I wrote a program to decode dots/patterns, there may be errors, so please don’t hesitate to contact me, in the hope that it will help the community.
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Let me clarify one thing about the beta playtests that has been asked.
First, there appear to be two variants, that you can distinguish by quality. I’ll call them HQ beta and LQ beta.
Here are some examples
HQ beta
LQ beta
The colors are more saturated and the font isn’t as jagged and lossy on HQ.
here’s a more examples:
HQ vs LQ
All the HQ beta seem to have a subtle smudge thing here too:
I have yet to see evidence that contradicts the following:
- all HQ beta have no dots
- all LQ beta have date metadata that says 2024
Would be interested if anyone could demonstrate a counterexample.
Also note the population for most betas is ~8 last I checked. I have only been able to find at most one HQ beta per pokemon.
Finally, I don’t believe that LQ betas are simply just scans/copies of HQ betas.
Artifacts like stray dots are not copied over from HQ to LQ.
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This should be pinned to the topic or something. Amazing stuff @mika
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Might be worth it to put it into a new thread @mika
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How do I nominate you for the nobel prize. Kudos once again for your analysis here.
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This.
And sometimes there are more obvious difference between the HQ and LQ (I will adopt this denomiation too ^^), like the position of the Bulbasaur in my example: Pokemon Card Prototype Discussion Thread - #415 by linkdu83
Same thing on the HQ and LQ alpha with the reversed energy on Mewtwo for example: Pokemon Card Prototype Discussion Thread - #354 by linkdu83
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Not saying this take is wrong, but I know some scanning software has “corrective” functionality to auto-edit out dust and similar, before I realized it was a thing I used to accidentally end up with Pikachu cards with no nose dots:
It does seem like it would be unlikely there weren’t other signs though that this were happening if it were the case.
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This is a “high quality” variant that can’t be determined at this time. The 14010369xxxxx certs seem to all be high quality versions. I have a few myself
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Maybe this isnt the time and place to be opportunistic. The people in this thread are doing everything they can to uncover something that has cost many thousands of dollars. This situation is probably very painful and difficult for people who bought. Just feels a bit distasteful
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It’s true but that feature also adds a subtle blur effect to fill in the missing spec. It’s also not perfect and based on looking at a lot of these I haven’t seen a single artifact be copied from HQ to LQ, even outside of specs
Something like this too on HQ Persian would be hard to cover up with the scanning software.
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I never suspected we would get any solid evidence either way on this…
I think enough has been said, but what the world, literally the world can’t say enough is
Thank you, PFM for sacrificing your time, money, and most importantly, your pride to research and test this. That’s a bulletproof ego right there! Respect.
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True, but also real. hmm. Life goes on. Maybe a different thread, @Sleepingfatboi .
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I appreciate the ongoing differentiation between different variants, even within the category of beta. It’s easy when a discovery is made to begin thinking “all or nothing”, and these differentiations helps combat that.
I don’t own any of these, but have seriously considered it. I hope that there can be something found that helps provide additional confidence for
legitimate prototypes/playtests/presentation cards, there’s so much potential.
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Akabane said that there are only 10 play test cards. Assuming that his statement meant there are 10 of each, if there are 11+ of any of them I’d assume they’re fake no? Or he’s just lying for whatever reason and they’re all fake, even ones under 10 public.
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Well done for all your work @pfm as always. Really sucks because I just got the Kabutops to match my Kabuto, but hey, if someone starts up a lawsuit, let me know and I’ll happily join 
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I get the feeling that if there were any true playtest cards, either he would still have them, or whoever originally bought them all would hold onto them. But, I can always hope I’m wrong 
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Feels like the wrong time for this, just saying
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The “high quality” variants dont have machine identification codes on them per pfm. All I am saying is there is a possible scenario where the high quality versions are not fakes. There is no data like with the other copies that these were printed in 2024. They also could have been fakes printed in 2024 on a printer that did not have a machine identification code is what I gather. Its all a cluster and will be up to CGC to sort this out.
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It is a hard choice. The more evidence you put out, the more the scammers make the fakes authentic. To the point where you will not be able to tell the real from the fake. In the prototype world, prototypes will still keep appearing in the future. Problem is everyone will take the “Fake” stance.
The other option is certain experts in the hobby hold back information to cross check cards against. Other hobbies have this as well. Yes you can say that has it’s own issues but so far it has worked out really well and the few incidents that appeared were shut down quickly.
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