I am attempting to collect all booster pack versions of the original Base set. I came across an interesting set of variants. Normally all long crimp packs for foreign language French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish ( both versions ) were originally printed in Belgium. They also apparently produced short crimp variants printed from the USA. Dutch was the only version that doesn’t seem to have a short crimp USA variant. Some are marked with the US Nintendo seal, and some are marked with the international Nintendo seal.
Here are the 6 variants I have found:
Anyone have any background on this?
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Discovery Update
I have been diving into these packs further. I have opened a few versions of the traditional 1999 long crimp Belgium packs, and a few of the USA 1999-2000 short crimp packs to analyze the cards. I now believe I have multiple layers of proof that they indeed contain unrecognized Base set card variants ( including the holofoils ).
Pack appearance
The art set is the 1999-2000 USA short crimp pack, the long crimp pack is the 1999 Belgium long crimp pack.
Examples
In the below examples you will see distinct differences in color when comparing side-by-side. Even though the USA packs are dated as 1999-2000, the card copyright date remains 1999.
USA 1999-2000 vs Belgium 1999 French
USA 1999-2000 vs Belgium 1999 German
Belgium 1999 vs USA 1999-2000 Portuguese
Corners
Similar to MTG Alpha and Beta corners, these cards have similar subtle differences with the shape of the corners.
“e” Shadow Error
Certain versions of these cards are also distinguishable by the presence or lack of shadow within the “e” on the backs of cards.
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