About the tracking dots
Most home and office printers add metadata to printed sheets in the form of very tiny yellow dots (sometimes called a machine identification code) that can’t be seen with the naked eye. The layout of the dots are different between printer brands and some don’t leave any at all. Information like serial number and sometime the print time is encoded in these dots. They can act as a “signature” for the printer that law enforcement uses as document forensic evidence (like in cases of forged currency).
To view the dots you need to a magnifying glass or high resolution image and you need to adjust the colour channels to emphasize the yellow. More info: How to Find Yellow Dots in Prototypes - DIY Guide
Important note:
The dots are printed on by the kind of printers you and I would buy. Things like magazines, posters, and real Pokemon cards will not have dots. They are printed by large industrial offset printers.
How to read the dots
Different brands use different dot encoding patterns, and not all of these can be decoded. The companies don’t reveal this information so any known pattern has been cracked by someone from the general public.
The most well known of these is was broken in 2005 and often referred to as the “Xerox DocuColor” code - named for the printer models used to discover it. Some brands other than Xerox also use this same pattern.
In this case, a 15x8 grid repeats like a checkerboard across the entire printed sheet. Each repeated grid has the same dots. The columns represent binary numbers For example, the eighth column encodes the year in binary. “2024” would appear as “011000” which is 24 in binary.
If you have a “Xerox DocuColor” style code, you can use @mika’s decoder implementation here to decode it: Yellow Dot Decoder - Fake Prototype Playtest Cards
Tracking dots on the “prototype” Pokemon cards
A slew of cards that were originally believed to be early prototype and cards used for playtesting have been appearing in public auctions starting in 2024. Most are believed to trace back to Takumi Akabane - someone who was involved in the early development of the TCG. He was also involved in the authentication of these cards. The combined sales across all auction websites likely exceeds $10M. Individual cards were selling between four to six figures, based on the variant and the popularity of the Pokemon.
Because these cards are printed from a home/office printer, many of them have tracking dots. And many have a dot pattern that suggest a print date in 2024.
Note the decoding result. We see this serial number reoccur across many cards.
Checking the dots can be done with public images if they are sufficiently high resolution. Such as this signed one from the “Takumi Akabane Collection” where the autograph was witnessed by CGC:
The dots reveal the 2024 year and the same printer serial number.
Variant breakdown
The development of the Pokemon TCG was an iterative process, and many prototype and playtest variants have surfaced. Based on evidence inherent in the cards, this is what I can put together to the best of my ability
Note: only Alpha playtest and Beta presentation have any documented evidence of their existence that predates 2024
Alpha prototypes
- there are no yellow tracking dots since they were printed in b&w
- 2 variants, we can call them HQ and LQ: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #8 by pfm
- easily distinguished by the background
- there is one set of HQ, all other copies appear to be LQ
- LQ appear to be copies of HQ, as they pick up the same printing artifacts seen on the HQ version.
HQ: inconclusive.
LQ: could be a copy of HQ, when the copy was made is inconclusive.
Alpha prototypes
- Most carry a unique dot pattern (different from beta) Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #18 by pfm
- Likely from a Konica Minolta (Japanese brand) or Epson printer Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #421 by pfm
- Some copies have BOTH alpha dots and “xerox” dots that can be dated. The hypothesis is that some alpha cards were scanned/copied (picking up alpha dots) and reprinted in 2024: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #143 by pfm
- the alpha with inflated pop reports are more likely to have the double pattern (many trainers): https://www.cgccards.com/population-report/tcg/pokémon/2/test-prints-oddities-other/692/alpha-playtest-thick-lines/13952?populationID=1288703
- a small handful have noticeably higher quality backs such as the three starters and this gyarados: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #59 by pfm
Update:
- Evidence that alpha dot pattern probably comes from a printer manufactured around 2016: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #1593 by pfm
High quality back: dated to 1996 for the three starters
Alpha pattern only: speculated printer model code suggests it was manufactured around 2016 (print date unknown, but after 2016)
Double dot pattern: all observed copies so far have 2024 dots
Beta playtest
- two variants, HQ and LQ: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #299 by pfm
- HQ has yet to be observed with any dots
- LQ has always been observed with 2024 dots
- there only only appears to be 1 HQ beta per Pokemon, implying the vast majority of betas have 2024 dots
- HQ betas have subtle traces of the alpha pattern on the back, suggesting that the HQ beta back was scanned/copied from a card that has the alpha print pattern - this implies the HQ betas were printed after the alpha playtests and the authenticity is contingent on the authenticity of the alphas: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #745 by pfm UPDATE: alpha playtests likely printed on a printer made in 2016: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 [major update for alpha & beta playtest] - #1593 by pfm
- it is unlikely that the LQ are simply scans/copies of HQ given that not a single print artifact or dirt spec has yet been observed to be transferred from HQ to LQ
Update:
HQ beta: implicated lower bound of print date is 2016 based on the presence of alpha dots
LQ beta: all observed copies so far have 2024 dots
Delta playtest, Alpha presentation and “Gamma”
- There are few of these graded but they all look similar to LQ beta and all observed and tested copies of all three variants have 2024 dots
- No copies of Gamma have been graded. The “gamma” designation is being used here because that is how they were referred to from someone who sent me images of them. The art does not match any existing card. It’s unclear where they are supposed to fit in the timeline
Beta presentation
- No hi-res scan available yet, but I see no evidence of dots so far
- They match well with the corocoro images and the print quality suggests a different printer was used for these than anything mentioned so far
- inconclusive so far
Image summary made by @BANKS
Acknowledgements
Thanks to @tediorso for suggesting this avenue of investigation.
Thanks to @mika @linkdu83 and @HumanForScale for helping with data collection and analysis
Thanks to @BANKS for working on information summary