Hydrofire & Konstruct (Bootleg Cards Mystery)

General
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Hello efour! Me and my friends are collecting (older) bootleg Pokemon cards and we stumbled upon a mystery. I don’t know if it’s allowed to post bootleg related stuff, if not let me know!

We’re looking for more information on bootleg/counterfeit cards called “Hydrofire” and “Konstruct”. There is so little known about these cards, so it really feels like the Gen I Ho-Oh, which is pretty cool.

Backstory
For me it started with this post by ProfessorParagon on Instagram. This images linked back to a reply from 2016 by an user named Stewartisme on a Pokecommunity post from 2012. Last year I decided to ask Reddit and the OP found my post, talked a bit and we both wanted to find some more information. Later I talked with a Reddit user, u/Daemon86, and he suggested that it could be from Pokemon Aaah. They made bootleg cards in the past, but told me it’s not their work, and made a pretty cool article about it January this year. Recently I started a bootleg forum, with other collector Eskizoide, were we collect info about bootleg cards and I was like, yeah I’m going to ask efour, most of them are long in the hobby, so we might have some success there.

What do we know

  • It’s from the magazine “Pojos Unofficial Pokemon Collector”, earliest instance February 2001 issue. Thanks Stewart!
  • It’s in at least two issues. (see images below)
  • Stewart contacted the magazine, they said they were not the one that worked on the articles in the magazine.
  • It’s not made by Pokemon Aaah and they didn’t use their templates.
  • If we have to believe the cards there are at least 18 cards in this series.
  • Three cards exist at least “Hydrofire”, “Construct” and a custom Energy card.
  • (Edit: The articles said they were sold in an online auction.)

SpeculationIn my opinion there can be two scenarios. The first one being that these are real bootlegs, that have existed psychically, and were meant to trick people, who didn’t know much about Pokemon, into buying them. The second one being that the articles were fake, and they used well made custom cards, possible by fans. This could explain the high resolution and the “mint” condition of the cards. I can see either way being a reality, but it’s just speculation for now.

Thanks in advance for the help!

~ CINNAMON

Article Images

Spoiler

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Rotom tank and rotom snow shovel

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Also in the articles it said they were sold in an online auction.

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What is the difference between a “real bootleg” and a “fan made custom card”

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No difference

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There is, depending on your definition tho, haha,

A (fan made) custom card is something I would describe as “someone makes it for the love for Pokemon”, like those missingno cards, for example this one.

[details=“Spoiler”]

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And a (real) bootleg I would describe as “something created to deceive people into buying it”, something like these Chinese cards and their badly translated English counterparts.

**[details=“Spoiler”]
https://instagram.com/p/CHIfconHp42

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If they’re fancreations made, there might not be any physical copies in existence, which mean they potentially only have existed online. There is a change since none of by bootleg collecting friends have encountered them yet. Also both custom and bootleg cards are cool imo

I’ve added this one to the original post

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The only thing I care about is that energy card!

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