Yes, those sheets did originally have 5 Blastoise cards on the bottom row.
The print facility wanted the Blastoise cards, and threw away the rest of the sheet.
Someone dumpster diving for art supplies at the print facility, saved the sheets, but they didn’t cut any Blastoise off.
The row of 5 Blastoise had already been cut off the sheet when he found it in the dumpster, apparently this row was rejected by the print facility quality control, and disposed of.
Maybe there were more rows of Blastoise in the dumpster that he didn’t grab.
The print facility cut the saved Blastoise cards into square corner singles, and sent them to WotC.
That’s why the single cards have been found with WotC employees.
Pretty sure this information is all included earlier on this topic.
The amount of information and history in this article. Main stream media should make a documentary out of this…Thanks for sharing such a great article!
PSA received a couple of the Blastoise test prints from an ex WotC employee who was involved with this project. I won’t mention any names for privacy reasons, but I think it’s good for people to understand that the source of these cards is legitimate. That legitimacy caused PSA to want to move forward with these cards.
PSA wanted to grade them, and reached out to me for assistance with authentication. I visited with PSA, shared my personal scans of other Blastoise cards for comparison, and introduced them to other WotC people who worked on this project. This makes it easier for PSA to independently verify all the information.
These cards are factory cut, and they’re additional examples which the public hadn’t seen before, so this increases the known quantity by 2.
Now that the Pokemon anniversary has arrived, PSA has publicly announced the existence of these two cards, and that PSA is now willing to slab them.
I wonder if there’s any insight as to how many of these could be out there? I looked up the mtg growlithe & I’m shocked at how many CGC has apparently graded https://www.cgccards.com/certlookup/6099030001/
I know the circumstances are different but there were supposed to only be 10 known cards across the whole set. Now there’s 30 or more copies of growlithe alone.
Typical drip and dump method. We’ve seen this with the extras from Akabane too. If there is a stockpile, one will be auctioned off for top bid ($26,000 for that growlithe as an example on heritage in 2021), and then more are graded to dump onto the market. Same thing happened with extra copies of Lucky Stadium, Mysterious Pearl, worlds staff and placement cards, etc. As we all know, this happened with protostoise too.
It makes me and others very hesitant to ever be one of the first bidders on these unique cards, because the pop is completely unknown and the risk is very high.
Interesting that the one they opted to auction off, the Blastoise has a purple hue around its body whereas there are other copy Blastoise has much cleaner lines and is better defined.
I posted that info above.
Here it is again, so that you don’t have to scroll up.
This documents everything known to exist for Blastoise Test Prints.
1st Version - black border, Magic back
Only 1 copy, still on the sheet, and in a private collection.
2nd Version - gold border, Magic back
5 copies from WotC employees, graded by CGC.
2 copies from a WotC employee, graded by PSA.
A row of 5 cards together, from the print facility.
38 copies that haven’t surfaced from all those uncut sheets, and might never surface if they haven’t survived the years.
3rd Version - Galaxy holofoil, white back
1 copy from a WotC employee, graded by CGC.
A sheet containing 5 cards, from the print facility.
4 copies that haven’t surfaced, and might never surface if they haven’t survived the years.
There’s a couple issues there, which might cause confusion.
First, is that the Blastoise cards are Test Prints, which were intentionally created.
Those other 10 German cards are misprints, which were accidentally created.
Second, is that if you take a closer look at the CGC pop report, the 30 copies you’re seeing are regular German versions with normal Pokemon card backs.
Maybe that’s some kind of problem with how the CGC pop report displays the data?
I suppose I could mention it to their database guy, and maybe he’d be able to fix it.
There is only one copy of that German Growlithe with a Magic back.
The facility worker sold 10 cards to Rusty.
4 x Nidoran
2 x Weedle (Hornliu)
2 x Tangela
1 x Growlithe (Fukano)
1 x Arcanine (Arkani)
Rusty sold 8 of them to my friend Richard at Gen Con 2012.
Rusty sold the Growlithe to my friend Keith F.
Rusty kept the Arcanine for himself (until October 2013)
In 2014 Keith sold the Growlithe to Kid Icarus.
Kid Icarus had it on eBay, but ended up selling it to Shaun at Gen Con 2016.
Shaun sold it to Nathan in early 2019.
Nathan had it graded by BGS in May 2020, which was a real challenge.
I made a YouTube video about these cards in November 2020.
Then Nathan had the Growlithe converted to a CGC slab in February 2021, and sold it on Heritage in April 2021.
CGC wrote an article, and asked me to proof read it. https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/8916/Pokemon-Growlithe-Magic-Back/
Heritage is anonymous, so I’m not sure who the new owner was, but they sold the Growlithe on Heritage in December 2025.
This is a sales tactic that’s commonly used, but for the most part, it hasn’t been happening with the protostoise cards.
The first sale on Heritage was someone who only had one card, and they were racing to be first.
Then Jim surprised everyone by finding another employee with only one card, and racing to sell it.
Zechariah wanted to sell his, but was fishing for a good offer.
James was the only person with two cards, but he had given one to someone on commission, and that person was eager to sell, but James didn’t try to sell the other card at all.
This was several sellers competing with each other, not dripping cards into the market.
Then another WotC employee found a card and sold it.
The sheets found at the print facility were definitely dripped into the market, which might have been Heritage’s idea instead of the seller’s, not sure. Only 2 sheets had protostoise cards on them though.
These two PSA cards were found by the ex-employees kid in a box of their old work stuff, just a lucky find.
They might have delayed a month to coincide with the Pokemon anniversary. It’s not yet clear whether they’ll be selling their second card or not. If they did, maybe that would also be a drip, there is potential at least.
Yes, this is correct.
We can count how many are publicly known, but it’s impossible to count the number of copies that ex-employees aren’t even aware they have.
Sometimes more copies show up over time, and sometimes they don’t.
When the known population is extremely low, finding just a few cards could double the known supply, and that’s a drastic change.
On the other hand, if no additional copies surface, the value can go up significantly.
It’s definitely a risk.
Price can be volatile for rare items. It comes with the territory.
Yeah, it does look kind of odd.
I wonder if it’s caused by light bouncing off the holo or something.
The Goldin image also seems to have it though.
PSA didn’t show me their cards, so I don’t have better images.
I just provided information and sources, so that they could make their own comparisons.
I’d like to take a closer look at that card.
Well spotted. And it’s also not the same card with new label and lower grade, which was my first thought based on the same O/C cut. The CGC-8 version only has a printer dot in the top-left, whereas this CGC-6 also has an additional printer dot in the top-right. Here side-by-side (CGC-8 image taken from CGC’s article):
That’s quite a surprise, but you’re correct.
That’s an additional copy of the card, which wasn’t previously known to exist.
First I’ve heard of it.
I’ll inform Librarities, but it may take some time for him to update his website.
(EDIT: Librarities has now been updated)
I considered and looked at the same things as Quuador, and I agree with him completely, it’s definitely two copies of the card.
Those dots at the top of the cards, should be alignment dots, to indicate where the sheet is intended to be cut.
This second copy of Growlithe is not one of the 10 cards that came from Rusty.
It must be from the same facility though, which means that another facility worker kept one or more cards.
After printing, the sheets were shipped to a packout facility in New York state.
That’s where the sheets were cut into cards and packaged.
Quality control discovered the error, and had to sort through everything to make sure they’d found all the problem sheets, which took awhile.
They were allowed to keep a few of the cards, and destroyed the rest of the problems.
Many years later, the 10 cards were sold to Rusty.
Rusty had kept the Arcanine for himself, and made this video when he eventually decided to sell it to my friend John.
Thanks, I’ve updated the transaction history above.
Turns out that it was also sold on Heritage shortly after CGC graded it.
First names only here, so there’s still some amount of privacy.
The packout facility worker sold 10 cards to Rusty in 2012.
4 x Nidoran
2 x Weedle (Hornliu)
2 x Tangela
1 x Growlithe (Fukano)
1 x Arcanine (Arkani)
Rusty sold 8 cards to my friend Richard at Gen Con 2012.
Richard got the Nidorans, Weedles, & Tangelas.
Richard sold Nidoran #1 to Joshua at Gen Con 2012, and he still had in 2023, probably still has it.
Richard sold Nidoran #2 to Filippo, and he still had it in 2019. Filippo often works with Andre, so you might have seen Andre with the card, but it’s the same card. Filippo sold the card sometime before 2023. I suspect the buyer graded it at CGC, and sold it at Goldin Auctions in December 2022, when it was purchased by Marc and quickly resold privately.
Richard sold Nidoran #3 on eBay in 2012 after Gen Con, and it’s fallen off the radar.
Richard sold Nidoran #4 & Weedle #1 to Andrew, who sold them both to Nicolas in 2014 or 2015, and that’s who still owns them today, but he’s focused on other collections these days.
Weedle #2 is missing in action. Pretty sure Richard sold it, possibly also to Andrew or Filippo.
Richard sold Tangela #1 to Keith A at Gen Con 2012, who still has it, and is unlikely to ever sell.
Richard asked Jens to sell Tangela #2 in 2018, who sold it to Jason, and it’s unlikely to ever sell again.
Rusty sold the Growlithe to Keith F, probably before Gen Con 2012. In 2014 John wanted to buy it, and asked Rusty for help, which resulted in Keith listing the Growlithe on eBay, but Kid Icarus won the auction instead of John. Kid Icarus had it listed on eBay for awhile, but ended up selling it to Shaun at Gen Con 2016. Shaun sold it to Nathan in early 2019, who graded it at BGS in May 2020, converted it to CGC in February 2021, and sold it on Heritage in April 2021. Heritage is anonymous, but the card was sold on Heritage again in December 2025.
This card has changed hands far more than any of the others.
Rusty kept the Arcanine for himself until October 2013, when John wanted to buy it, Rusty put it on eBay, and John was the winner. It’s unlikely to ever sell again.
John also wanted the Growlithe in 2014, but didn’t make it happen. John declined subsequent opportunities to buy the Growlithe from Shaun or Nathan, he’s no longer interested in the Growlithe.
That’s what happened to all 10 cards.
Now there’s suddenly a new Growlithe on Heritage.
If anyone knows what happened to Nidoran #3 & Weedle #2, please let me know.
Perhaps one of you have it.
