How to check Pkonno is not printing Illustrators in basement

[muk]

Here are some scans of some of my reverse holo Neo promos. I think those are perfect for a comparison since so much of the foil is visible. almost all of them have the same alignment for specific dots/circles. Sadly, my scanner isn’t the best but I hope you can still kinda see what I mean.

https://i.imgur.com/D9nrbM0.jpg(image larger than 4 MB)

imgur.com/D9nrbM0

Of course it’s possible that they all come from the same sheet, but IMO it’s more likely that all holo sheets simply had the same repeating pattern. I mean why would they even go through the effort of creating multiple different sheet patterns? It’s not like they could’ve predicted that their holo patterns would be relevant to distinguish some six figure collectibles someday. One singuar holo pattern would be plenty enough to please the kids in the 90s.

However that shouldn’t take away from the great effort you’ve gone through to create your elaborate post, @qwachansey. I’d just side with @pichufan and @zorloth for now and say we shouldn’t jump to any premature conclusions.
(And I want to keep the “pkonno printer goes brrrr” meme alive)

[qwachansey]

Thanks @pichufan, @muk

Your two main points - A) that a sheet is a square and can thus be printed on in four different directions (face up, 90 degrees clockwise, 180, 270), and B) that the holo pattern clearly repeats itself in the Neo premium files - inspired me to do more research.

I am now reasonably confident there are three different holo sheet styles, which can be rotated at four angles each, for twelve different total holo pattern variations. I have to get back to work in a bit but wanted to type this up.

I was able to figure this out via HOLO UNIVERSES.

A universe is a pattern of multiple constellations large enough to reasonably interpret which style sheet the card is from. By which I mean, eventually the universe gets so large and takes up so much space, that it rules out the possibility of another universe on the same sheet, since we know there is not much spacing between the repitition of patterns (wallpaper method) on the main sheet.

Here is an example of the FIRST UNIVERSE:

With enough high res pictures, the “universe” can be continuously expanded. Once you reach that level, you only have to find one clearly identifiable constellation within the universe, to accurately gauge the entire universe and thus which sheet it is from. You can see the universes are the same but the sheet was rotated for Charizard and the Illustrators, so that would be a different sheet than Entei and Pichu.

The other sheet holo styles have equally large universes, and there is not enough room for two on the same sheet, leading me to believe there are three sheet styles – when I have time later today, I will post those universes as well.

So, in Pkonno’s case, I will have to check which universe each Illustrator belongs to. Unfortunately it is much harder with the very limited visible holo compared to the neo premium files. But a quick preliminary check matches them all to the above universe. That wouldn’t mean only one sheet was printed, since you could print the same style sheet multiple times, but it is interesting to note, as two universes would basically guarantee they were printed on two different sheets.

As for the sheet holo pattern being excellent evidence against printing in basement, it is now not quite as great evidence, since there are only twelve different variations, so he could have gotten lucky with the odds or stored a massive amount of sheets in the 90s, enough to have the correct pattern for everything he has sold. I’ll also add that thanks to universe theory, I now see all the Pika trophies (pkonno and non pkonno) are from the same style sheet, and same angle, as the Illustrators.

That being said, twelve is still enough that eventually the odds get very low they are not from the same sheet unless he has been able to store a bunch of holo sheets intact unprinted for decades without scratches (not easy). I think people do underestimate the difficulty in printing cards without a literal factory assembly line haha, it cannot quite fit in a basement. Basically – if, for example, any other card he has sold can be traced to a different universe or angle than Illustrators, and that universe also matches the awarded copies, the odds of randomly occuring would be 1 in 12 x 1 in 12 = 1 in 144. Annoyingly the TMB, SSB, etc are even harder to trace but I’ll try.

The best way to tell would still be the original method – find any Pkonno card that does not match the expected awarded sheet.

[casual]

I swear I thought you were going to start talking about QPUs and half A presses

[nish]

Yo this is the most somewhat plausible tin foil hat lookin thread I’ve seen on this site. I love it

[qwachansey]

Oh, also fun fact, Japanese and English cosmos holo apparently used the same sheet patterns. So if someone says Japanese holos without additional texture or holo layer are more sparkly vs English, they are lying lol.

I really set myself down a rabbit hole here and should be paying more attention to Outlook inbox, but if anyone is curious, the holo universes from Base Set stayed in place until Black and White. Notably, this represented a switch in holo style away from cosmos, but occasional promos were still printed with cosmos holo, and they have different holo universes since then (2010). It may have changed again for Sun Moon.

And this is neat (at least to me) – at first glance, the holo pattern for CP6 (Japanese Evolutions) looks the same as Japanese Base. However, while I can find identical constellations, I can’t yet match universes to the OG patterns, which suggests the sheets were slightly tweaked. This is helpful because it’s further evidence pkonno would need a stockpile of old holo sheets or the ability to manufacture them.

[qwachansey]

Thanks @eureko! If people have high res old back trophy scans that display the holo pattern as much as possible that would save me a lot of squinting and headache.

[poke-geri]

This thread blows my mind

[pichufan]

@qwachansey this is a quote by Oscar Levant which I think is fitting here: “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.”

I’ve read your post 3 times and whilst I completely understand everything you’re saying I’m not at all sure you’re not just trolling us all.

Having a holofoil sheet like this used for a single print run is one thing, but having what appears to be the same style of sheet used across multiple years is not something I was expecting to see at all. Those Neo cards and the Illustrator would certainly not have been printed at the same time. This would imply that there is no “randomness” to holofoil patterns as I guess most of us have probably always assumed - it’s as though this specific holofoil pattern is something they were using as a de facto print.

I’d be interested to see if there are any latter sets (especially E-reader cards) which have this same holofoil pattern.

[qwachansey]

@pichufan I’m also surprised by the lack of randomness. One thing I need to explore further is if the pattern could’ve been printed onto the sheet at ANY angle, rather than just 4 straight angles. Example below – the holo sheet would be cut from a larger main sheet.

The “base file format sheet” is the light green and the actual cut-out sheet is the dark green, with the red being the cards within the sheet. In this arrangmenet you would have far more holo variation since there are nearly infinite angle arrangements. If there are three main format sheets that would be more than enough for cards to seemingly all have a distinct holo.

And yes, from what I can tell, the main universes continued to be used for e-series, ex era, HGSS – it just gets harder to identify with so little holo available to capture constellations. I was able to get a good example with this Best Of card, which was from the same era of e-series. Same universe as the illustrators just rotated.

[admiral]

What’s bigger than the Holo Universe?

[kingboo64]

@admiral

What’s bigger than the Holo Universe?

Holo multiverse

[muk]

@admiral

What’s bigger than the Holo Universe?

ur mom

[poke-geri]

Looking forward to Monday when qwachansey is at work again🙃

[drago]

Great topic, the holo patterns definitely deserves more attention!

However I must join @pichufan, @muk and @zorloth in saying that you merely prove it is unlikely pkonno went to such extent as to match the patterns to existing and previously surfaced illustrators.

However, as unikely as it is, someone could still with some time dedication, pay attenion to those details and “craft” something that could fool us, even through this very in-depth analysis of the holo pattern. Timesheets still exist today, and could be acetone’d off to obtain “blank” sheets on which to print. Worse, because there is a limited amount of patterns, with effort, you could match it to an existing card by choosing the correct orientation, angle and offset from the side of the sheet. That assumes you have material to reprint with the right rosetta patterns etc, but at this point we’re assuming the faker would not be your everyday scammer.

Regardless, amazing research! Identifying and reporting more universes/constellations has some value, and could be used for example to say that it is likely 2 cards were next to each other. Going further, this could be interesting when looking at a whole booster box’s worth of holo, or even display case. For instance, there’s potential applications in checking what happens to boxes having holo from 2 different sheets, as we could identify these, and link for instance to booster boxes where duplicate holos have been pulled (not for US Base set 1st ed sadly, but for most set WOTC seems to have no duplicate holos most of the time).

[pichufan]

I shared a post on Instagram yesterday of my Japanese 112/DP-P Pichu card next to the French POP Series 9 version which would have been printed around a year later. Today I noticed that they both use the same holofoil pattern:

I had a hunch that I’d seen this pattern somewhere before and decided to take a look at my 2001 WotC Black Star Pichu sheet using the scan Heritage Auctions took. Lo and behold, that too uses the same pattern, just rotated 90 degrees…

I dug out the sheet and can confirm that the holofoil patterns are identical. I decided to see if I could take some decent pictures, but it turns out trying to get the same lighting and camera angle isn’t the easiest of things, but I was able to take these pictures:

I overlayed the two images and created a GIF showing how they line up (it isn’t perfect as the camera angle is different):

I very quickly found the same pattern visible in the Instagram picture I took and made this comparison:

These are cards from three different languages printed 7 years apart that use the exact same cosmos holofoil pattern.

Aside from Pichu cards I also collect rare Japanese energy cards, and decided to have a look at some of what I believe are the best energy cards in the entire hobby, the PCG-P Battle Road energy cards:

The 6 One Day Battle cards all use the cosmos pattern, and of the 6 where swirls were clearly visible, I was able to identify the same pattern on the Grass and Fighting cards:

But we’re getting off topic really at this point as the thread is about the Illustrator.

The first Illustrator image in this thread is this one:

Here is my PCG-P React Energy card:

If we flip the Illustrator card vertically, something magical happens:

I imagine the React Energy here was printed with the exact same holofoil sheet flipped upside down.

It is my belief that there is very little (if any) variation between holofoil patterns. If two cards share the same holofoil pattern type they will be using one of a handful (or perhaps only the one) holofoil sheet which has the exact same pattern repeated over and over, set after set, year after year, language after language.

[qwachansey]

Thanks @pichufan! On page two I realized there are likely max of 3 different patterns, which can be rotated four ways.

However since creating this thread I had identified two new ways to track limited print cards down to original sheets.

The first is that while the “regular” rotations of a square are 4, either many sheets are not initially cut (presumably from a strip like wrapping paper or sheet printer) perfectly aligned or the cards are not printed perfectly aligned. This is why in one horizontal row of a sheet, the same universes will appear, but can be shifted slightly up or down.

Take a look at this Sabrina sheet. The swirls on the right border of the sheet are in a perfect vertical straight line. But the orbs on the bottom border are in a slight downward diagonal line.

In the case of Illustrators, I really ought to update this thread, because I can’t believe I missed this obvious fact - print lines run through the entire sheet, which makes it easier to match them back to one sheet if they all share a print line in the same spot! For example this vertical print line can be seen in several Illustrators. There are also identifying print lines in old back Pika trophies.

[qwachansey]

Here’s a funny random example of why universes can be slightly angled. Plenty of room for human error when cutting sheets.

[ghoulaiden]

Thank you for the information! It is very interesting

[pichufan]

@qwachansey that’s really interesting. Thanks for the response!

I did a more thorough check of my Pichu sheet and found that the pattern itself is split into larger repeating segments. The segments feature the exact same constellations, but they cut each other off - this may even be what you’re referring to as a print line in your previous post, perhaps?

I added red lines to show where these segments meet.

Regular (full image):

Inverted (full image):

I had previously believed that this repeated holofoil pattern allowed for a maximum of 4 swirls on a single card, but thanks to these larger holofoil segments what’s really interesting is that in this sheet’s case it allows some of the swirls to be really close together, allowing for a maximum of 6:

Here that segment line falls directly between those two swirls.

I decided to then play around with the angle at which I was taking the picture and soon discovered this familiar 3 dot arrangement as seen on the Illustrator cards and the React Energy from my previous post:

And then using your Illustrator alignment example it was only a matter of time before I found the other cluster of 3 dots, which appears very feint on my sheet:

I then returned to my React Energy card to find that it amazingly exhibits both of those 3 dot constellations if I hold it at just the right angle and the swirl which is barely visible right at the bottom:

Edit: Upon further examination of the sheet I also believe the holofoil pattern is split top to bottom as well, but I couldn’t pinpoint a clear feature like the double swirl to identify where this occurs.

[qwachansey]

@pichufan, ooh, intriguing! It’s a little hard to make out your full sheet photos due to resolution or proboards clipping. The three-dot clusters are thankfully the easiest to find!

By print line, I mean the very thin black lines that occasionally run through cards such as delta gold stars. For example, these two, which I had already hypothesized were on the same sheet due to ultra-similarity of universe placement, also have a vertical print line in the same area. It really is a pain in the ass to make this semi legible due to the lack of high res pics sorry. It’s the thin green line, within a rectangle, within the larger pink rectangle, pointed to by the pink line.