Thanks for your response. If I were to guess it seems our two copies were in the same print run, perhaps at different facilities?
It wouldn’t be that ridiculous to think the background of a card can shift slightly during printing, kind of like the holographic background. I’m inclined to believe it’s real. (Or maybe I’m just coping since it’s my card)
The other issues you outlined, especially the missing TM, are really interesting. The fact that there seems to be graded fakes is concerning.
That’s definitely what I want to believe haha. I bought several fakes over the years and had to keep returning them until I got my current one which felt like I finally found a real one. But my anxiety pushed me to look into everything I could about the card and I find it wild how many small details can actually matter.
Some bad news: I looked at several other cards from the same time period (2004-2008) that no one would reliably fake (e.g. common non-reverse holos) but that share a similar theme of having the cloudy/speckled background pattern. The issue was all the PSA listings for the ones I looked at for any given card were identical. If i found a speck on one, then it appeared on all of them. So not sure why a jumbo would differ. separately, there were so few jumbos printed I don’t know why there would be multiple print runs.
Some (maybe) good news: one original owner I am speaking to still has 2 copies that she got on the same day at the same event (Houston 2006) and her copies are slightly different sizes! I find this bizarre. They are 100% real. 100% same print run. and yet noticeably off by about 1/16th inch. This also explains why some reddit forums insist it has to be 8x5.75 inches exactly in length where my copy is 8+1/16 by 5.75+1/32 inches. This original owner has one of each that she got on the same day. That could hint to a very different manufacturing process with old jumbos compared to regular sheet cards
More bad news: both of hers clearly have the white speck. Eventually im going to try and get high res scan from her and then run them through some image processing code i made to find more subtle differences. Even with both having 2 white specs, another (possibly coping) hypothesis I have is that if her 2 copies have slightly different tones or perturbations in the spec pattern then similar to dark vs light 1st edition stamps is it possible that your and my copies are real and were just made either earlier or later in the same print run when the ink was more full or running out. and could that have caused a spectrum of variations on a single print where it just means her 2 copies were closer together on the cutting sheet vs ours being closer together to each other but near the end of the print from hers.
Nothing guaranteed - but definitely something that is worth bringing more people together to understand. a few hundred to a few thousand $$ to drop on a card that no one knows is real is not good for any fan of the hobby
Okay after a bit more digging I have more details.
We only have proof that one variant is real (Variant #1 below) - but all PSA graded copies fall into 1 of 3 exact variants. There are 74 graded certs by PSA and ~22% of the entire population I was able to find and populate below:
I am also in contact with the original owner from the reddit comment that posted the following photo. She has been the most helpful person in all of this as she still has 2 copies (no they are not for sale / please don’t reach out to her asking to buy) that she got herself at the Space Center Houston event. She provided a ton of information including the slightly shocking news that her 2 copies (both Variant 1) are slightly different sizes. Some online forums claim the card is “exactly 8x5.75 inches” while others have reports exactly 8+1/16th by 5.75 + 1/32nd inches. Her 2 copies are actually one of each. So there were clearly different types of printers and cut methods they used here for the vintage jumbos and the consistency of those machines is certainly worse than that for regular cards and still misunderstood.
She had a big box light that she used for a light test. I think to replicate this you could open a fully white page on your laptop, go full screen and then set the card on the screen. For reference here was her light test for a confirmed authentic copy from Event #2 (Houston March 2005)
below is her image where she said in person they are 100% noticeably different sized cards.
I’m still waiting for her to give full res scans and a verdict on if the jumbos include a thin black middle ink layer (though I am doubtful they do given no one has reported on and the results of her light test). My copy looks similar on a light test when I use a fully backlit light rather than just the phone camera light so it’s not enough to differentiate the variants alone
Introducing development. To clarify, she received 2 copies from a single event?
I then decided to create some custom image processing equipment to identify more subtle differences between the fronts of the 3 variants. For this experiment I used:
I wanted to use PSA 7s or higher for these so that differences like creases, scratches, dirt etc would be less of a factor and things like edge ware or centering could be ignored.
After inner-border detection was completed the following 3 images were extracted. I suggest you download these and open in a tool such as Mac Preview (or equivalent for Windows) so you can flip through them very quickly. Once you see the diff images further below that point out the more subtle differences you’ll be able to look back at the extracted images above and very quickly see how they differ:
Extracted Images: In order of variants 1-3
Diff between Variant 1 and Variant 2
and zoomed in
and differences overlayed on a high exposure image of Variant 1 (red ink means diff seen in Variant 2 here)
Biggest deltas are: the white spec above ‘developed’ as expected, the color of the ‘Pokemon’ yellow hue in the Gale of Darkness stamp, the medium bolding vs heavy bolding of ‘BASIC’, the small circle above the text ‘weakness’ appearing overlayed on top of the translucent light purple box in Variant 2 but appearing behind the box and less noticeable in Variant 1, and similarly the bleed of these circles behind the ‘A’ and ‘w’ in the attack text.
Diff between Variant 1 and Variant 3
and zoomed in
and differences overlayed on a high exposure image of Variant 1 (red ink means diff seen in Variant 3 here)
Biggest deltas are: the drop shadow and bolding of the ‘BASIC’ text are missing, basically all of font is different. If you pull up both of these in Preview and page side to side you will see it VERY quick, and the circles behind the ‘Shadow Lugia’ name at the top have different highlight glow around them
Her exact quote
Hi hi! Happy to answer. Omg they were GIVING those cards out at the event, I had no idea it was rare honestly! I had like 10 at one point… maybe still do? I don’t recall!
Yes, these were both from Space Center Houston, it was the only event she went to, and she has pictures from the event like the one of her on stage above to prove it. I generally find her very trustworthy with this since she has answered every question i’ve had in tons of detail
If 75% of the PSA slabs are not Variant 1 and turn out to be fake that would be a wild statistic though.
On one hand, if I were faking this I don’t know why almost everything would be spot on between Variant 1 and 2 except for a white spec and the hue of the yellow within the ‘Pokemon’ logo on the front - that just seems like an odd mix of high precision + easy failures to catch simultaneously that makes no sense. It would been more believable if everything was either exact or everything was slightly off rather than just 2-3 very subtle diffs.
Similarly, if I was Nintendo it feels odd to have an employee rework these to create barely different print runs.
Like neither possibility feels logical to me which makes this so odd
This is some great detective work and is very interesting stuff. I have nothing really to add except that, if one of these variants is indeed counterfeit, it does appear to be pretty good (even if it has a few tells), and if some company was able to make such good counterfeits, why Shadow Lugia? Maybe because it’s a jumbo card and no one would look too closely?
As always, I am a proponent of looking at the actual rosettes if possible. You could offer to send a loupe to the person with the two original cards, if they were so willing to help a bit more. If these really are fakes, I’d be surprised if close examination of the rosettes via a loupe couldn’t reveal even more inconsistencies.
yeah good find - front logo TM is actually different on all 3 variants. Diff between Variants 1 & 3 is font, boldness, and size as you mention. Diff between Variants 1 & 2 is mostly size (looks to be same font type and boldness but a bigger font size that stretches it downward on Variant 2).
If you open all 3 of the extracted images above in Mac Preview and arrow key between them you’ll see the super obvious diffs by just staring at the TM mark
I agree that it is odd. Though if a PSA graded copy can go for thousands and PSA is labeling them as real then it’s a pretty confident way to scam some money out of the system.
As for florets I checked on mine as shown in the images above but to your point really need an original owner. I do think that there’s basically a 100% guarantee that the florets will differ given that we can already see diffs with the naked eye
I also checked the backs of the 3 example certs. Unfortunately all 4 publicly found PSA certs of Variant 1 have a weird reflection on the slab that the others dont have for some reason. So kind of need to ignore those reflective artifacts but here are the 3 extracted images from my software.
Extracted Images: In order of variants 1-3
Diff between Variant 1 and Variant 2
and zoomed in
and differences overlayed on a high exposure image of Variant 1 (red ink means diff seen in Variant 2 here)
Diff between Variant 1 and Variant 3
and zoomed in
and differences overlayed on a high exposure image of Variant 1 (red ink means diff seen in Variant 3 here). Notably the missing TM
the 3 light bands at the top left corner and a few smaller ones in the bottom left corner are the reflective artifacts. you can see this by clicking on the cert # above. just ignore those
okay some more news: the Bulbapedia site is wrong. There is at least one confirmed 5th event that took place between Event #1 in NYC Oct 2nd, 2005 and Event #2 in Houston March 25th, 2006. The event is Electronic Game Show (LGS) swag given out in Mexico City, Mexico on at least one day between October 21st - 23rd, 2005
A quote from a Project Pokemon forum user on November 10th, 2016
I’m from México, and got the tickets at the Electronic Game Show on 2004 and 2005. To be more precise I got the Aurora Ticket on October 23rd 2004, and the Mystic Ticket on October 22nd 2005, both events were held at the World Trade Center in Mexico City. Back in the day, all the games we could get here were American versions, there was no localizations
and another quote:
As I read this thread I began to remember that on 2004/2005 I attended to the distribution of the Mystic Ticket and Aurora ticket on my country, and although I didn’t get the aurora ticket on my emmerald (the distribution here was on 2004), I did get both tickets on my Leaf Green, and best of all because of the way I play the games, both are unused, so I can still try to catch Ho-oh, Lugia and Deoxys.
and finally
I assure you both saves are unhacked, (my Emmerald has the Eon ticket unused too) if you wish I could search on my stuff for the memorabilia I got on both events (shadow lugia tcg giant card, some tcg mats, the tickets for said events, etc.)
I then found a reddit user who I am currently talking to that says he has a photo of his shadow lugia jumbo he got at the same event. So that’s 2 independent sources claiming that there were more distributions. I do not yet know what the card given out at this distribution looked like but will continue to keep the community informed as I learn more. My hunch is that since it was just 3 weeks after the NYC initial event that these will be Variant 1 but sit tight
ok 100% confirmed Event #5 (truthfully should be relabeled Event #2) via this post of Shadow Lugia Published Oct 23, 2005 with the note
I got this one in the EGS mexico!
Unfortunately I do not yet have confirmation if that is their photo (likely) vs a photo they found online and reused for the post. That photo is of Variant 1 but i’m still waiting for my contact who has a copy from EGS Mexico to send me a photo of theirs to give final confirmation
I got interesting information to share with you guys. I recently bought a Shadow Lugia on Ebay before I found this thread. My shadow Lugia was sent to the Ebay authenticator and they confirmed this copy is fake and refunded me. It confirms that your research is correct and that the “Variant 2” is the fake version, the one that doesn’t have the small white speck above the ‘e’ in ‘Developed’ at the bottom of the card. I will share the screenshots with you @tval
Can you DM me the username of the ebay seller? I’d need to see higher res photos since I will say that all 3 variants have:
I want to be sure the one you bought fell into category 1 vs 2 before we assert that it’s 100% a fake.
The reason that “eBay says it’s fake” doesn’t invalidate all Variant 2 cards is that:
also the ‘authenticity guarantee’ passed fine for another Variant 2 sold just after you bought yours (and another one 2 days ago). Meanwhile the 2 slabs that sold are both Variant 3.
A ton of Variant 2 and 3 volume (both graded and raw) over the last month but very little for Variant 1 which is the only one that’s actually proven
Okay some super interesting developments this week. I added 2 more certs to my registry bringing my count up to 18 of the 74 PSA certs (over 24% of the population). The first one is another Variant 2 instance. The second one is a bit weirder. We actually have confirmation of a 4th variant that PSA has authenticated.
Both current owners asked me to not share the cert numbers but if enough people absolutely need them as proof I can press more - until then i’ll respect their wishes.
Variant 4 is odd: it looks a little like Variant 3, but is not missing an TM symbols on the back and has a few extra features like a white after glow on the ‘Shadow Lugia’ text among other things. The current owner of this PSA 7 card was not the original owner but they got it at a card show in September 2025 from someone who claimed to have been the original owner and to have graded it themselves. What makes this particularly interesting is the message I received below
[We] had a conversation with the original owner and the conversation pertain to platinum New York and the release of platinum because my husband had told a story about his DS breaking before platinum released. But it’s not confirmed so take it with a grain of salt, but we would also like to know why our Lugia has the white shadow text and none others on the Internet do
for the few who have read all of my blocky text above (apologies for my data dump communication on this thread) you may have caught that I mention Event #4 was almost not even worth considering for variants given this Bulbapedia blurb:
It was later awarded as a prize to the five finalists of the Pikachu freeze-dance contest at the Nintendo World Store Pokémon Platinum launch event on March 21, 2009.
where it states only 5 were given out. If we can prove that the seller:
then it’s quite meaningful:
Of course I ran it through my image processor as well:
Extracted Images: In order of variants 1 (same as earlier above) and 4 (new)
Diff between Variant 1 and Variant 4
and zoomed in
and differences overlayed on a high exposure image of Variant 1 (red ink means diff seen in Variant 4 here)
Biggest deltas are:
