Information about the Prototype-like Moltres, Articuno & Zapdos

Nope it was not me, I didn’t shared anything before yesterday.
Try to find this post on Reddit to see if you are talking about the same cards, we are all curious now ^^

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Cant find the post, its probably deleted, but I do recall they were likely fake since they had the phone card details but on a normal sized card with correct looking old japanese back. They looked good quality though.

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I remember coming across a thread about the Articuno along time ago. Everyone came to the conclusion it was fake. Happy to know it actually might’ve been real all these years later.

Funny enough @linkdu83 asking if the card is real

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Man that brings me back! I remember messaging that guy a few times about potentially shipping the card to verify its authenticity.

Anyway really cool article! Also I love how even unreleased japanese cards have some documentation. This type of stuff is what its all about!

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WTF, this is incredible, I didn’t remember that, almost 10 years ago :joy:
Thanks!

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This is very cool! So these are prototypes from the gameboy game? If that’s the case seeing these were maybe going to be made into actual cards is really interesting

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Also why do I like that Moltres has that line through the art! :sweat_smile:

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I wonder what these artifacts are, they almost look like someone drew on it with a pen except pens aren’t square :slight_smile:

Edit: Never mind, I missed the original comment about it being a “97”

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This looks to me like someone set something with a 97 on it where the ink wasn’t dry yet, transferring it to the surface of this card.

But then it would probably be mirrored. :thinking:

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That Aerodactyl is awesome!! I’ve never seen that before either. It isn’t even one of the unreleased cards in the silver bible. It was not in the GB TCG game as well.

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Love to see things like this! I’m glad we have this post to help preserve the information for future reference. I wonder how many other prototype-like cards are still out there :eyes:

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Oh wow I didn’t even think to look at it sideways. This is what it looks like to me:

image

The very end is very hard to make out but I’m pretty sure it’s 16

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As I wrote in my story, this is a “97” on his head (a “K”(?) then “97 . 1” more precisely):

This is why the cards could be related to the Fossil cards showed in the May 1997 CoroCoro magazine, rather than the virtual cards in the Pokémon TCG GB game :man_shrugging:

This is part of the illustration, not added above the card.
Moreover the Akabane’s Moltres shows the same “97” on his head.

EDIT: Oh too late :sweat_smile: But yes you are right.

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Does it look like there is a number to the right of the “.1” on the card in person? It looks like there’s a number there but I can’t tell if it’s just artifacts of the image/compression :slight_smile:

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There is nothing after the “.1” on the card, in person or with the 1200 dpi scan.

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Extremely awesome!!! I didn’t even know about the existence of these 3 cards despite I knew about the Phone cards that were distributed in some past events and the scans of similar cards that are actually unreleased shown in Pokémon Card Official Book 2000.

Very interesting to see many unknown cards seeing light recently. Many thanks for sharing this!!!
Btw, I haven’t noticed the “97” on Moltres’s face until you highlighted that fact.

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@lyleberr I remembering viewing that thread and was able to find it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/15ntrsq/has_anyone_ever_seen_these_cards/

You’re right that it was different from the prototype cards here, as they looked just like the phone cards but likely with normal old Japanese backs.

@linkdu83 Cool discovery by the way! It’s always fun to see more of the history unearthed—must’ve been exciting when that Instagram post came up! Did you happen to reach out to the seller about the cards when you originally received them?

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Man I love that artwork! Great when new discoveries are made! Some people are in the right place at the right time! What a find and congrats! I hope they are authenticated in the future!

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It’s good to vindicated years later. I worked in the printing industry growing up and can spot bad printing/fakes very easy. It would be impossible for someone to have the original artwork to print this back then and with the same finish as an original card.

Funny enough I found my the same way a random lot of cards from a non poke seller.

I wonder the value now :rofl:

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Nice, thanks for the link :wink:
Unfortunately no, you can’t directly message sellers on YJA + it was a random seller who sold random stuff, so I don’t think that he would know info about the cards.

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