheets for the original 1st ed (thick stamps) seem to have a distinct ink pattern that can identify them among any non-stamped or potentially thin stamped cards.
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Ah ok.
After reading some more I find it kind of complex. But it seems like the dot matrix is determined when the plates are made, so I’m guessing those are the key.
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Little more research for anyone keeping track.
Checked 100+ Base unlimited non-holos and 12 of them have -15 backs, while the rest are all the expected +15.
Also checked 4th Print. Interestingly, the holos are all +15, while every single non-holo (around 30 checked) are -15. So 4th Print is the inverse to what we are seeing with 1st editions.
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Went over all this in my hour long video😅
Uk is -15 so thats not unusual, not all 4th print are. Only 4th print holos ive seen with -15 backs are usa….
May be some others but havent identified yet 100%. Foils are tough.
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Haven’t looked at cards myself yet but it seems pokemon cards follow the conventional technique to avoid artefacts. I assume yellow is always 90 and black 45 degrees (due to symmetry) while cyan and magenta is 15/75 or 75/15 (which is just another way to write -/+15). No idea why they switch though but might just be a 50/50 choice when they make the plates??
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My understanding is it varied based on the software that was casting the printing plates
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Whoops 
My fault for just reading through the thread!
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Can you direct me to the video, please?
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So for thick stamp holos this would be another way to determine if they’re authentic and not just a shadowless with a 1st ed stamp presumably? assuming we get enough data to prove this?
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That would be correct for all the holos except for the 4 alpha shadowless cards (Hitmonchan, Ninetales, Gyarados, Mewtwo) that were printed without the 1st Ed thick stamps but still have the -/- magenta. Technically, someone can add a fake thick stamp on those.
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Correct. @OCDCompletist 
The man who originally pointed it out
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makes sense! Always good to have multiple ways to check, I always worry about the 1st ed holos (thick stamps in this case) even if I am almost certain they’re good. Thanks. Glad I found this and was able to check my own. 
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It’s really kudos to @Nightvulture for noticing the + or - colors that helped differentiate print runs. All this stemming from trying to figure out all the Base 2000 prints lol
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Every little thing helps when trying to ensure authenticity! Unfortunately, my 1st Ed Base are a hodgepodge of thick and thin stamps so I’m fighting the urge to get all thick lol but I guess without the hodgepodge we wouldn’t have made the correlation of + and - backs.
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I eventually may have found my 2 theme deck cards but even then wouldnt have known where they coulda come from