E4 is always sharing new stuff I’ve never seen before, so I thought it would be fun to start a thread where people can post about any card and provide a fun fact about it. It can be something hidden in the artwork, historical relevance of the card, how the card ties into the show/games, etc. Teach me something I might not have known before.
Since it’s Destined Rivals week, let’s start with Meowth and Persian.
I’m a sucker for Kanto/Johto nostalgia. The new JPN exclusive Mewoth promo with Cerulean City in the background is a fun throwback to the original games.
In fact, this could be seen in “Pokémon Trading Card Game: Online Illustration Exhibition”. This was an Online Museum available worldwide during 2022. In this virtual museum there were artworks from all eras. One of the chosen was Cool Porygon.
To be honest, I haven’t noticed this until I saw it in the museum.
For those wondering, museum is already closed, but if I’m not wrong, there’re YouTube videos of the content …
Base Set Charizard Misprint (Virtual Museum 2022)
In this same virtual museum, Charizard (Base Set) was one of the cards chosen to represent “History” section (along Cool Porygon and other cards).
In the Spanish version of this museum, Charizard (Base Set) has an error where the Pokémon Power was deleted … except for the . In addition to this, the font was changed.
I will update this with better pictures when I have a chance, but there’s a third version of the Dark Charmeleon W Stamp that is neither gold nor Silver. I rarely come across it, but it sits closer to silver, so I have designated it as such in my collection.
I say “almost”… English Fossil received a slightly different print run with the Australian 3rd print Red Logo set. In this version, Miki Tanaka’s name was fixed. Notably, the copyright date on the bottom is also different in this version: Instead of 1999 Wizards it says 1999-2000 Wizards.
Very cool. I knew of the silver and gold stamps but didn’t know of colour variations within those. It’s kind of like how cards themselves can have different colour saturation. I learnt something new today!
I noticed that on the Chinese 1st/Unlimited base set Koffings (and possibly more Base Set cards), there are additional blocks by the art border. It seems that this is only on Chinese versions. Really random thing you would never notice until you collect all the versions of various cards
What’s even cooler about this is the area pictured, south of Cerulean, Route 5, is where Meowth is available in the grass in the games! It’s where you actually catch Meowth!!
This is not particularly insightful but just neat. Torkoal, introduced in Gen 3, has always been a mono fire type Pokémon. It has twice been printed in the TCG as a fighting type Pokémon, despite not being part rock, ground, or fighting type in the games. Both of these printings occurred in ex era, yet neither fighting type printing is a delta species pokemon. Despite the typing, Ash’s torkoal attacks using Fire type energy
More typing fun - Lugia plays into fan ideas and misconceptions. Lugia is psychic/flying type, not a water type despite heavy association with the sea. Out of 30 cards so far, Lugia has been a water type pokemon 3 times, all in DP-HGSS era.
Prior to Fates Collide, all 3 water-type Lugia were weak to lightning pokemon, and all other lugia (psychic or colorless type) were weak to psychic type pokemon (in the tcg, psychic type also includes ghost pokemon). Following Fates Collide, Lugia has always been printed as a colorless type pokemon with a lightning weakness.
Happened with quite a few of the Chinese Base Set cards, not just Koffing. Machop is the most well-known one, and for years I thought this type of error was exclusive to the Chinese Machop, but later on I learned there were more. I bought a few of those from a Chinese seller soon after I learned about it, so here an old picture of those (with the extra error parts highlighted in green:
And the TIL thread I created and still sometimes update is pretty similar to this one. It contains a lot of stuff I learned the moment I posted it and didn’t knew beforehand:
A snippet from that thread, in extension of what @Frosty.Puppy and @mrbigchip posted above about Unown spelling things within artworks: the Unown also spell things in other places:
Every rare card in Neo Discovery except these 3 have at least one in-game, generation-correct level-up move from itself or its evolution line on it. This is tied with Jungle as a record among the Wotc sets (Base and Fossil have 4) and presumably the tcg in its entirety. Slam is not a move that Tyranitar can learn whereas Trample, Headpress, Double Lariat, Magic Dust and Hyper Reverse do not exist in the games.
. In addition to this, the font was changed.
resistance, making Rayquaza resistant to Ice type moves.
and gold 
stamps but didn’t know of colour variations within those. It’s kind of like how cards themselves can have different colour saturation. I learnt something new today!
