Great thread idea!
Stamped French (and Italian) SM190 Detective Pikachu promos:
On May 8th, 2019, the Detective Pikachu movie was released in cinemas in France. People received a non-stamped Holofoil SM190 Detective Pikachu promo when visiting.French Detective Pikachu movie DVDs and Blu-Rays , only sold at E.Leclerc stores in France. Both the DVDs and Blu-Rays were released with an error however, since instead of the intended French copies, it could contain English, German, French, and Italian copies at random. Since these special editions were only sold at a single type of store, and because of this error, this stamped French SM190 Detective Pikachu promo took me quite a while find, and is probably one of the rarest French Pikachu cards, despite it being a pretty recent release. Eventually I was able to buy my copy from an Italian seller, so I’m pretty sure the Italian versions of these special DVDs and Blu-Rays contained the same four languages of this stamped promo at random. The English and German versions of these DVDs and Blu-Rays contained the intended languages, so those are pretty common to find.
As I mentioned in the quote above, I eventually managed to find my French copy from an Italian seller. Funny and ironically enough, I bought my Italian stamped copy from a French seller.
Unlimited edition Japanese World Championship Pack cards:
Unlimited edition World Champions Pack cards:
For those who don’t know, I started collecting Pikachu in all languages and variations about 6.5 years ago (I’m currently missing just 13 (EDIT: Feb. 2022: 10 nowadays) out of the total 1433 existing officially released Pikachu TCG cards and own the second largest Pikachu collection in the world a.f.a.i.k.). I also collect Seviper and other cards featuring Seviper in their artworks in all languages and variations since about four years ago. My Seviper collection is complete since about halve a year ago (minus the recent new Battle Styles release I’m currently working on adding). (EDIT: Feb. 2022: a year ago now, and new releases have arrived as well)
Although I already had the Japanese unlimited edition World Champions Pack 023/108 Pikachu for quite a while, the 093/108 Battle Frontier trainer and 003/108 Seviper were a lot harder to track down. In the first 3.5 years I had collected Seviper, I had never even seen a picture of it, it’s that rare. I did own the Pikachu from the same set however, and have seen some other unlimited edition World Champions Pack cards, so I knew the Battle Frontier and Seviper existed. About 3/4 of a year ago I was able to add the Battle Frontier trainer card to my collection, and about halve a year ago I was finally able to add the Seviper as well to 100% complete my collection. (Although I know some people whom are very close and will soon finish, a.f.a.i.k. this is still the only 100% completed single Pokémon collection in all available languages in the world at time of writing. (EDIT: Feb. 2022: not anymore, a fellow Efour member completed his Togepi collection in all languages a couple months ago) )
So why was this card so hard to find? Well, let me break it down for you. Let me start with the 1st edition version of the set, which although not too hard to find were pretty short-printed as well:
The 1st edition version of this set was only available for purchase online
On top of that: it was only available for a two week period (June 15th to July 1st, 2007)
On top of that: it could only be bought by Japanese players
On top of that: it was TCG-wise a pretty bad set, so not a lot of players bought it
On top of that: it was released near the end of the TCG season, so they could only use the few usable cards for little over half a year, before they were out of rotation again
On top of that: the Seviper is a Rare, and unlike a lot of other sets, the non-Holo Rares had the same pull rates as Holofoil Rares, ex Ultra Rares, and even the Jolteon/Vaporeon/Flareon gold stars
On top of that: Seviper isn’t a very popular Pokémon to collect, so less likely to be put up for sale than the Pikachu
This information above is for the 1st edition version, though. For unlimited edition it’s even worse, which is why it’s not surprising it took so long to find this dang card:
90%+ of all World Champions Pack cards out there in auctions/bulk/lots are 1st edition, which is saying something considering the 1st edition versions were only available for a two week period, and could only be bought online by Japanese players.
On top of that: the unlimited edition World Championship Pack packs/boxes could only be bought at the 2008 Spring Battle Road event. This event was supposed to be held at five different locations for a week long period.
On top of that: due to bomb treats, three out of five locations were completely cancelled.
On top of that: those remaining two venues only went through their initial two days instead of entire week, before they were cancelled as well.
On top of that: numbers 4 to 7 of the previous list apply here as well.
I’d be surprised if more than a handful of unlimited edition World Champions Pack packs/boxes were sold in that two-day period of the two 2008 SBR events, making it one of the rarest Japanese sets that exist, most likely only overshadowed by the unlimited edition E1 Base Expansion Set (of which I’m still missing the Pikachu (EDIT Feb. 2022: not anymore , and which were only given as random decks at some early day events from what I’ve heard (EDIT: Feb. 2022: they were also consolation prizes for certain lotteries) - although unlike the WCP, the unlimited edition E1 isn’t available as full set; only a handful of cards from the E1 set were printed and distributed through those decks and events).
The five venues of which only two were continued due to bomb threats and were shortened, are the same as the ones of the Cynthia’s Feeling’s Battle Road 2008 promo that was already mentioned by @stagecoach in the main post.
Most of the other releases with some kind of drama that come to my mind have already been mentioned above (1st edition Feraligatr blister; COLLECTOR stamped Charizard; etc.).
Greetz,
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As for some releases that didn’t went as originally planned: