Does fossil have any particular errors that PSA recognizes like jungle no symbol?
I want to collect the holos but don’t want 1st edition or unlimited since it wouldn’t fit in with the rest of my collection.
Yes. Here are the errors below. The ones that PSA recognizes are: Haunter Stain, Hitmonlee Stain, Zapdos Evolution Box Misprint (Corrected), and Inverted Back cards (labeled as miscut or “MC”).
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Error_cards#Fossil
Corrected Errors:
- Gengar: A few holos have been found with a large yellow ink hickey on the back of the card at the top of the “MO” in POKÉMON. It closely resembles the shape of an arm flexing or a slanted yellow 7 with a yellow line around it. Notably, three identical copies have been found, with one being 1st edition and two being unlimited.
- Haunter: “Blue Stain Haunter”. A large number of unlimited holos were printed with a large blue ink stain at the bottom right corner of the artwork near Haunter’s hand. The most severe examples have the blue ink bleeding all the way to the right of the yellow frame into the purple area, while the least severe examples have small blue hickey circles or streaks in the holo. With every sheet that was printed, the ink slowly diminished until all the additional ink was gone. This is one of the largest and most popular ink stains found on cards distributed by Wizards of the Coast.
- Haunter: “Yellow Stain Haunter”. A handful of 1st edition holos were printed with a vertical gold border ink stain varying in severity on the left side of the card like on Hitmonlee, but much rarer. With every sheet that was printed, the ink slowly diminished until all the additional ink was gone.
- Hitmonlee: “Stainmonlee”. A small amount of 1st edition holos were printed with vertical gold border ink stains varying in severity on the left side of the card. Only a few severe examples have been found with two stains covering from Hitmonlee’s foot all the way down to the bottom border, while the most common form of this error only has the stain right below the artwork covering the word “Stretch” of its Stretch Kick attack. With every sheet that was printed, the ink slowly diminished until all the additional ink was gone.
- Zapdos: “Nonholo Evolution Box Misprint”. All 1st edition Zapdos holos have a misprint at the top left corner of the artwork which was accidentally designed with a nonholo section where an evolution box would have been for an evolving Pokémon. This misprint was also mass produced for unlimited print and mass produced as a corrected unlimited print. Neither are rare to find.
- Ditto: A few unlimited nonholos were found with a small pink ring from a blue ink hickey right above Ditto’s head in the artwork background.
- Sandslash: A handful of unlimited copies were found with between 7 to 10 small black dots after weakness, reading “weakness . . . . . . . resistance”.
- Seadra: A few unlimited copies have been found with a medium sized blue ink hickey at the bottom left of the card covering the words “Capable of” and “pectoral”.
- Krabby: Some unlimited Krabby cards have an incomplete Fossil set symbol. Often referred to as “Fossil Slash Krabby”.
- Krabby: Some unlimited Krabby cards have an ink bubble covering or obscuring the word “length” with varying severity.
- Slowpoke: A handful of unlimited cards have a large blue ink error over the Psychic Energy symbol at the top right of the card. The error was caused by a magenta ink blob hickey.
- Cosmos Fossil Holos: Some unlimited holos were printed with the incorrect cosmos foil pattern. English Fossil holos were printed with the starlight holofoil pattern, but some were printed with the cosmos foil pattern instead. It is unclear if this was done in error, as test prints, or if Wizards of the Coast intentionally switched to a different holofoil. These are highly sought after grails to collectors.
- No Star Holos: Also known as “Mirror Holos,” found on both 1st edition and unlimited holos, these cards are missing some, or in rarer cases, all the stars in the holofoil pattern. Fossil is the most common Wizards of the Coast set that this error has been found in.
- Inverted Back Holos (Fronts): The unlimited holos have been found with upside down backs. The back and front of the sheet don’t often align evenly, so when inverted, the back can be majorly off-center down and to the right. The backs are standardly printed first, so the error is someone feeding the front of the sheet into the printer upside down.
- Blurry Art Rares: Some unlimited nonholo rares have been found with color misregistration shifts errors to the left in respect to the black and border ink, causing the art to be blurry. There are two variations for this error with the first being the magenta and yellow ink are shifted left the same amount. The second variation also has cyan shifted left with the magenta and yellow.
- White Line Border Holos: Some 1st edition and unlimited holos have been found with a sharp white vertical line of missing ink on the left border. This is caused by the holofoil being glued abnormally far to the right, which causes the gold border’s ink roller to miss the card while rolling over the edge of the foil.
- Orange HP Error Uncommons: A handful of unlimited uncommons have been found with significantly low magenta ink across the whole card, making the HP bright orange and significantly affecting the coloration of some artworks. The magenta dots of ink on these cards are smaller than usual, making them appear sunfaded.
- Holo Bleed Water Spill Obstructions: A handful of unlimited holos have been found with massive holobleeds from missing sections of white ink. These sections are typically horizontal swaths or ovals of missing white ink caused by water obstructions. The white plate’s water roller would have spilled or dripped out too much water on the plate.
Uncorrected Errors:
- Zapdos: All 1st edition holos were accidentally designed with a nonholo section at the top left corner of the artwork where the evolution box would be for an evolving Pokémon.
- Slowpoke: All versions of this card incorrectly credit the illustrator Miki Tanaka as “Miki Takano”.
- Japanese Fossil Holofoil cards: All of the holofoil cards with an evolution box were accidentally designed with the holographic overlapping the bottom on the evolution box.
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