I didn’t think about that. Good catch. It makes the most sense as most of the other cards were graded sequentially and in Pokédex order (with the exception of one set). If we can find a new card from this set, we can quickly determine if it’s part of a whole set.
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Some new cards have appeared on Goldin!
I believe we haven’t seen these two yet, there may be more in the new Goldin block but these two stood out to me. Also note they are mislabeled Beta Playtest, these are listed as Beta Presentation on the auction listings.
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You’re right these are new. Love that dragonite.
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The dragonite is interesting because you’d think it was the GB promo “prototype” based on the art.
But actually based on level and damage, it’s more similar to Fossil
So the natural inference is that the GB art was the original Fossil Dragonite art that was eventually replaced by Himeno’s art
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It has the attacks of both cards. So really, they took one card and split it into two by commissioning a second art and adding a Pokemon Power rather than two attacks. Pretty neat to see that process.
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Yes sir! I saw these. Given the mach* evolution line is my favorite, it should be no surprise that I love the machoke haha.
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Damage, energy requirement and level are different and match fossil
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I’m not suggesting that it doesn’t align with Fossil - just pointing out that they split the attacks, added a Pokemon Power, and commissioned a new art. That way they had two Dragonites to print, rather than one Dragonite with two attacks and no Pokemon Power. 
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It may sound like we are saying something similar but the difference is important I think
What you’re saying:
What I’m saying:
My hypothesis is that the prototype is purely for fossil. The damage, level, energy requirement, retreat cost all match. The first attack was changed to a poke power.
The GB promo was released ~5 years later in 2000. It appears as an intentionally nerfed Fossil Dragonite. Lower level, less damage, higher retreat.
The reason I think the difference is important is that in your model, the prototype is not really a fossil prototype but rather its own thing that was Frankensteined into two different cards. Whereas my model tells you in an unambiguous way that without the himeno art, the fossil card would have used the GB art.
It’s also funny to think the GB promo art was just pulled out from the archives in 2000 as an act of laziness and/or an internal easter egg. The other thing that is interesting is that it could mean the non-released GB cards could also exist as prototypes
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In the case of the Dragonite jungle art being of Himeno’s piece instead of the GB promo version I wonder if the artists were shown these prototype formats as they were commissioned to draw them? And if so, did the way they draw the illustration differ based on what the format was for?
In another example involving beta playtest Voltorb it appears the Ken Sugimori art ended up being used for team rocket set and Keiji Kinebuchi’s art was instead used for jungle. Wonder if there’s a general trend of this happening or not?
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is there anything this interesting for the mach* cards?
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To add to your theory, I can imagine they wanted to spread out Sugimori illustrations. Himeno was brought on board for Jungle/Fossil and several more artist for Rocket. Those Sugimori illustrations would be used for many of the early promos around the same time.
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Goldin has a few mistakes up which I think they need to correct. Specifically, they have no Beta Presentation for sale. Everything listed “Beta” Presentation is actually an Alpha Presentation.
Beta Presentations (from what we’ve seen) are white on the back with no design. Also, Charizard’s Beta Presentation is a different art than Alpha Presentation.
They have this listed as Beta Presentation.
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Here is a real Beta Presentation.
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Still cool that they posted up some more Alpha Presentations though. I’ll try to get them to update their auctions to not mislead buyers.
They do have the first Machoke and Dragonite Alpha Presentations I’ve seen though. Could be a good grab for someone.
https://goldin.co/buy/?search=presentation&sort=Ending_Soonest
Edit: What’s wild is that CGC even has this wrong in their article… Clearly one of those card is more refined and has better fonts. I can’t believe this is still being mislabeled by so many people including CGC…
Edit: I emailed both CGC to fix their article and Goldin to fix the listings. Let’s see if they do anything. Looking into it further, I think it’s safe to assume the following about Presentations.
Alpha Presentations: Same fonts and similar colors as all the playtests. Charizard listed incorrectly as pokedex #5.
BetaPresentations: Darker and newer fonts, better colors, card itself has a backgound and is not just a solid color, Charizard fixed as pokedex #6.
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This was really helpful, thanks!
PTCG and PTCG2 had four powerful, legendary cards, all illustrated by Sugimori: Dragonite, Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos. Each of these arts were originally considered for Fossil, but later changed in favor of Arita’s Articuno, Moltres, and Zapdos, and Himeno’s Dragonite. It makes sense to use this Sugimori Dragonite for the GB promo given its direct relationship to the game.
I wish these early conversations among artists/game developers were documented!
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I got frustrated seeing articles and auction houses causing confusion by have incorrect information or listing items incorrectly, so I decided to bite the bullet and make a blog dedicated to consolidating high level information on these cards. My goal is to keep the primary post updated as more information comes out. I hope it helps some of you. If you have any feedback or think I need to make updates, please let me know.
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This looks really nice. Great work.
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Thanks. Let me know if you think of something I need to add/fix or if there’s something I should add there in the future to help the community.
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This is pretty good, I would say worthy of it’s own topic
btw, another alpha up on fanatics this week
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still confused and disappointed that the corocoro clefairy doll doesn’t match the ones we’ve seen come out so far.
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The only trainers we currently have access to are Alpha playtest where the coro design is a more refined version and would be classified as Beta Presentation as we know it today. Likely just a matter of time before it appears, I remember Gem Mint saying the trainers were priced very high compared to the rest of the cards so maybe it is still tucked away in the vault.
Stole this from @shizzlemetimbers’ early TCG thread:
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