a friend of mine found out that in the japanese base set cards there are some that have bigger sized rarity symbols then others.
i checked other sets and it seems those all have smaller sized symbols.
could it be that after the first print (no rarity) they decided to add a symbol and maby after the second print they thought it was to big so they decided to make it smaller? if so this could prove something to be like a second print i think.
maby i’m completely wrong here because i have never heard anyone speaking of it but i thought it was worth it to ask it here. ^^
i added a picture of the variants that i own so far.
it seems obvious that the non-base set symbols are allot smaller then the base set ones. at the moment the only base set size difference i own is a gyarados that has a larger rare symbol then my other base rares.
I don’t have too many Japanese Base Set cards, but with some of my (Holofoil) Rares I indeed see a small difference in size (and shape) as well like your second picture. With the 10+ Pikachu I have in my duplicated stack I don’t have a single one that’s smaller though, unfortunately. Have you or your friend come across any Commons with the smaller set symbols? And if you did, are they as small as other early Japanese sets (e.g. Jungle, Fossil, Vending Machine Series, etc.), or more in between the larger Base Set Common symbols and those of other sets?
It could be somewhat similar as the 1st edition stamp variations on the English Base Set, since it was the very first set.
I long ago noticed this about the common symbol. Hadn’t really spotted it on the uncommon and rares, though.
Adjustments like these are made all the time in commercial typesetting and printing. I personally don’t find them anything to get excited about. But if these variations are something others want to chase down, I will admit it would be kinda neat to see complete sets of each side by side.
In the pictures, you can see a row of base JP holos, many of these but not all, I bought from a single seller at one time, but they all appear to have larger rarity symbols. I did find some commons with what apppear to be large symbols, so maybe someone can compare across images with scaling to check. But I also found that many of my JP cards from other sets had smaller symbols. Erika’s vileplume there, and all my holo Rockets, for example.
Maybe, the base reprints had smaller symbols as well?
The blaines zard, however, has a slightly larger symbol than the erika card, as does that suicune there. But if the large symbols came later, why do the gym cards also vary?
Perhaps it depended on where the cards were printed?
IDK, just thoughts. Unfortunately, I don’t have many JP Base cards from different sources to check.
Yes, although, these are not from the decks since they have symbols. I also noticed an alignment difference between those two. I was wondering if I had a fake zard, but it’s alignment is similar to other cards from that set. The font weight of Blaine’s zard here, is also a little different than other blaine cards I have… In fact, all the black on that card appears to be extra heavy.
This topic has always in the back of my head to work with for my starters collection but I admit that I haven’t put enough effort in for it. Recently I was able to purchase a stack of 100 JP common and uncommons and I found that there was one in there with a very obvious difference and I thought it would be nice to post it here. I still believe this is a possible change they made and that it is not the result of printing differences. That fact that I found this Dratini might be a reminder for me to actually put more effort in this topic because I do think it is interesting.
