I felt that this post from @lyleberr deserved it’s own thread. I have a feeling that one day a lot of these test sheets and old artifacts will help assembly a timeline of how base set was developed so it’s always good to archive images like these somewhere that’s not at the whim of some random redditor that could delete it at any time.
Keep in mind that while this is a “shadowless” sheet, the first edition sheets are just shadowless with the stamp. So a test shadowless sheet is also a test 1st editions sheet.
the colour bar shows up on the left side of the sheet, which is also unique as far as I can tell
No evolution box. It does look like the holo is cut out for the evolution box though. The horizonal line is missing. The HP seems to be printed as CMYK and not a spot colour (makes sense for a test).
For some reason, on the Mewtwo they seemed to be playing with different levels of opacity on the border. I’m guessing for this test print, the border was printed on as CMYK and the opacity of the white spot later that hides the holo is being tested here?
Overall, this sheet has some wear and details that would be hard and/or strange to fake so I’m inclined to believe it’s real- that said, there’s no guarantee there. I couldn’t find any difference in the actual text, like a typo. But the formatting appears different from what we see in the final cards. Given the more bland holo, the formatting differences, the lack of energy in the text, I would say that this test sheet - if real - predates the disco sheet. Overall an interesting discovery.
One would assume that the chronological order of the evolution box would be:
placeholder on the holofoil (as shown on this sheet) > evolution box w/out stage 1 pokemon (disco sheet) > final 1ed print.
Anyways, all it needs now is a fancy prototype name, some scissors, and a grading company willing to slab them… A sheet like this should be preserved imo
Thank you for breaking it down (and stealing my post credit, Im still hustling for a badge here ), since I didnt get a chance to do more than caution them with the potential values for a test print sheet. I will add that the user has messaged me photos of a couple sheets of also rare hard to print items, tazos, lenticular tazos, and a 3 in 1 lenticular sheet. If they give permission I will add them. All very unique things and they seem to have quite a few of the random sheets around.
In case the reddit post gets deleted theyve claimed it comes from a family member working at a printing factory in Minnesota in the late 90s and has been rolled in a garage for 25years.
Interesting breakdown — thanks. Just looking at it on Reddit, I was pretty happy to call it fake, but you’ve made a good case here that it could be worth further attention.
Someone there pointed out that Minnesota was an odd place for test-prints that are this early, which seems like an issue, but I don’t know enough (does anyone?) about early printing facilities to be sure.
I’ve always wondered whenever I see these uncut sheets- if you contacted wizards of the coast today, would they cut the sheet for you if you brought it to them? I’m not saying it would be worth it but I’m just curious if they would help you cut the cards out of a sheet if you wanted to.
It obviously wouldnt make sense to do it with like a fossil sheet but if this shadowless one is real, having that many test print or whatever charizards could be more valuable than just the entire uncut sheet.
People are calling it out being fake for reasonable reasons when comparing to known 1st edition/shadowless sheets. But I think we potentially have a valid test print not from WOTC but different printing company.
Pokémon Pogs which the 3rd sheet show, were starting to be distributed in 1997. I can’t find exactly who was responsible for printing but it seems to be by World Pog Federation and Stanpac. Not too far fetched to think that rights for other printing were given due to the variety of sheets.
OP really need to know who/where was your cousin employed and how he got these sheets before we write them off as fakes.
I have never also seen any fakes like this for 90s the print quality is very very good. You would think that if they were fakes we would see them distributed and not only as one high quality sheet? Fakes/bootlegs are cheaply manufactured with the intent to profit.
OP would later say that his “cousin” worked at a print facility in Minnesota, FWIW
a sheet of this nature makes sense to exist to test typesetting, early holo effects
The stuff like the lack of evolution box doesn’t make sense in a fake. As the faker, you have to fill in the hole of where the evolution box was with the rest of the background art. That’s not to say you can’t - or that it’s even hard to do - but it seems like it would be a bunch of work for no particularly obvious reason.
That said, it’s only an indicator. Nothing definitive.
On a different note, the “gold” mewtwo border obviously catches a lot of attention but it does seem like all the borders are slightly holographic
No. Wizards hates Pokemon and everything to do with it after they lost the license in the early 2000s
I would not be so quick to make such an assumption. It doesn’t make sense to cut out the holo if you don’t already know what shape you should be cutting. Also, there’s a lot of other seemingly random elements missing from the disco sheet including energy, the text in the length/width box as well as the Pokemon in the evolution box.
It’s hard to use the presence/absence of these elements to tell you a chronology, since “missing” doesn’t mean “not yet designed”. The best clues for chronology would be errors or mistakes that get corrected. Something like the HP 50 error on the vulpix. I could not find anything on this sheet outside of the way the text overflows in unique ways.
I haven’t checked closely, but I would assume the evolution box placeholder would be based on the Japanese print. However, you’re correct in that certain elements (such as type symbols) missing on the Disco is a bit of a curve ball here. Perhaps both sheets occurred around the same time period, who knows!
I’ve seen a lot of these test sheets for 1st edition, shadowless, cosmos, disco and so on and none of them have this pokemon distribution on them. Only 7 of the pokemon is a new for me. That’s my first “red” flag that it’s a bit sus.
And then here’s the normal pokemon distribution sheet examples that pkm posted earlier.
None of them are signed off by that “Flint” guy either. And lastly the factory test sides are missing some normal color/print reference details. The Sign Guide is usually on the back btw:
I found that the lenticular oversized cards are mini-notebook covers that would then be spiral bound and perforated so you could rip the cover off and keep as a collectible.
The lenticular pogs are likely lenticular "tazos 2 "but Im not exactly sure about production years (I said flippos but those seem to be Gen 2 mostly, closest I found were some of these with copyrights listed up to 1998). These they said were blank on the back so another test sheet or at least removed before finishing the print process.
The last sheet is some kind of pog or tazo but i didnt search for a year or specific run. Could also be an early token from a game. I figured someone here would have more knowledge about non-tcg items. A closer look shows that they will have copyright info on the front and a better photo will show it.
I did suggest to them to make an account and post their information themselves and field questions here so that they could deal with a bit more nuanced discussion rather than fielding hundreds of “I dont know what Im looking at but its 100% fake!” comments.
The issue is that the nature of test prints implies there will be unexpected features.
The Pokemon distribution is weird. But also note, it seems to intentionally include one Pokemon of each type.
As mentioned by others the printing facility is also not where you’d expect it to be so the lack of a D. Davis signature or a differently formatted sheet is not necessarily surprising.
Theoretically, it could be a situation where WOTC sends the print file to a different facility to just have them print it as a test - it seems this facility was also printing other pokemon stuff at the time.
Yep, I have a list of signoff names and its never “Flint” but the two examples were just to show there’s usually a designated area that says “Side Guide” where the signoff is written and it’s usually on the back.
Anything is possible. Wherever it was printed certainly wasn’t where everything else that we’ve seen leak into the market was printed. Then again, the other stuff leaked from WOTC staff and this is from someone that worked at a side factory or something. I’ll check in after a few days to see what yall dig up.
I know CGC gets a lot of E4 hate but I honestly think they’ve done a ton for the hobby ever since they injected themselves into grading and authenticating. PSA had a real “Fuck you” attitude heading into covid and they were also quite lazy about authenticating/grading anything new that wasn’t already in their systems. It took a little unfriendly competition to make PSA start grading phone cards, expand on their sigs (which kinda went to shit recently but is starting to get better), along with other non TCG cards and artifacts that people have been holding onto for a long time waiting for one of these companies to authenticate their items. If you don’t ever take risks and do the leg work on studying stuff to provide a service, then you have no exposure to be clowned like CGC whenever the eventual mistake happens.
That’s fair, but the issue is in many instances cgc isn’t really providing full clarity. They are primarily doing what benefits them. Why PSA or any company is more conservative is because these type of items don’t have a clear answer. Just sticking within PSA as an example of where that risk can backfire, the topsun cards. So many sports guys were confident the “1995 Charizord” was the first card printed. The entire origin of that label is because PSA went the route that CGC typically does of just getting enough information. Anyway I’d personally rather have the more conservative/comprehensive option, but understand others are less risk averse.
Yes that’s the risk of getting clowned I was talking about. But how many of us with topsun slabs are happy that a company actually graded and authenticated the cards regardless of the label date being wrong? I don’t mind PSA being more conservative. I minded them just refusing any and all risk because they knew they had literally zero competition and no incentive to delegate a few of their employees to do some due diligence and research. I think CGC needs to (and somewhat has) begun to tighten up and PSA has begun to loosen up. Perhaps one day they’ll find parity, but I’m just glad we have healthy competition now where things are actually getting done.
I think the second sheet is a Tazos/pog and not just a random game token, as the background for the poison types is what you normally find on Tazos (or whatever they’re called) outside the US. See this:
It’s interesting that these Tazos sheets were included also, as they seem to be part of a second potential mystery. @Julius19asked some time ago about whether Tazos were released in the US, and when the thread came up, I couldn’t find any online with the design he posted and some others in the US said they couldn’t recall seeing any US-released Tazos. But here they are, some Tazos that were putatively printed in a US printing facility.
I’ll post these pictures and the small bit of information in the linked thread too, maybe to keep that conversation separate.
), since I didnt get a chance to do more than caution them with the potential values for a test print sheet. I will add that the user has messaged me photos of a couple sheets of also rare hard to print items, tazos, lenticular tazos, and a 3 in 1 lenticular sheet. If they give permission I will add them. All very unique things and they seem to have quite a few of the random sheets around.
