Incredible summary. IMHO and as documented in my findings on Magic & Wizards, it is difficult to state that something without any evidence of existing and that is wholly undocumented in any primary source is real. Referring to the variants you highlighted that have dubious timelines/create timeline paradoxes or that have no history of existence hitherto.
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Just to avoid more confusion I think you used prototype in the headers meant for playtest? Sorry if Iām mixing them up.
Amazing work by you @pfm . I donāt have much to add to the discussion but itās reassuring that folks like you still strive to keep the hobby clean even when it stands to hurt you financially.
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Sheets were definitely extant in the 2020s. Can confirm this. How many and what exactly I donāt know.
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Just to confirm (Iāve never graded autos with CGC), do they have both a standard authentication service with JSA to authenticate autos and they have the āSignature Seriesā where supposedly the auto needs to be witnessed in person by a CGC rep? Or are these two services one and the same now?
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yes, the silver one posted is not the witnessed one.
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I have been looking through the CGC website and I think this is an important aspect. So, if CGC releases a statement about a known error you must immediately return the item back to them for them to uphold their guarantee.
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I do believe if they try to manage this situation as best as possible the guidelines released would be case-specific (which does not necessarily mean the statements you refer to will not apply).
As seen somewhere above, there is some indication CGC will have specific instructions for people who own these cards. I think itās best to not speculate on what might or might not apply and wait until further steps are made clear and explicit by the company itself.
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Longtime lurker, just wanted to say thank you to everyone working on this. Itās incredible and admirable.
I wish I could he surprised by any of this, but Iāve been collecting since 1996 and watching speculators and vultures turn the hobby upside down over the past several years has been so sad, because inevitably itās regular people who get screwed. It makes me so angry to see finance bros who have never given a shit about Pokemon rake in cash and move on, while people who save up to make a big sentimental purchase are left with nothing, or less. Remember that it doesnāt make you a fool to be fooled, and itās the ~influencers~ and con artists who should feel ashamed hereā¦ even though I doubt they do.
Iām so sorry to everyone affected.
(I also hope people will stop giving me shit on Reddit and FB for saying obsessive grading is bad for the hobby, but I doubt this will slow things down, honestly.)
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This makes sense because otherwise people could āsellā cards to friends to defraud cgc through their guarantee. It would prevent original submitters from trying to game the system and become eligible for compensation. Anyone who bought these raw would seemingly be out of luck when it comes to CGC. Anyone who bought a cgc authenticated slab before this thread dropped though, should absolutely stay engaged and submit to CGC once the process is established. I see many people asking why they havent responded yet. I think its reasonable to not rush.
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Yeah CGC is pretty inconsistent with these, Iāve seen examples of both alpha + beta presentations switching labels and uploaded them to the post.
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I want to bring up the timeline now that we know more
this page does a good job at showcasing the variants:
On this site, they suggest the the presentations cards appearing in corocoro were either made before the alpha or concurrently (https://www.pokemonaaah.net/research/prototype/). Some evidence supports this:
We can look at Bulbasaur because we have a lot of datapoints for it:
First, note the variant I called āCGC blue labelā - this is the variant that matches the one with dots that point to July 11th being the print date. There is a variant that presumably comes before where the weakness was printed as āWEAK POINTā. These two variants along with the prototype and corocoro share similar wording (corocoro is slightly different but hard to make out).
Then we have the variant I labelled as Alpha pattern. The Bulbasaur that sold publicly and has the alpha pattern Iāve been referring to matches this variant. Itās attack text seems to be the same as the final version (with exception to the japanese kanji for āoneā being replaced by the number 1).
Here are the two variants above overlapped:
You can see the positioning of everything is effectively identical - except obviously the attack text changes. Notably even the line above the āKen Sugimoriā has a jagged section at the exact same position. This evidence supports they share a common source file since it would require a unnecessary detailed level of attention to detail to replicate the card this closely.
The thing that doesnāt make sense to me is where the beta and delta fit in. The two likewise share a common source file as their lines are jagged at the same positions (highlighted in a box). For some reason the level of Bulbasaur drops down to 10. The text also slightly differs from both the alpha and final version of the card (underlined). If we believe these variants came after alpha, it doesnāt fit cleanly into the evolution of the variants.
There was ~3 month period between the July 11th variant and the final version. In that time there would be another alpha variant and for some reason another two variants with a completely different layout (beta, delta) and changes applied to them that didnāt end up on the final card. Additionally, beta removed all poke powers, only had a single āvariantā for all 151 pokemon (complete with the same Sugimori typo), had art that may have post-dated to when these cards are presumed to have been made (hard to know when they had access to the art internally though). The font used for beta and delta match each other but is different from the font used by the alpha and Corocoro. Why are there no beta trainers if they were meant for playtesting?
There is documentation outside of the public selling of these cards in 2024 that supports the existence of Corocoro variant and the alpha variant. But there is no evidence for beta or delta. Only the HQ variant of beta is inconclusive, as of now every delta copy Iāve seen has 2024 dots and thereās reason to think the LQ variant may have been printed from the source file for the betas.
The question I have is, what purpose do we believe the beta served for the development if the changes on it did not end up in the final card? Was there enough time for beta to be made between July 11 and when the final versions of the cards had to be produced to be ready for the market (surely that would take some time?). Itās possible the betas were made after the TCG was officially released but then why are the attacks different/missing poke powers?
I have nothing conclusive to say here. Iām just trying to see if anyone can make sense of this timeline.
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The one thing I will say in favor of the HQ betas is they tend to be dirty with spots which suggests age. But otherwise they donāt really show any play damage so if they were printed in 1996 itās likely they were never played with.
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Is it possible the beta, delta, presentation, etc cards never existed and were designed in 2022-2024?
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That is the question Iām asking. I donāt know the answer.
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A very easy answer to why would you switch printers is because airplanes and being an international criminal operating in multiple locations
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My hypothetical question of āwhy would you switch the printerā refers to the case where the other Alphas are legit. Why would the creators switch printers partway through when creating the initial set?
In the case of them being fake, then yes itās quite obvious why 
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Is there anyway saturation could play a factor in this?
As discussed earlier, back in 2023 Lewtwo shared how lots of the Red and Blue artwork spread around the internet had drastically different colorations compared to the original drawings. Is it possible that if these prototypes with the RB artwork were made in the last few years someone slipped up and used some of the drastically different colored mons artwork we saw spread across the west as the opposed to the accurately colored images?
If these were made in 96 and straight from Pokemon they should have the accurate colors. Obviously scan saturation and printing saturation as a whole plays a big factor too(we see how base set has multiple different saturations between prints), so its probably unlikely we can make any claims with this, but its something I figured should be mentioned.
For example this is the Ivysaur beta from the site pfm linked and it has the older saturated color scheme. Notably Gym uses the real color ivysaur so that deep change wouldnāt make sense to me.
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