Hello sports fans! I have been saying for months that I wanted to do a write up about my current hyperfixation and so, uh, here I am.
As some of you may know I am close to completing an all language, all variant Drifloon master set for the TCG-- as of writing, this means 274 unique cards and 18 of them are in Portuguese. Having access to the cards can be difficult but even finding out which cards exist for any specific release in any specific language takes a bit of effort. Luckily I was able to get the Portuguese Drifloons I needed but I also learned two details I would like to share with the class;
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Many blister promos I previously thought were English exclusive are also printed in Portuguese
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Portuguese cosmos holos for the Scarlet and Violet (and now Mega) era are a unique cosmos holo all their own.
I first noticed this unique holo when I received my prize pack 4 drifloon in Portuguese,
Comparing it to the other languages it is very clearly not pixel holo, and I was content to accept that it must be the HD smooth cosmos holo then, for whatever reason…however, when I compared it to my other cards with that holo pattern (XY - SwSh English blister promos) it still didn’t look to be exactly the same. For best results, I decided to buy a card that was printed in SV era in English as pixel cosmos, HD smooth cosmos, and also in Portuguese, in order to compare all 3 to one another. I also picked up two SwSh era promos in Portuguese to see how long this potential print difference has been around and compare them to their English counterparts.
I was lucky enough to find the Abra from the 151 box in both English cosmos holo prints as well as a Portuguese copy, as shown here. The Portuguese Abra looks similar to the HD smooth English copy, but different enough that I still feel it is distinct. On the other hand, the SwSh era Galarian Slowpoke and Dracapult prime look to me to be identical holos to their English counterparts.
While conducting this “research” I have also been picking up as many Portuguese SV era cosmos holo cards as I can find when I can find them, because sometimes photos and text descriptions will not do it justice, as well as “I just think they’re neat”. There are a few SV promos I’ve bought multiple copies of to make a full binder page, or have been attempting to collect all the language variants of, so learning that there are Portuguese versions has lead me to seek them out for my collection even if the holo foil was not unique.
It is also worth noting in this thread that I recently received two different holo versions of the new Drifloon MEP 005 promo in Portuguese; one is pixel holo and the other is the Portuguese smooth cosmos.
Notably the pixel holo copy came from Portugal and the other copy came direct from Brazil, but this may just be a coincidence and unrelated (I believe all Portuguese cards are manufactured in Brazil). Additionally, looking at some photos of other Portuguese MEP blister promo cards it does to me appear more like there are pixel cosmos prints mixed in with the others.
I welcome anyone who has some Portuguese SV or Mega cosmos holo cards to share as much info, photos/scans as they would like, and I’m going to continue to horde these cards like a goblin.
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