Many of the Pokemon playtest cards were likely printed in 2024

[jaws]

Yep. I posted it on my IG story. The QR code goes to Heritage’s website with nothing there lol

[azulryu]

Now imagine if you somehow proved the Pkonno theory of him printing extra Snaps and Trophies…

[Wargraymon]

^ I’m actually concerned about that

[MattCollects64]

I have a C8 Corvette, so tires are $1,700 per tirerack, so technically I do have some money left over.

[bigmoneyflameboi]

ooof not cheap but what a car good for you brother

[MattCollects64]

Thanks.

CGC still doesn’t show on their site that they have processed my card. Hoping they process it soon and send me a refund. I might just focus on finishing my binder of cards. Maybe I’ll try to get as many 1st edition NM cards as possible.

[mika]

I received 4 front and back scans from @BenjaminBe

Conclusion:

• Charizard Alpha Playtest CGC 10 Signed:
  Can’t read the date,but there is a Xerox pattern & Alpha pattern so this is probably a copy/scan reprinted in 2024. (thanks for the confirmation on this one @pfm)

• Charizard Beta Playtest CGC 10 Signed:
  Xerox pattern => Printed in June 2024 and same serial number as other fakes (704641508).

• Charizard Delta Playtest CGC 10:
  Xerox Pattern => Printed in 2024 and same serial number as other fakes (704641508).

• Charizard Beta Presentation CGC 10 Signed:
  Xerox Pattern => Printed in July 2024 and same serial number as other fakes (704641508).

[pfm]

Report of Observations Regarding the Pokemon Playtests/Prototype Cards

Other thread with primary discussion: https://www.elitefourum.com/t/many-of-the-pokemon-playtest-cards-were-likely-printed-in-2024-major-update-for-alpha-beta-playtest/52421/1655 I realize that there is a lot of information to untangle and it’s hard to sift through the above thread for all the details, so I put together a report of everything I found. I figured it was a good time to put it together because I reached a satisfactory conclusion to my investigation. I tried to keep it as brief as…

I wrote a report here

[packyman]

Any reason for almost zero microscopy other than my low res pictures? Seems like a huge piece of analysis is still missing. Have you tried using the frontier AI models to decode the printer tracking dots? There are still a few paths to test

[FabioPoke]

Has anyone who submitted their cards to CGC received an update or response yet?

[Will]

What would you expect to be able to identify using microscopy?

[packyman]

I found clear glue, yellowing, wear on the corners, inkjet patterns, black dots embedded in the paper material. What are you thinking is solved by not looking into the available data?

[pfm]

I don’t need to buy a microscope and learn an entirely new field of science when I can answer the question with the information I already have. I’m not being paid to do any of this, this is all in my free time. If you want to send me a $100,000 grant then I can consider microscopy. But I’m not sure what new information it will provide.

AI is not a viable option here with 35 datapoints. If you could get me a few thousand samples of annotated data I’d consider it. Plus doing something like a neural network is way overkill. A simple decision tree could probably figure out the meaning of the dots (which I tried, but again there a limit to what you can do with 35 datapoints)

[Will]

It was just a question. I’m not implying there may not be more observations to make by using microscopy, but I’m not clear what observing more data points will achieve here.

If there’s more that can be gleaned, hopefully CGC is doing that work.

[packyman]

Sorry, I don’t mean you directly pfm, I mean in general. People lost a lot of money and there is still information we can access and analyze. I don’t know microscopy either, but I bought my daughter one for $150 and now I am an advocate. You get crazy resolution and find important details. Maybe I can make a post on how to use it but I want to advocate that people buy one if they are purchasing anything of value these days.

And for AI I mean GPT-3 whatever or some of the other off the shelf models. No need to rip your own, just upload screenshots and questions.

[pfm]

Happy to support any alternative investigation routes if people want to put the time in!

Ultimately it may all prove irrelevant if authorities get involved because they can basically get the answer directly from Konica Minolta

[Will]

I’ve used scanning electron microscopes and other fancy imaging machines when I was in school, and if there’s one thing I learned, you can see a lot, but it’s not all meaningful. But I did get some pretty cool pictures of nickel nanospheres on tape Not implying that those glue/other observations aren’t meaningful, but it’s easy to read into things just because they’re there. Sometimes, they’re just an independent observation.

If needed, hope CGC explores any avenues they need to.

[Dyl]

@Will

you can see a lot, but it’s not all meaningful.

This is perfectly said.

Microscopy is helpful here if we had access to the real prints from the 1990s. The issue is that we have no control group to compare the forgeries to, leading to ultimately unhelpful data points.

[packyman]

My point is just that we have a few suspected real ones, several known fake, and some suspected fake. There is information available now under microscopy we are not able to access and analyze currently. If the real ones share the same spattering of micro black additives I saw in my Alpha Playtest it is potentially important.

[pfm]

The only ones I don’t have evidence for is HQ Alpha prototype and beta presentation. I also don’t have access to either to do more comprehensive tests. You’d probably need a paper expert.