I’m creating this guide to highlight and explain one of my favorite errors to collect: Team Rocket unlimited holos with insufficient levels of black ink. I’ve been collecting these for around two years, and I’d like to shed some light on them.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
The Dark Alakazam on the right is what I consider to be a strong example of this error. You’ll notice a few things about it:
- The text is grey/faded
- The text appears pocked/missing in certain areas
- The frame around the art box is a lighter, golden color
- The character art for Alakazam is a lighter brown than normal
- The holo foil seems brighter/pops more than normal
All of these changes resulted from less black ink being printed on the card. This is an error that occurred uniformly over entire sheets at a time, and as such examples exist for every holo card in the set.
These exist on a spectrum, where some examples are stronger than others; think in terms of the level of black ink dropping lower over the course of a give print run. It’s possible to have cards with some elements of this error but not all; ones that may have grey text or a brighter holo, but lack the golden frame around the art box for example.
Both of these Dark Arboks are on the spectrum for this error, but on closer inspection the copy on the right is a slightly stronger example.
Focus on the bottom right corner of the frame around the art box, Arbok’s eye, the shadows on the tail. The left copy has more black ink in those areas than the right one, so I give the right copy a small edge - though the text appears equally grey on both.
I don’t have normal copies of all holos in this set on hand, so I’ll be pulling pics from eBay for comparisons. I don’t want to understate, however, just how cool the brighter holos are in person for this error. It will be hard to demonstrate without the same lighting for everything, so here’s a normal Arbok alongside one of my low black copies for reference:
The top half of the holo pops much more without as much black ink obscuring it. This is easier to appreciate on darker cards, like Dark Weezing or Rainbow Energy. Pretty sweet.
So there we have the hallmark characteristics for this error. I’ve found strong examples for every card in the set except for Dark Dugtrio, so we’ll have to make do with the best photo I’ve got. Now for comparisons:
Dark Alakazam
Dark Arbok
Dark Blastoise
Dark Charizard
Dark Dragonite
Dark Dugtrio
Dark Golbat
Dark Gyarados
Dark Hypno
Dark Machamp
Dark Magneton
Dark Slowbro
Dark Vileplume
Dark Weezing
Here Comes Team Rocket!
Rocket’s Sneak Attack
Rainbow Energy
Dark Raichu
Hopefully this guide is helpful. The strong examples are pretty tough to track down; in the two years I’ve been searching I’ve still only seen one or two examples for some holos. Happy hunting!
