The Grail - Aerodactyl Unlimited Cosmos
I’m delighted to share that I have acquired my collection grail: the Aerodactyl Unlimited Cosmos WotC employee test print.
I always thought this could be the one card that made my collection goal unobtainable, and I even debated omitting it from the goal entirely. These rarely come to market and are highly sought-after. Although I still have a way to go, completing the collection now feels achievable.
I regularly browse eBay, and then suddenly it was there in front of me. My saved search notifications hadn’t even fired, so you can imagine my shock and excitement spotting it live. It was just before I went to bed - I didn’t sleep well! And I couldn’t afford it, so there were several tense days of negotiation.
The seller had purchased a collection from a former Wizards of the Coast employee. The card is graded by CGC and passed eBay authentication. Separately, I contacted the former WotC employee directly. He kindly confirmed the card’s provenance and has sent me a letter of authenticity.
I consider this the pinnacle Aerodactyl card. That said, I must now find the Unlimited Dutch Aerodactyl and Mysterious Fossil cards, so perhaps Dutch cards are “grails”, and the Cosmos test print is the “holy grail”?
I’m very happy to finally add this one to the collection.
I’m keen to learn more about the Cosmos print so please send me info.
The former WotC employee didn’t know exactly how many were produced, but did confirm “very few”. Some sources suggest ‘two or three’ sheets were printed. Based on the PSA and CGC population reports, and knowing of some examples graded as regular Unlimited, I believe one sheet is possible if some were cross-graded and all raw copies were graded, so it is perhaps more likely that a minimum of two sheets were produced. I’ve not been able to track down enough examples to require 3 sheets. Does anyone else know?
It’s widely reported that these were only available to WotC employees. I’ve seen a few references to Cosmos being a test print before the non-English Fossil language cards were released. So it would be great to confirm this and any other info anyone has available.