I stumbled upon one of my old boxes recently which contains a few of the rule books. I’ve never collected theme decks for collecting’s sake, but I have a bunch of packaging and other remnants from when they were being opened as they came out. I still have a small coin collection kicking around somewhere too.
There are 10 new rulebooks to add. If more turn up, I’ll let you know.
Thanks so much for sharing! This is super helpful! 
I checked with Carta Mundi Belgium.
They agree that it looks like David Mozier, but don’t think it was anybody from their facility. Apparently they didn’t have anybody named David, and thought it sounded more like an American name.
I checked with PBM, even though it doesn’t seem very likely.
It’s definitely not press staff at PBM. Quality Assurance, or a traveling WotC person might be possible, but the name doesn’t ring any bells.
Signs vaguely point towards the Colour Graphics facility.
Hey there! I haven’t had a chance to log in until now but for a little background on the square cut Aquali cards, I obtained them from a sports card collector who said it was in a large box of cards he bought a long time ago. The cards were in a vintage tin along with 39 silver stamped Dark Charmeleon W stamp promo cards. Not sure if you saw the post but I linked it just in case you haven’t. Do you happen to know where the Kraft W promo cards were printed? The attributes look like they were printed in the US but I know the promo was specific to Australia. I’m having a hard time figuring out where the W stamp could have been stamped and also if they were packaged in the same facility (there seems to be two variations of the cellophane packaging). I’m thinking the Aquali cards came from the same facility as these silver stamped promo cards.
Today is the first time I’ve heard of that Kraft promo for Australia.
As a hot stamped promo card, it’s probably made on a sheet that only contains cards for that promotion.
Sometimes they’ll put promo cards in the filler spaces of regular sheets, but it really depends on how many copies they need of the promo, and of the regular sheets.
The sheets getting hot stamped need to be fed through an additional machine before cutting the sheet, which takes time, and becomes less efficient when there’s fewer cards being hot stamped on the sheet.
They also have to consider the Make Ready waste of creating the promo cards on a separate sheet.
Generally cards are manufactured near their distribution region, or at whatever print facility has the lowest shipping cost to that region.
It saves money.
Sometimes they’ll do it differently if they’re in a big hurry and the regular print facility can’t do it for some reason, just too busy, or a worker strike, or natural disaster, stuff like that.
For example, Magic wasn’t printed at the Colour Graphics facility, but Pokemon print runs were pushed to Colour Graphics while Carta Mundi was trying to lighten their workload.
But most of the time there’s a recognizable pattern for where stuff gets made.
For Magic, generally English is printed everywhere, the European languages are printed in Belgium, and the Asian languages were mostly printed in the USA until 2013 when Amada print facility in Japan took some of the Asian work load for WotC products.
Portuguese sounds like it would be a European language, but most of the Portuguese cards actually go to South America, so Portuguese is mostly printed in the USA.
In 1999, Magic had a product called Portal Three Kingdoms, which was exclusive to Asia & Australia.
These cards were printed at PBM Graphics in North Carolina.
I’m not aware of any print facilities that WotC used in Australia, so if I had to guess where a WotC Australian exclusive product was printed in the year 2000, I’d guess PBM Graphics.
French cards are generally printed in Belgium, but in mid 1999 when WotC got the contract to do Pokemon outside North America, there was a rush to get products to market.
Orders were placed at the Belgium facility, but the lead time was so long that WotC also placed smaller orders at USA facilities for the international Pokemon products.
So the initial products for some languages were made in the USA, with the restock coming from Belgium.
On top of that, Pokemon was so popular that it was causing cardstock supply chain problems. Casinos were complaining because they couldn’t get cards printed (they were using the same cardstock).
So things were pretty hectic in 1999. I’m not sure how much of that bled over into the year 2000, but eventually things calmed down.
Packaging is a bit more complicated, so here’s some print facility history.
WotC was originally a role playing game company, so they published books, not cards.
I’m not sure where their books were made, always kinda wondered, but never looked into it.
Magic was their first card product, and it’s when they started using Carta Mundi in Belgium.
Carta Mundi Belgium had their own packaging facility, but sometimes they’d get pieces or supplies from other companies nearby.
The early Magic booster wrappers were made and printed by Spruyt in Antwerp Belgium until they went out of business around the end of 1994. Since then, any booster wrappers used at Carta Mundi Belgium have come from a company named Vitra, which they’re still using today. This includes booster wrappers for Magic, Pokemon before and after WotC, Yu-Gi-Oh, and anything else printed at Carta Mundi Belgium.
The outer cartons for Magic Collector’s Edition in 1993, were made be a nearby board game company, and are similar to a board game box. Similar cartons for other products, were probably made at the same place, and sometimes this place also makes and folds the booster boxes if Carta Mundi is busy. The foil & holofoil material comes from a company called High Gloss in the Netherlands.
All the pieces come together, and packaging occurs at Carta Mundi Belgium.
Once Magic was established as a brand, WotC began looking for a USA print facility.
It saves a lot of money and time, if you don’t have to ship everything across an ocean.
But quality is critical for a TCG, because you need to be able to mix the cards from all the different print facilities, without creating the problem of marked cards for players.
Yaquinto facility in Texas printed something for WotC in 1994. It wasn’t Magic, it was regular playing cards or something. Maybe that’s also where their older Role Playing Books were made?
For Magic, United States Playing Card Company in Ohio was the first USA print facility, starting in October 1995.
They made English 4th Edition cards, which collectors now call Alternate 4th Edition, because they’re recognizably different from the cards made in Belgium.
The relationship between WotC & USPCC ended with a lawsuit in 1996, before WotC was involved with Pokemon.
The next USA print facility for WotC TCG was Shepard Poorman in Indiana.
They made Chinese & Korean 4th Edition Magic.
The made a Magic 2 Player Set.
They made some Magic promo cards.
The packaging came from a nearby company called Colbert Packaging.
Not sure if the packaging occured at Shepard Poorman or Colbert, but the printing on the packaging says that the product is manufactured by Shepard Poorman.
Shepard Poorman was mainly used by WotC in 1996, maybe Colbert could have been used longer.
Quebecor is a Canadian based company with print facilities in different countries.
Quebecor bought the old Arcata Graphics print facility in Kingsport Tennessee, and that’s where WotC printed the Netrunner cards.
Packaging, deck boxes, booster wrappers, rule books, etc. were made by other companies, possibly Colbert Packaging.
Test Prints for Netrunner came from Colbert Packaging inside modified Chinese 4th Edition Magic booster wrappers.
Carta Mundi didn’t want to lose any of the WotC Magic business, so if WotC wanted a USA print facility, Carta Mundi decided they should have one.
Carta Mundi also established a print facility in Kingsport Tennessee during 1996.
They incorporated August 28th 1995, and were printing in 1996.
This may have previously been the Kingsport Press print facility.
They tried printing Magic at this facility, but it didn’t go over very well. It’s the bible belt, and the strong religious beliefs of the locals created a lot of push back from both blue collar and white collar workers, which made it difficult to create anything for Magic in this region.
Undead things and demons on black cards were problematic, but cute cartoon creatures from Japan worked fine once they showed up in the USA. I’ve heard this facility was used for a lot of Pokemon promo cards, and it probably would have been used for regular Pokemon cards also.
Yaquinto in Texas was printing Magic cards in 1996 (Mirage set).
Some of the Protostoise Test Prints were saved from the dumpster at Yaquinto, so it looks like they were involved with WotC Pokemon from the beginning.
in 1997 WotC printed some oversized Magic cards for a product called Vanguard, in Canada.
Not sure what print facility this was, maybe another Quebecor print facility, or maybe not.
PBM Graphics in North Carolina got a contract with WotC in late 1997.
Carta Mundi, Yaquinto, & PBM became the main printers for WotC TCG products, and it remained that way for quite a few years.
PBM also printed stuff for Topps, Upper Deck, VS System, Decipher, Hasbro, and others.
Most of the stuff PBM printed was English, but they occasionally did other languages.
Various foil & holofoil test prints were produced at PBM, and I know someone who saw the black border Protostoise sheet at PBM in 1998.
The foil & holofoil material is supplied by Crown Roll Leaf Inc.
WotC gives away Magic foil sheets as tournament prizes, and every one of these foil sheets I’ve personally inspected, mentions PBM in the fine print on the edge of the sheet. PBM may have made all the foil sheets for USA facilities for quite awhile.
Carta Mundi Belgium made the foil sheets for Europe.
PBM didn’t cut or package the sheets they printed, everything was shipped to separate Packout Facilities, which could combine sheets from various USA print facilities.
I’ve heard of a Magic Packout Facility in South Dakota, and a Pokemon Packout Facility in New York.
A particular WotC employee who enjoys Pokemon, has told me on two occasions, that Pokemon foil sheets had their back side printed at either PBM or Yaquinto, and then shipped to another facility called UV color for application of the holofoil and printing the front side.
He hasn’t replied to any further questions, and I haven’t found any other info about a UV Color print facility.
Maybe UV color was applying the holofoil to the sheets and not printing on them?
I know that PBM was getting sheets that already had the foil material applied, and Carta Mundi Belgium was applying the foil to the sheets themselves.
At some point (possibly since the beginning) PBM was printing on the foil material, because their company name appears on the edges of so many sheets. (on the front side)
GPS Colour Graphics Ltd in the UK, printed the English Pokemon Base Set cards with the 2000 copyright date. One of the WotC production managers for Europe told me that Carta Mundi was trying to push print jobs to Colour Graphics because labor was cheaper in the UK. So some Pokemon stuff went there, but she wouldn’t let any Magic print runs go there, because she didn’t want to travel to the UK for work.
Colour Graphics also made a Pokemon product for Eastern Europe. It came in booster packs, and had something to do with tax stamps and importing requirements for the receiving countries.
In 2003, the contract between Pokemon and WotC came to an end.
It was a messy end.
Pokemon had originally made the deal with WotC and their original CEO Peter, and it was a good relationship. But over time, Hasbro took control, the CEO changed along with most of the employees, and Pokemon wasn’t happy with the relationship anymore.
Preparing for the end of the contract, Pokemon resorted to industrial espionage, head-hunting key WotC employees, and stealing trade secrets, trying to learn how WotC did everything, so that Pokemon could do it themselves without WotC.
During 2002, Pokemon USA hired away WotC senior vice president Richard Arons, WotC vice president Rene Flores, and several other WotC executives. Pokemon hired at least seven former Wizards employees to work on the Ruby/Sapphire trading-card game edition, including Wizards’ former art director, senior graphic designer, business manager, events marketing director and project management director. All had signed nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from using or disclosing confidential information about Wizards to third parties.
March 2003 is when things really fell apart. Pokemon USA refused to allow WotC to release the Legendary II expansion set which was scheduled for late spring, or the Jamboree expansion set which was scheduled for later in the year, despite WotC having spent considerable time and money developing and translating both of them.
Pokemon USA also informed WotC that they had not been chosen to manufacture and distribute the upcoming Ruby/Sapphire Edition, and that the WotC contract with Pokemon scheduled to expire later in the year, would not be renewed.
WotC realized that Pokemon USA had forgotten to steal the player rankings and organized play data for Pokemon tournaments, and used this to create public pressure against Pokemon USA. WotC encouraged Pokemon players to contact the Pokemon Company and ask them how tournaments and organized play would be handled in the future. As a result of these questions from the public, Pokemon offered to approve release of the Legendary II set if WotC would share confidential information about tournament players and provide free marketing support. WotC declined this offer.
The last Pokemon release for WotC, was Skyridge in May 2003. The order to print Skyridge, was probably placed in February, before WotC knew the Pokemon contract wasn’t going to be renewed.
Then Pokemon USA & Nintendo did something really dumb. They released EX Ruby & Sapphire in June 2003, while WotC still held the manufacturing and distribution contract.
They didn’t wait until the WotC contract expired, so it was very clearly breach of contract.
Pokemon USA & Nintendo repeated this mistake in September when they released EX Sandstorm.
October 1st 2003, The day after its licensing agreement ended, Wizards of the Coast filed a lawsuit against The Pokemon Company, two Pokemon USA (ex-WotC) employees, and Nintendo of America Inc, accusing Nintendo of breach of contract, stealing trade secrets and technologies, and violating its intellectual property, including a patent on the “trading card game method of play” that Magic: The Gathering made famous. The suit
also accused Pokemon USA of using Wizards’ proprietary information to solicit Wizards’ distributors, vendors and customers.
Pokemon USA & Nintendo didn’t have a chance of winning this lawsuit with the overwhelming evidence. Nintendo folded, settling the WotC lawsuit out of court for an undisclosed sum and the two companies went their separate ways.
It was expensive, but Pokemon USA & Nintendo continued using the same manufacturing facilities and distributors that WotC used.
In 2006, Carta Mundi purchased the Yaquinto print facility in Texas, and spent a year remodeling it.
Mid 2007, they relocated their USA headquarters to Texas, and the Carta Mundi Kingsport Tennesse facility was dissolved August 22nd 2008.
Carta Mundi Texas can handle packaging for everything they print, and they could also be a packout facility for stuff that’s sent from other facilities.
WotC has a big warehouse 5 minutes away, and other companies probably do also.
It’s a good location for distribution, centrally located for North America, and only about 3.5 hours from a major shipping port if anything is going overseas.
In 2008, the owner of PBM sold the company and retired.
The new owners cut costs to save money (the economy was doing great), and quality suffered.
In 2013, Amada Printing in Japan started printing Japanese Magic cards.
Soon afterward, they were handling other regional print runs for WotC.
Hearing about the decreased print quality of PBM, the original owner decided to come out of retirement. He had to wait a bit due to a 5 year non-compete agreement.
In 2014 he purchased a small company called Millennium Print Group, and started building it into a major player. He already knew all the right people, and quickly landed big contracts. By 2015, Millennium Print Group was making Pokemon cards. At some point they also started making Magic cards, but I’m not sure exactly what year, decent chance that it’s also 2015.
Hearing about this, some of his old employees at PBM left their jobs to join Millennium Print Group, which kept happening for 5 years until eventually PBM filed a lawsuit against their founder for poaching employees, use of trade secrets, and infringing on patents. Millennium ended up paying PBM to settle the lawsuit.
Millennium Print Group became the main printer for Pokemon cards, and even opened a facility in The Netherlands.
The founder of PBM and owner of Millennium Print Group, sold the company to Pokemon in April 2022, but remained as CEO until he passed away in November 2022.
Millennium Print Group is owned by Pokemon, but they still prints Magic cards.
In 2019, Korean Magic cards were being printed by Angel Playing Cards Company in Kyoto Japan.
In 2019, Carta Mundi bought United States Playing Card Company.
I’ve seen a couple Magic cards printed on Bicycle cardstock with Bicycle card backs, but don’t have any other evidence of Magic cards being made by USPCC.
These cards are definitely real, and came from one of the WotC employees who visited all the print facilities for quality checks.
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Blue core cardstock was made by Kohler.
Black core was made by Arjowiggens.
Any print facility could use either kind (especially if there was a shortage), but Belgium typically uses blue core, while the USA often used black core.
Was hannipak an actual facility used for australia? ref the uncut sheet site.
For 99 i see chaos on paper, 00 is much less chaotic.
That was the same question I was going to ask. The Weebly site states the following:
“Wizards of the Coast used printers in a variety of countries to keep up with the tremendous demand during the Pokemon boom. They used printing facilities in the USA, Belgium, UK and Australia.
Here’s an (incomplete) list of the printers WOTC used:
USA: Cartamundi, The United States Playing Card Company, PBM Graphics, UV Color, Rainier Color, Yaquinto Printing
Belgium: Cartamundi
UK: GPS Colour Graphics
Australia: Hannapak (Subcontractor: IMS)”
Additionally, the cards that come in the Red Logo (Made in Australia) decks and booster packs have very unique attributes that differ from the cards found in US and UK decks and packs so I was assuming they had a print facility down under.
Dont forget jungle and fossil are unique from each others ink variant and base set is available in both
Base: Aus1, Aus2
Jungle: Aus1
Fossil: Aus2
@OCDCompletist & @Nightvulture
I realized that I hadn’t answered the question about packaging vs printing, so I edited my comment above to include more information about the print facilities, packaging facilities, and other companies involved.
It took me a bit to type it, but you’ll probably both want to scroll up and check it out.
.
You may have seen Rainier Color listed as a place WotC has stuff printed, but it’s not an industrial print facility, it’s a local service Bureau. They do preproduction stuff like Color Proofs and making the Color Separations which get sent to the print facility to make the printing plates. Mount Rainier is near Seattle.
Collectors have seen the Rainier Color name on a label from the back side of Color Proofs. Since they don’t realize from a photo that it’s not a normal sheet, they’ve mistaken Rainier Color as a print facility, but it’s not one.
Rainier Color doesn’t make anything that goes into a sealed product available to the public.
United States Playing Card Company probably also shouldn’t be listed on the Pokemon website.
WotC did use United States Playing Card Company as their first USA print facility from October 1995 to sometime in 1996 for a product called Alternate 4th Edition.
The relationship ended with a lawsuit, and they didn’t work together again.
Since this was entirely before WotC had Pokemon, it’s really unlikely that any WotC Pokemon cards were printed at USPCC.
In 2019, Carta Mundi bought USPCC, so perhaps modern Pokemon could be printed there.
USPCC typically prints Bicycle playing cards.
The info about UV Color is in my comment above.
I’m not sure how it ended up being mentioned on that Pokemon website, but I’m guessing that someone else saw the ex-WotC employee mention it to me on Facebook.
If anyone has more info on UV Color, I’d love to hear it.
I would binge the Netflix adaptation
Which sets are these in Japanese? i.e. web series, VS
Damn tavis… lol
So we have PBM and Yaquinto as main prodecuers of card backs, would they heave been the same facility that lays on the front border?
Seen this happen before👀
@packyman has found 4 sets believed to not be marked but labeled made in belgium, its not outside the realm of possibility that for these 4 sets, belgium was supplied backings by another printer to kickstart their operations?
Thats the main question im trying to ask, not sure if im asking it right
The first editions of these belgium printed packs appear to be missing the error(they have the corrected version) the rest of the sets follow true with the error applied from what it appears
To explain further, I have found one unique pack art for every unique version of card ever printed. I believe there are a few more packs than card variants, but let’s skip that for now.
It appears that the earliest “Made in Belgium” 1st edition packs, copyrighted with 1999 on the pack, do not contain the error. The same copyright 1999 unlimited packs do contain it. All following “Made in Belgium” copyright 1999-2000 packs contain the error.
It seems like there maybe were hybrid cards where front/back were printed in different facilities, or the error was introduced in later print runs of the “Made in Belgium” cards.
I added a column to specify which packs I believe contain the error cards to better explain ( far right column )
For example, only the middle unlimited pack in this image is expected to contain the error cards.
(Belgium 1999 1st ed, Belgium 1999 Unlimited, USA 1999-2000)
Rip it, no ballz
Hey Tavis, I’m the person who compiled all the info on Pokemon uncut sheets on the pokemuseum weebly site since I saw a severe lack of information about them in the Pokemon hobby after Rusty’s ebay guide was removed. For years they were not really appreciated and I wanted to change that. I got tons of emails from people over the years sending me pictures of sheets I hadn’t seen yet. Lately I did not really find the time to update the site anymore, but I hope I can do a big update later this year.
Regarding the printing companies listed, I did not really categorize them. I knew most people would not be interested, so I put Rainier Color in there even though they are known to only produce proofs and not final products. As you said, these proofs are laminated together on a special machine using either matchprint paper or an excess sheet of holofoil paper to better simulate the final product. The proofs from Rainier that had all the info are specifically the Legendary Collection PCD proofs that Rusty/TCA Gaming has.
The other print facilities were all collected from print info on uncut sheets that I saved since 2010 or so and press articles. I can see if I can find the exact source of the United States Playing Card Company and UV Color Graphics.
An interesting tidbit you may not know, the starlight holofoil used from base to fossil was actually produced by a company called “Crown Roll Leaf”. There was a Fossil set holographic Hitmonlee card that still had the sticker with the manufacturer info of the holofoil sheet on it, and it stuck to the card while going through the offset press. It was incorrectly coined Cigar Error Hitmonlee by the seller. Very interesting card.
I could also go on about the Japanese side of things but this should do for now I think.
Please go on about the Japanese side. 
Thanks for that info, and also for your work compiling sheet data.
Images of all the known uncut sheets in chronological order, can be INCREDIBLY helpful for researching a variety of topics!
I’d definitely enjoy hearing more about the source of United States Playing Card Company & UV Color Graphics.
I have to wonder if USPCC Pokémon sheets would be from after WotC was no longer involved (because of the lawsuit between the two companies). I’m mostly familiar with the WotC time frame, but The Pokemon Company could have used them after the WotC era.
There’s very little info about UV Color, so anything would be helpful.
(Colour Graphics is a different company)
I don’t recall if I mentioned them above, but I was aware of Crown Roll Leaf.
They supply the holofoil material to the US print facilities.
In Europe, the holofoil supplier is a company called High Gloss in The Netherlands.
WotC only used Japanese print facilities from 2013 and newer, and I know a bit about them, but that’s way after WotC was involved with Pokémon.
I’m sure people here would enjoy whatever info you could provide about the Japanese side of things.
Any idea how Nintendo is involved with Australia? The TCG contact card for Belgium, USA, UK all have wizards as a contact. Australia only has Nintendo. Also, the Australian Red logo packs were missing the Nintendo logo, whereas the rest of the packs all have it.
