It does exist, but is unfortunately extremely rare. There are a bunch of foreign WotC era promo cards which are almost non-existent, and this Italian Psyduck (and I think also this same Psyduck in German, French, Spanish and Portuguese iirc
) are among them.
I’m also still missing the Spanish Surfing/Flying Pikachu, and German Flug-Pikachu, both also shown in that old eBay listing you’ve linked. Coincidentally, I recently added the equally as rare German Surf-Pikachu to my collection, after I had looked for it for roughly ten years. This was only the third copy I had seen in those ten years, so I’m beyond happy to finally add it to my collection, and I hope I can say the same about the other three I’m missing one day. ![]()
The three I’m still missing I’ve only seen twice each thus far as well. One time in that auction, which ended up in thepikachucollector’s collection, and once before here on the forum.
As for information, it’s unfortunately even harder to find than the cards itself.
I don’t know when these cards were released (I assume somewhere 2001 based on the copyright dates); I don’t know how they were released; I don’t know how many copies were given out; and I don’t even know if they were ever officially released at all.
This last part is primarily because:
- That auction of foreign promos you’ve linked was sold by a US seller whom had found the cards somewhere in storage.
- The German Surf-Pikachu I bought was also from a US seller, who mentioned he got them from an ex WotC employee.
Given how few copies of these there are, and most collectors from Spain/Germany don’t even know about the existence of these Surfing/Flying Pikachu cards (and same applies to your Italian Psyduck for most Italian collectors), I’m starting to feel like these were made but never officially released, and all the copies we see out there came from ex WotC employees.
But again, I honestly don’t know. They could also be some very rare tournament prizes that only took place in a few small LGS events within their countries. I’ve heard some rumors the German Birthday Pikachu, which I’ve also only seen 7 copies of in ten years time, was once a tournament prize.
But unfortunately, it’s mostly rumors, and I’ve yet to see any release info for these rare cards in European languages anywhere.. ![]()
EDIT: As for the mentioned Pokémon TCG League - Victory Road Season, that applies to just the English release of this Psyduck promo. The foreign ones are likely distributed differently (if distributed at all, as mentioned before). Just like how the Italian W-stamped Jungle Pikachu is released different than the English ones: in Italy, it was released inside a Topolino (Donald Duck) comic; whereas in English, it was inside The Duelist Magazine. Although some kind of event similar to the TCG League in Italy sounds pretty reasonable for these promos.
Greetz,
Quuador
