So this means its unconfirmed thus far if the LQ betas are real or fake?
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Having watched this yesterday it highlights a few unfortunate points of likely failure in verifying the prototypes. CGC definitely have a lot to answer for in terms of their process.
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One more interesting observation I just made. Take a careful look at the border on my card. To me it looks like someone put the artwork slightly higher than it should have been and it overlaps the border just barely leaving a rectangle cut out.
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We have discussed this with pfm.
At first, I said that the back of HQ beta showed no dots, because I only looked at the white areas, where they should be most easily seen, and indeed there are none.
However, pfm noticed that we see dots in the areas that are not white or dark blue. And he showed that these dots are exactly the ones found on Seanâs alpha cards.
So the most likely scenario is that the back of the HQ beta is actually taken from a scan/copy of the back of an alpha, and during the scan/copy the dots on the white (and blue) areas were not picked up. Then this new back was printed with the same printer as for the front of the HQ beta (so a printer without dotcode). Hence the fact that we donât see any dots on the white or dark blue areas, but elsewhere we see a remainder of the dotcode of the alpha.
The scan/copy could also have altered the image of the back, which is why there seems to be relief on certain parts of the back of the HQ beta.
This does not mean that the HQ beta are fake (or real).
But it is important because if the dotcode of the alpha is one day decrypted and there is a date on it, if the date is recent and therefore the alpha were printed recently, then automatically the HQ beta will also be eliminated.
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Hello, i tried sometimes to check if my card have dot but i dont have a result, possibility to one person to retry for me ? Idk if i have the good technique.
have only 2 scan.
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Watching this in 2025 knowing what we know now is crazy. Zach brings out a bunch of points like yeah they could all be fake and we all got duped.
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Lots of discussion here and I see repeated questions.
To clear things up on the dot patterns:
- The decoded pattern is for Xerox printers. Itâs been adopted by others but was first discovered on Xerox machines
- Different printer manufacturers like Epson, Canon, Konica Minolta, etc have their own proprietary patterns.
- Other brands donât have their patterns decoded
To clear a few things up on each âvariantâ:
Alpha Prototype
- No dot matrix info available since they were printed in black & white
Alpha Playtest
- These use the Pokemon Red / Green Ken Sugimori arts
- A very small amount of these have the 1996 xerox dot matrix along with a different printer serial number.
- The rest have a different dot matrix. Remember, the decoded pattern is only for Xerox printers. Different printer manufacturers like Epson, Canon, Konica Minolta, etc have their own proprietary patterns. The pattern for most alphas are from a non-decoded pattern, so we canât get timestamp info from them. You can see this in some of the ones posted above.
- However, since this un-decoded dot pattern is present on most alphas and the ârealâ alphas were printed with Xerox printers, occamâs razor says that anything with the un-decoded pattern is likely made in a separate fake batch (bc why would you suddenly switch printers?)
Beta Playtest
- These use the Pokemon Red / Blue Ken Sugimori art. They were made after the R/G ones for the newer Blue version of the game, which was first announced in the October 1996 issue of CoroCoro
- They come in a high quality (HQ) and low quality (LQ) version, with LQ being far more common.
- The LQ versions all have 2024 dot matrices. They are fake.
- The HQ version we need better scans of to verify, but I think thereâs likely only a few of each.
- There is a possibility that Beta playtests never actually existed until recently, as there is zero documentation of them anywhere. Only Alpha playtest and Beta Presentation have actual publication from official magazines.
Delta Playtest
- Many of these feature âfinalâ artwork with backgrounds
- They donât have the energy symbols
- All of the ones scanned thus far has 2024 dot matrices
- These have never been seen in official sources
- There is a possibility that these are also entirely fake.
Alpha (sometimes Beta?) Presentation
- Feature backgrounds with R/G artwork
- Has a beveled artbox around the pokemon art and early-design energy symbols. This is seen when theyâre first unveiled in Corocoro.
- Has red weakness text
- Sometimes labeled as betaâi would say the key to note here are the weakness text color and art frame
- Unfortunately havenât gotten a nice scan of these yet to verify their dot matrices. We know of one Machoke that sold during the initial âgoodâ batch but not sure of the owner.
Beta (sometimes Alpha?) Presentation
- Feature R/B artwork (sometimes R/G like this Mewtwo) with background
- Feature final energy symbol design
- Have the older, non-beveled border. This is weird because why would they revert back to the older one if these were made after Alpha Presentation?
- Reverts back to black weakness font
- These are not documented anywhere and the timeline doesnât make much sense.
- There is a possibility these are also entirely fake variants. Havenât gotten a nice scan yet to verify
- These mightâve actually come before the âAlphaâ presentations given their older design elements and are weirdly labeled.
From what Iâve heard via multiple people involved in the early stages of this, there are two possible paths:
1. Akabane is innocent and was taken advantage of by bad actors
- After the original batch sold via Nido, Akabane sold full sets to bad actors
- These bad actors copied the cards and created the fakes, keeping the originals for themselves
- These fakes were slabbed by CGC given the provenance from Akabane
- When the fakes were brought back to Akabane, he had no way of knowing if they were the originals or copies. Under pressure from CGC, he signed them all regardless.
2. Akabane is in on it
- If Akabane is culpable this means a few important things
- Only the Alpha Playtests and Alpha presentations for Corocoro are real
- All other variants are possibly fake to drum up more sales. The timelines donât really match up to make so many variants within the 3 month window before release.
I will note that several individuals have been very helpful in providing scans that Iâve also sent over to @pfm to take a look at after independently verifying them on my side too. I personally own several prototypes but would caution anyone from buying these, the double-sided holo prints, or anything linked to Akabaneâs collection now.
Either outcome, CGC looks bad here. Either they were also in on the scam or were so negligent that they allowed the fakes to get slabbed. Iâve heard the October 2024 witnessed signatures did not go through the proper protocols too.
Iâve heard CGC will likely release a statement soon, maybe even later today.
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Could someone please comment on the difference between âMarch playtestâ Charizard and the Alpha Bulbasaur 7.5 Blue Label being printed in July when Beta prentation came out the latest in August before September CoroCoro?
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Would the answer be the 1996 Bandai carddass Pokemon cards? The Ken Sugimori art was used for these cards as they were the first official Pokemon cards ever released. I believe in September! Right behind the Coro Coro Pikachu, then the No rarity symbol.
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A handful of these double sided âtest printâ cards from Japanese Base set surfaced on the market last year. The front is completely holo with no opaque layer and the back is a shiny holo.
Please note I do not have proof, only evidence, but because a lot of people are messaging me asking about these, I wanted to make a warning post about the print quality. When you zoom in on a high res scan, the black text is less âsharpâ than normal. A double - sided Charizard is included above on top of a regular Charizard. You can see that rosette patterns visible in the regular Charizard are not seen on the test print. This may suggest a non - offset printer was used for the double sided cards. Thanks @thunder_moo for the pictures.
I havenât been able to decode the printer metadata on these cards yet. However, they were being distributed in a similar manner and by some of the same people as the 2024 fake prototype cards were. I hope they are real, as I would love to own a Chansey. But there are red flags, and these are expensive cards, so I recommend not buying any until proof is given that they were printed in 1996.
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Maybe I need to clarify all the information to this point.
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 - #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: likely 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 - #18 by pfm
- Likely from a Konica Minolta (Japanese brand) or Epson printer Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 - #421 by pfm
- Some copies have BOTH alpha dots and âxeroxâ 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 - #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 - #59 by pfm
High quality back: dated to 1996 for the three starters
Alpha pattern only: inconclusive.
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 - #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 alphas and the authenticity is contingent on the authenticity of the alphas: Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024 - #745 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
HQ beta: inconclusive
LQ beta: all observed copies so far have 2024 dots
Delta prototypes and Alpha presentation
- I havenât said too much about these yet but so far they all look similar to LQ beta and all observed copies so far have 2024 dots
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
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Bandai Cardass uses the Red and Green art that was prominently used at the time, whereas many of the cards weâre seeing here use the updated Red and Blue Art that is undetermined when exactly made, but started making confirmed appearances in the first half 1997
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i was the one that discord DMâd the thread to him lol, glad he ended up following up. 
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nice timing lol
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Good call! Thanks for that
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Watching this back now it is so sad.
Along with this short with the CGC Trading Cards vice president Matt Quinn:
âDoing everything we can to ensure a viable product and to make sure that these things are could be bought with confidence.â
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Iâll just add that other printers use it to, it was just originally decoded for xerox which is why it got the association.
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Thanks for helping to summarize this info, itâs been a lot to keep up with. It might be naĂŻve of me, but as of the moment and based on all the evidence Iâve looked at, Iâm willing to believe scenario 1 more, and that at worst he turned a blind eye to whether the items he signed were the ones he originally distributed. In turn, CGC then may have also failed to double check the following fake sets of prototypes having concluded that (in their eyes, which is of course now extremely questionable) that anything coming from him or middlemen theyâd already dealt with would be trustworthy. Possibly just a lack of due diligence and lack of transparency all around that compounded and was easily taken advantage of.
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Your alpha and beta presentation are switched i believe but since the corocoro charizard has the alpha label i really have no clue anymore 
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