I wonder if it can be graded—it would be interesting to find out.
4 Likes
yea sorry but i still dont believe this BS cards to be real
6 Likes
Well you’re right. They aren’t “real” as in official TCG products but they do have pretty solid provenance straight from Mr. Akabane himself as being genuine articles that were a part of the development process of the Pokemon TCG.
6 Likes
yea thats a no go for me and they will never go in my collection
5 Likes
If I had endless money I would probably buy some more (got 1 already), as it currently stands I might opt to buy specifically some of the ones I like if they are below the $1000 mark.
6 Likes
Love the background. Baywatch Blastoise incoming! Would this be considered the only other non holo Blastoise ever released aside from the Trainer Deck B Blastoise?
8 Likes
Yeah I feel ya. I put in a max of 1500. Figured if I could get it for that I’d do it, if not no biggie. Think it went for just shy of 5K.
6 Likes
Good question. I think there are several (if you include non-holo versions such as English Dark Blastoise) non-holo Blastoise cards including Claire’s Blastoise and Sid’s Blastoise (I think these were exclusively non-holo).
Edit: Clair’s
7 Likes
Not everything is for everyone… absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to collect these. They’re super niche and came to market all at once downplaying their rarity. They were used to create and test the tcg and some of us super nerds appreciate the historical significance of that. Who knows what the future holds with these 
20 Likes
I believe this card is between Alpha Presentation and Beta Presentation. It still has the wrong number for Charizard, the fonts aren’t as clear, and it doesn’t have the patterned card background.
My personal opinion is that this should be called Beta Presentation and the current Betas should be promoted to Gamma Presentation. CGC made a mess of this, so I may end up just coming up with my own naming convention for my blog and then reference the CGC names if needed.
Really cool to see these cards posted online.
20 Likes
More interesting info from Marco:
This card started all!
In the history but also for the community.
This is the first Charizard card @takumi_akabane gave to @nidouken .
This specific card have the official statement with a video that Akabane himself tell used it for playing with Ooyama and Ishihara team.
From that day I shared this card everyone tried to find and arrive to this magical products called “prototypes/playtests”…
Now… Akabane told me he had 6 sets. 6. Not 7. Not 8. Not 2… 6! He told this not only to me but to other high end names.
The problem is now appear more cards around and also if I must tell all are all mints… especially the alpha playtest were made and played a lot. More you go into other sets less were played because cards were the same just changed the background or art art etc so have them mint and played is absolutely possible.
A presention card can be very mint all because wasn’t supposed to be played with them, but a playtest alpha imo not exactly.
First: if legit should be clear the difference in the slab imo from something litterally used like my copy alpha or the one with description on it by akabane from extra copies not used but made anyway in 1996.
Second: are we really sure all others copies around are all legit anyway? Especially in early production were so so few people. 1995 and early 1996 were litterally 3/4 people at all. One is the current ceo even. More you go into other sets more copies should exist.
Well… Just some idea of analize here… nothing more… for today at least.
12 Likes
Pretty sure “alt sucks” is a permanent state of being.
23 Likes
First time I’m seeing “card font is from 2005”, where did that come from?
7 Likes
A few people speculate that some of the prototypes use fonts that didn’t exist at the time
5 Likes
How could I forget the dark blastoise! So many I forgot about
6 Likes
So Marco has been making more posts claiming differences between printings of the prototypes, but in this one he claims Akabane himself has confirmed differences between printings:
Breaking news:warning:
So, Akabane confirmed they used different softwares.This make absolutely as result different editions/prints. A different software is a different card in his pure creation and result.
The edition print 1 at the moment I saw only 2 copies, and one copy is yet with Akabane san. The other Charizard is mine and Pikachu is own by Teng.
Let see if all I wrote will be official in next months/years.
source
Personally, it feels like a great shame that the playtests/prototypes were rushed out the door far too hastily and with too little information from Akabane, and with too little general transparency; now that they’ve been distributed to numerous collectors with varying motives and have been recorded as they have been by CGC it would seem far too late to rectify things fully. Although I don’t feel confident that if they hadn’t been sold privately/to the public they would’ve instead seen the light of day via TPC/Gamefreak, it would’ve been nice to see them preserved together in some sort of museum for everyone to enjoy. Now that opportunity is long past. Even if you hold the opposite opinion of mine, the lack of clear provenance would seem unfortunate also for the collectors/investors of these pieces of history.
11 Likes
Linkdu pointed this out back in September here
It will be nice if CGC shows more direct information from Akabane himself showing the creation process of these cards, it will lay a lot of the fear of fakes being slabbed to rest. Marco seems to be hinting that there will be more articles in the future.
15 Likes
