Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024

[cwebfan23]

FYI Beckett has really similar accusations in the sports card world with certain high profile submitters getting way higher black label rates than would be expected.

[amcgl58]

Honestly, amazing research and breakdown of your findings. It takes a high character individual to knowingly make a moral move that directly effects them financially. You sir are that individual, the E4 cabal saultes you!

[hisoka107]

I Remember that as well. These are folks are in the hobby and people choose to do business with them. If we stopped buying, dealing, or helping them, it would make it less incetivizing. There are cards I want, but passed on due to who they were coming from.

[HumanForScale]

If anyone has Alpha Pokemon scans please post them. I own this Farfetch’d (whoopsy) and the dots are not nearly as clean as on the betas. However the pattern does repeat. The printer is likely different and not the decoded one.

If you look at the direction of the “smear” from each tiny dot you can also maybe tell the direction the printer was fed and output the paper.

[qwachansey]

these trophy cards were being offered to people at very high amounts, advertised as being from the 90s and test prints without the holo layer. Obviously, the seller had not included this photo which was shared with me and literally shows the printer in the background It seems like someone or some group has access to ultra high resolution original art files. Thankfully, these were printed on regular card stock, not with a Pokémon back, and are non - holo. But I strongly advise everyone against buying any uncut sheets / test prints / oddities until the dust is settled on this whole debacle.

[pokesun]

That makes me question some of the extra copies of pikachu illustrators in existence. Supposedly there should be 41 copies total right? But we know there’s way more than that in existence right now. We need to decode some of the more recently sold pikachu illustrators from auction houses.

Like the one below:

[biirdbots]

If my memory serves me correctly, wasn’t there a lot of original art files that were leaked in the Teraleak? Did you get the photo before or after so?

[ayoveer]

[qwachansey]

Signed by Akabane… Assuming the signature is real, it’s quite damning as to his level of involvement…

[qwachansey]

After

[camrok37]

Wow, playing a little catch up but this whole development is fascinating. Thank you @pfm for the analysis, I’m so curious to see what CGC’s response is (if any).

[fazool]

there were a lot, but that part was only 1/100 of the entire leak. it is almost a certainty that people with the full leak have the files of every art

[pfm]

@pfm

One question that’s been bothering me with the beta playtest is the art used. It’s the Red/Blue Ken Suigmori watercolor images. But I don’t know if the timing makes sense that these were drawn before the release of the TCG. Also, there is no documented source for beta before 2024 as far as I’m aware.

I’m really curious if anyone can find the earliest documented usage of the Red/Blue Sugimori art. For example, I believe Jungle uses only Red/Green art (March 5, 1997) and Fossil is where we start to see Red/Blue (June 21, 1997)

Bumping this request.

[PokemonClassics]

The level of insight and talents that exist on this site never cease to amaze me. You’re a legend @pfm . . . I’m impressed with your skills too @BANKS

[bidoofgod]

@pfm

Different brands of printers typically produce different patterns. The most prominently known one is the “Xerox DocuColor” dot pattern which was decoded in 2005. This pattern encodes the printer serial number as well as the date and time the page was printed.

Did you settle on a xerox because the pattern being commonly used since their machines were popular? While searching it seems like it was used in Xerox, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Brother. However the exact implementation can vary by model. Not saying they’re legit and appreciate the work but just curious.

[waterpokemonmaster]

Is it possible the card designs are actually original, but just printed out in 2024? For example, maybe someone at Creatures booted up the old files last year, printed them out for some internal event or archiving, and then they leaked out? Sorta like the Chansey from the decks given to illustrators for the 25th anniversary.

[pfm]

I don’t know the actual model or brand. From what I read online this type of pattern is often called the “Xerox DocuColor” pattern. The serial number is encoded in the dots. If someone wants to try to find the exact model I’d be interested to hear.

[Dyl]

Photos of prototypes first surfaced in February 2022. I think it would be unlikely that Creatures printed more internally in 2024, when these were selling privately in the background for two years.

[silversnorlax204]

Crazy find.

But really great detective work not just from PFM but from everyone here throwing up scans.

[bidoofgod]

@pfm

If someone wants to try to find the exact model I’d be interested to hear.

Only way to figure it out would be to call xerox support and ask them. ( if anyone wants to do it go for it, if not I will) Looking online there is no database public to decode and match the serial number to a model. It seems that they switched serial numbers from starting with a letter to numbers only, according to a few random internet posts.