Thanks mate, sorry i’m new here, i have a lot of difficulty to navigate on the forum 
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No worries! There’s definitely a lot to navigate so hopefully the link should also help expedite the process for you. Welcome to the forum! 
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To me they seem natural progress towards the final product. But yea, would be great if someone is able to verify whether the alternate arts have existed at the time.
To me the craziest thing is how they’ve managed to get the final product to stores in three months from the alpha variants. But maybe these known copies were printed later than when the variants were originally created. Who knows, maybe the alpha variants were originally created 6 or more months before the release but for comparing, testing or other reasons they printed more closer to the release. Would be interesting to know the dates for beta and delta variants.
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Nidouken shared this in his story on Instagram.
So maybe it is possible to tell the difference from the back even without dots?
I tried to compare it but I’m not 100% sure what I’m looking for. I just added the back of my zubat to his picture (colour difference due to lighting).
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The spacing before the All Rights Reserved looks different. But I think the easiest one is it looks like the R in Rights isn’t connected in the 2024 ones.
nvm I looked at some more 2024 ones and the R is connected.
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If somehow can that helps for timelines:
- CoroCoro 08/96
- CoroCoro 09/96
- CoroCoro 10/96
More info and scans from : 102 Pickup – A Look at the Prototype TCG – Helix Chamber
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This check helps, but it’s uncertain at this time whether or not it’s a guarantee. We need a larger sample size of confirmed prototypes to make conclusive comparisons. In terms of other aesthetic differences worth noting at this time: copies appeared to be less saturated in color, loss in details of designs and text, and in particular, the glue that was used between the paper and cardstock seems brand new - for the ones that have been identified as being printed in 1996, there is noticeable aging of the glue - paper may be frayed or slight lift after nearly three decades, and this can be seen in the earlier graded copies like the beta presentation Charizard as well (hopefully a high res scan of this Charizard can also confirm the date of print). Thankfully, it seems these scammers weren’t big brained enough to create thoughtful forgeries since it seems they were rushed to push these to market…which further calls into question how could a professional authentication company turn a blind eye to all of this in their “authentication process.”
Last year at Card Party, when I held some of these betas raw, they felt sticky in the sleeve, and I thought it was due to the humidity…the more likely explanation now seems that they hadn’t fully dried after printing. 
To reiterate, unless another definitive method of identification can be made, it seems confirming the MIC metadata from the printed sheets will be the most reliable method for identifying the date for when these were printed.
cpbog1
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There is no long term viability with these anymore. Extremely tainted market because of greedy assholes
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What a shitshow. My sympathies with everyone who’s been left holding the bag after this.
Absolute next level sleuthing from @pfm to bring this to light!! Hopefully the fallout means nobody has the gaul to try something like this again, and no grading company dares rest on its laurels with “authenticating” anything in future.
What is the card surface texture like on the fakes? Do we know if it varies from the confirmed authentic prototypes?
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Some of the bigger names were shilling these on another level via social media. I went back and watched a few today and they have aged like milk. I wonder just how far the knowledge of these being fake went.
I also feel sorry for those who were duped, genuinely believed they were real and put their name behind them.
What must be said though is there was very little concrete evidence from the start. It was all hearsay and trust our connection. People were rightfully sceptical and vocal about the fact they could be fakes.
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Unpopulair remark:
Why would there be so many “test/alfa/beta” cards made?
I doubt you need so many to really test anything.
and
They look to clean/unused, sorry but that also doens’t make sense to me.
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Yeah. I messaged them. At first they gave a generic answer than just ignored me.
And funny how they didn’t put “Playtest” in the title of the listing anymore.
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From Goldin:
“I am unable to provide you with any details aside from that any cards remaining on auction are due to be pulled.”
Good news for all
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I have an alpha playtest that appears to have this dot pattern in the cert range mentioned (alpha playtest: 14010309370xx (xx varies from 01 to 81).
Looking out for any more information people might have in regards to the source of these. 
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Rare Candy recently held an auction on many Beta Playtest cards. I have reached out to see if they are aware of the situation and see if they can confirm where they obtained the cards. After analyzing two cards with the CGC cert #s starting in 6006, they appear to be also printed in 2024.
Attached are the photos and the printer dots highlighted before the separation line.
In the Porygon card, it is clear that the 8th column shows 24, while the Zapdos card has a feint dot in the 16 position and a prominent dot in the 8 position in the 8th column. This is due to lower-quality images and distortion.
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I wonder if it is it possible to trace back the LQ and HQs to the sources?
From what I understand we have 3 categories now?
- Real Prototypes / Playtest with dot pattern indicating a print in 1996
- HQ versions with no dot pattern (currently uncertain if real or fake)
- LQ versions with dot pattern indicating a print in 2024. Fake for sure.
The ones that are original came from Proretrox who sold them to nidouken (only 12). Proretrox received the cards via an unnamed middleman. They most likely originated from Akabane.
From what I read it seems like that the HQs were mostly previously owned either by Sean, Beam,Steady and Marco. And they got them from Akabane via Kimura (Infos mainly from the often shared graphic) . My Zubat for example comes from a submission of Sean. Marco told me he got a LQ version though.
Not sure about all of the LQs but it seems like cards that were acquired in a different way than the above have a high chance being LQ cards.
I’m curious if there can be a definite answer wether the HQs are really printed in 1996 or not.
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Thank you for the detective work @pfm
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I have both lq and hq im trying my best to find some answers.
Imo hq are more likely to be real.
I am sure there is a way to tell exactly which ones are true. As soon as I find out something interesting I will post it here
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