This post serves to educate people on the many variants of Fossil Zapdos 15/62. I have seen a lot of confusion/mislabeling surrounding the variants of this card so I hope that this guide can set that straight for everyone.
There are a total of five variants of this card, outlined below.
Happy collecting
1st Edition Zapdos
Note: This card has the holo evolution box error. As you can see in the top left, the holofoil is missing as if this card had an evolution box. The 1st Edition print was never corrected, so every 1st Edition Zapdos has this error.
Zapdos - Evolution Box Error
Note: This card has the holo evolution box error. As you can see in the top left, the holofoil is missing as if this card had an evolution box. The unlimited print was corrected late into the print run (making it more rare) so the corrected variant is more valuable.
Zapdos - Corrected Evolution Box
Note: This card does NOT have the holo evolution box error. The unlimited print was corrected late into the print run (making it more rare) so the corrected variant is more valuable.
Zapdos - Thunderstorm Deck
Note: This card has a Cosmos holofoil pattern instead of the standard Galaxy pattern. This card can be differentiated from the standard release by looking at the copyright date. The Thunderstorm Deck card reads ā1999-2000ā.
Zapdos - WOTC Employees-Only
Note: This card has a Cosmos holofoil pattern instead of the standard Galaxy pattern. This card can be differentiated from the Thunderstorm Deck by looking at the copyright date. The WOTC Employees-Only card reads ā1999ā and was only given out to WOTC Employees at the time of its release.
I didnāt know that wotc employee variant existed. Thatās awesome. Iāve been around the hobby for three and a half years now, which isnāt terribly long, but long enough I thought I knew all there was to know about fossil. Iām very surprised Iāve never seen it discussed here on the forum! @JoshsOddCollection, do you (or anyone else too) know a number of how many copys are estimated to exist?
The only Fossil cards printed with the 1999-2000 copyright date (3rd Print) where the Holo Zapdos found in the Thunderstorm deck, and the rest of the cards (Rares+Commons+Uncommons)
Psyduck, Golduck, Energy Search, Holo Zapdos could be obtained from the Thunderstorm deck.
The rest of the cards can only be obtained from Red Logo Australian Fossil Booster Packs.
@nemyanation Derp youāre totally right, I recalled seeing 1999-2000 dates but after further research I see that that was only for the non-holo cards. Thanks for correcting me
Hey, I just stumbled across this great guide whilst looking for more information on my 1999-2000 Zapdos. I pulled it from a booster box ~2010 and not from a Thunderstorm Theme Deck. Perhaps, this is already a known possibility but I havenāt seen it mentioned anywhere else, and no other cards from the box have the 1999-2000 date.
It actually wasnāt a red logo box which is the strange thing. The copyright date on box reads 1999 and thereās no other cards with 1999-2000. Maybe it was a one-off.