What are these?

Yep those Bandai cards are definitely fake I’m afraid.

The end of first post in the thread @thedude1990 linked above shows some examples of what fake versions of these look like and I have a similar post about fake cards from this set here: www.elitefourum.com/t/bgs-authentic-not-actually-authentic/30903/13.

The general rule of thumb for these is that if the picture on the front isn’t related to the synopsis on the back or the holofoil pattern extends over the foreground text (which is unfortunately what yours are) they’re fake. Though they’re not fake in the usual sense of someone firing up a printer and printing hundreds of these - they’re fake in that someone has taken real cards and applied different imagery or holofoil patterns on top of them.

The real versions of the Bandai cards you’ve shared above are all non-holo and should look like these (these are all images I’ve found online and aren’t my own photos):

Here are examples of two real holofoil cards I have to hand:

Notice how in both the regular and MOVIE cards the holofoil pattern is in the background rather than in the foreground - with the only exception being the R on the Team Rocket logos and the “Pichu & Pikachu” text in the bottom right of the MOVIE card. The border, the Pokémon and all other text is not covered with the holofoil pattern.

These Bandai cards are numbered in a way that a non-holofoil card never shares the same number as a holofoil card. That is to say the MOVIE25 Pikachu & Pichu Brothers card above doesn’t have a non-holofoil MOVIE25 version, likewise the 245 non-holofoil card above will never have a holofoil 245 card.

PSA and Beckett have graded these fake cards in the past as there simply isn’t enough documentation surrounding them. CGC are strictly refusing to grade these, and quite rightly so I think.

Some of these fakes are really, really creative. I’m sure @qwachansey won’t mind me sharing this card of his here:

This one has been very cleverly renumbered, had its image completely replaced and had a holofoil pattern applied to it. Unfortunately they left the text in which says “Weezing & Arbok” in Japanese (though the holofoil pattern itself is very obviously incorrect) - it’s actually this card which has been printed over:

The Chansey artwork is from the Japanese How To Draw Pokémon CD. :grin:

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