Thought this was a cool article with insight from the former WOTC employee who self-admittedly may be responsible for the error.
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Genuinely interesting article. I like CGC now.
Thanks for sharing this article! This type of information is the stuff I love to learn aboutâŚnow if only he could talk about the black star promo print run and why quality control was so bad. I have soooo many questions for this guy haha
Promos were given out for free, plain and simple.
Think of it like this: you donât have to worry as much about product quality when itâs not a product youâre actually selling. Just run it through the machine, theyâre free! What are they gonna do, ask for a refund? It doesnât have to be perfect. Itâs just going to end up on the floor of a movie theater anyway.
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Yep, that much is for sure! Still have lots of questions about production in general that Iâd love to ask. I might try and make contact and see if we can tempt him into an AMA. Think that would be really cool for this forum! 
This is really neat. The âOâ made of straight lines is super cool as well. I wonder if you can tell in real life without the super magnification that CGC used.
I am also curious what later 1st edition stamps looked like in relation to the Base 1st edition. Are there fake stamps of the later sets as well?
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I am a Print Production Project Manager and this has not been my experience. Even for the materials that we know arenât going to get much run or attention (pieces that we know are probably going to go straight to the trash), we still put them through a rigorous, multi-step approval/review process. Granted my company can get sued if our materials arenât accurate and I donât think parents would sue Pokemon if their kidsâ cards had errors they didnât even know about. Also they print in the millions/billions and we print in the thousands. Ok - I just talked myself into your side and excusing their poor quality control haha
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I remember sharing the fake Ghost stamps awhile back: www.elitefourum.com/t/wotc-boxes/29599/1049
That scammer had some in depth knowledge of the hobby. You donât see many fake Ghost stamped cards.
Glad they caught it. And nice to see WOTC confirm a lot of the correct assumptions collectors made about the stamping process.
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Ha ha, the other thing to keep in mind is that while we as collectors will describe things as âbadâ this really is only true in the context of an adult enthusiast. While the quality control on WotC cards could be spotty, they were perfectly acceptable for a childrenâs card game where consumers were not regularly measuring borders with a micrometer. The cards were meant to be played and degraded in a card game, not return on investment as lifelong collectorâs items.
So part of the answer of âwhy was the quality control so poorâ can be answered, factually, as âit wasnât.â At least it wasnât with respect to their purpose, audience, and price.
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More Arjun Dhillon fake stamps.
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You can see this with a 30x jewlerâs lens. I wonder now though, can one see the angular âOâ with a â3Dâ stamp as well? I donât think I have any to check outâŚ
The infrared image of the card is very interesting, especially how it shows the texture of the card stock.
I also wonder, how much better could they make this process? If they get the alignment fixed? and the quality?
Keep in mind other things that can indicate the fakes⌠Has anyone tried a Florescence Spectrum Test on their legit first ed stamps?
I have a 12x loupe and I can see the angular âOâ in the ghost stamp pretty clearly. I can just BARELY make out the angular âOâ on a 3d stamp. I can only really see it on the left and bottom left sides of the âOâ, and Iâd miss it if I wasnât specifically looking for it. Iâm sure itâd be more noticeable with a 30x though.
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