Hi!
I’ve seen some of the Masaki cards being marked by PSA as coming from 1998 as opposed to 1999. Does anyone know why this is? Was it a mistake from their side in the earlier graded cards?
Is this common when it comes to other cards as well?
Thank you for your insight!
Should be 1999.
“In Japan, these cards were obtainable through the Communication Evolution campaign, which began in April 1999. Participants had to send a Graveler/Haunter/Kadabra/Machoke/Omanyte card along with Bill’s PC in the mail to MediaFactory. MediaFactory would then send back the ‘evolved’ form.”
Mislabeling is very common. Take the “Best Photo” aka Snap Pikachu as an example. Probably all of those are mislabeled and are in reality just Trainer Magazine Volume 1 Pikachu Promos. Mislabeling mostly stems from a lack of knowledge, so it’s a lot more common on the older slabs. Another example are the Japanese “Double White Star” cards graded by PSA. In reality these were just Promo cards for the Neo Genesis (Gold, Silver, to a New World…) set.
When PSA graded started grading the Masaki’s, they incorrectly used 1998 on the labels. I had some Masaki’s graded in 2004 and the only option was 1998.
Could be mislabeled by PSA because of the Vending series 3 cards that had to be send in in order to get the Masaki promos. The Vending series 3 version 1 was released November 24th, 1998. It features Masaki (Bill in English) at the back:
You could send in the Bill’s PC card along with the pre-evolved form before April 1999 to to receive it’s evolution as Masaki promo.
Later on (somewhere in 1999, not sure when) a version 2 was released of the Vending Series 3. The cards are the same, but their unpeeled sheets have a different design:
But to answer your question: yes, it was most likely a mistake on PSA’s part. They make mistakes more often, and we can see cards where they corrected it over time (or in some cases made it worse over time…)
Greetz,
Quuador
Super confusing but Mines 1998