During the detective work another user led in confirming that the recently sold prototype cards were printed in 2024 and were in fact fakes it led me to another question I wanted to ask this community on.
There seems to be an ongoing debate on what the first ever official English tcg printed card is. I am not including cards that were not meant to reach the public such as prototypes or the blastoise with MTG back. I am also not including non official TCG offshoots such as cardass, topsun, etc. The two contenders seem to be:
- CD Promo Pikachu - released Jan 1, 1999
Arguments for:
- Media Factory already had there distribution lined up and had been selling cards for over 3 years in Japan by this point. Card is in fact printed uniquely on japanese cardstock in English print and they clearly designed the product beforehand
- A CD introduces additional lead time that could have resulted in it hitting shelves 2 weeks later in Japan
- Historically Japan always received arts of cards before the US. Even on several promos such as the english black star eevee and mewtwo released via JR stamp rallies
- aside from pikachu the CD exclusively contains cards that media factory printed in the 3 years prior but never made it in the hands of fans. This includes the trade please promos, toyota arcanine, nin64 snorlax + porygon, and even vending sheet 0 mew and mewtwo among others. These cards vary in glossy vs matte to my knowledge and seemed not to be printed to order for the CDs but rather printed in the years before
Arguments against:
- CD didn’t hit shelves for roughly 2-3 weeks after the demo pack was given out to retailers and card shows in the US. The shelf date is the achilles heel here
- Yellow Cheeks Demo Game Pack Pikachu + other cards
Arguments for:
- hit shelves in the us after giving to retailers and MTG card shows mid december 1998.
- More lead time needed to print a full set rather than just the pikachu
Arguments against:
- printed by WoTC who were still testing out their machines meant solely for MTG at the time. This would have been their first go at Pokemon unlike Media Factory who had been printing Pokemon for years. Likely printed as a test distribution before base set given the packs were just handed out for free as a gift.
- building on above, cd pikachu was part of an actual product that was paid for and therefore required more lead time on purchase order agreements from distributors unlike demo game
I’d be curious if anyone has both cards to test using the same method as used to debunk the prototype cards and could use printer meta data to confirm the month the card actually came out of the printer.
My default answer is demo game until proven otherwise but my gut tells me the CD promo.
Anyone have both and can settle the 25 year debate?
