G’day fellow collectors,
I collect black star promo - used to collected a hell of a lot more but I’ve downgraded. Anyway…
I go to a great deal of effort to categorise the foil treatment of the cards - that’s why I collect the BS promos now, they are the only set that has spanned the entire series and show the changes, fads and fazes.
There’s a couple of great reference sites I use, particularly for the older cards but I can’t find a nice classification for one of the SM foil treatment.
It’s pretty prevalent, it’s on most of the new mirror holofoil cards (which, while I wait to come across an ‘official’ name, I have dubbed circular mirror holofoil)
You’ll see on the attached SM218 that the foil runs over the picture, like normal, but it also runs over the entire card, including the borders. Now, we’ve seen this idea before - reverse holofoils - but of course, they typically leave the pic without foil. Also, reverse foils have the same foil treatment over the card that would typically be relegated to the pic so they get scratched as easily as normal foils. this new treatment does not do that.
i thought it was a thin layer over top because it it literally covers everything, including the pic foil like it has been covered in shiny contact. but then I got the SM218 with damage and noticed the nick - as you can see - which shows a foil layer underneath. Also supported by the fact that you cant really scratch up the foil on the text part like you can over the pic part.
Anyone got any thoughts on this? It’s stressing me out, my spreadsheet already has a column for foil treatment and a column for artwork (standard, full-art, half-art, extended) but this is like an extra something. Sigh. Maybe I should add a column for special treatment…
Without pictures I’m not sure, but what you describe sounds like a holo bleed error. It’s where the ink layer is a bit too thin and the holofoil layer shines through it. This can happen with any holofoil card, but it was especially noticeable on some Secret Wonders cards, XY Evolutions cards, and most Sun & Moon era cards. Here some examples:
Thank you, @quuador , for helping me get my pics up.Your card looks to be what’s going on with mine and I am going to be using holo bleed as my descriptor so thank you for defining it.
While it’s not on all of my SM cards with this particular holo design, it’s on 90% of them. At what point do we start thinking it’s intention? I guess when it’s 100%
Have you found an example of the same card with and without the holo bleed? I don’t open boosters so I rarely come across multiple examples of the same card.
It’s not intentional. Holo cards are created by printing a series of ink on top of a holo sheet. One of these layers is an opaque white layer that determines which part of the card should be holographic and which parts should not. If this layer is not opaque enough, the holo “bleeds” through the whole card like the ones in this thread. Basically it’s the result of insufficient quality control.
@amesgigs as mentioned by @pkmnflyingmaster, it’s definitely not intentional. I’m not sure why the Sun & Moon era got so many holo bleeds, because your 90% is pretty accurate tbh.
I personally collect Pikachu cards, and I do have a few Sun & Moon era cards both with and without holo bleed (although mostly McDonald’s or Sequin Holofoil Pikachus, and not really the Holofoil type you’ve got in your picture above). I do also have quite a few Sun & Moon era Pikachu cards with holo bleed, which I’m thus far unable to find without holo bleed (although I haven’t spend that much time trying to find them yet tbh).
