Woke up to this on my facebook notifications. I did not even think this was possible, let alone 3 times for a total of 9 1st ed ivy jungle pikachu. Basically, these guys were opening packs and pulled the error pikachu 9 times, but got 3 per pack that had them. All in the uncommon slots.
Pulls were at:
First set 2:44:00
Second set 3:16:00
Third 3:27:00
Woah, considering PSA 9 copies have sold recently for over $2,000 this is a crazy discovery!
As itās such a long video I took some screenshots of the three pack openings and the end result:
@pichufan,Thanks for that!
crazy wow O.o thats awesome^^
Three per pack strikes me as āan accidentā a lot more than the one per pack we are used to.
This is insane! I recently made a pretty comprehensive video on this card and itās origins . . . I donāt think there is a record of anything even close to this happening in the past.
Yeah I think the āsecret rareā theory is looking pretty unlikely after this.
It supports my own personal theory, which I posted about before. But basically the cards were obviously planned and prototyped and intended to be included, but when Jungleās production was moved forward and in the interest of uncomplicating the release the promotion was dropped. But for whatever reason - be they technical or communication related or just an oversight - the cards were still printed and still went out in packages. Based on this discovery, it seems their inclusions may have been inconsistent, which matches what we know about Wizards QA at the time: inconsistent at best!
Very happy to see this happening, otherwise weād still talk about 1 card in 10 boxes pull ratio which has been always the estimate. A mention of this opening has been added to Pikachu 1 Bulbapedia article as well.
It just baffles and excites me how a box opening of a 1999 1st Ed. Jungle set box can still provide us with new facts about the TCG. Sure, we had already figured out the 1st Ed. Ivy Pikachu came exclusively from 1st Ed. Jungle packs, but never 3 at a time. This really goes to show that we can never be 100% certain about distributions of (a) certain card(s) as they are often obscure and undocumented. Great find! And thanks @joer for sharing this with us.
A little known fact is that Wizards did actually āofficiallyā distribute these Pikachu promos via one of the US Illustration contests.
I interviewed one of the winners (Wayne) a while back and he confirmed he received 10 copies of 1st Edition promo Pikachu for winning: pokumon.com/article/wizards-illustration-contests/
Itās likely that these were leftover prints from their intended (but botched) distribution so Wizards was looking to offload their stock.
On the manufacturing side, were pokemon cards stacked 11 sheets high and pressed out to form an 11 card pack?
I remember seeing somewhere that it is possible to get an extra card in a jungle wotc pack, so 12 cards instead of the usual 11. I wonder if a miscount of the sheet layer was caused by the introduction of the ivy pikachu promo.
With that said, I also remember reading somewhere that an ivy pikachu appears once every 10 packs. There being 36 packs, it would make sense the ivy pikachu was pulled 3 times. The triple pull per pack may be a result of how the layers were mapped out.
I think you mean once every 10 boxes.
No, each sheet was cut individually and collated to make the pack. Thereās no way any card printer would stack up 11 uncut sheets and just press those into a pack.
WotC used the same printers (Carta Mundi) for MTG, and there are plenty of MTG miscuts on the same sheet that line up that would debunk this theory
I just love how weāre getting to see stuff like this in 2021, especially given how it can all be recorded and preserved in such a high quality compared to 20 years ago. The same goes for all the box breaks weāve seen in the Youtube era going back five years or so. Imagining how many OG boxes we would have seen opened if the same technology was widespread in 1999 is insane.
Ahh ok. Do we have a picture of the 1st edition ivy pikachu sheet still intact? Iām still curious if the 12th card in some jungle sets was caused by the addition of a possible ivy pikachu sheet. Maybe the 12th card isnāt related to the ivy pikachu but still interesting to think about
Time for everyone to crack their 1st Edition Jungle boxes!
Absolutely wild. I was surprised to see them in threes. So I guess that means that whole sheets of them were mistakenly loaded in place of uncommon sheets in the cutting machines. Iām really kicking myself for not grabbing one of these because its been on my wants list a long time and the increased visibility is not going to make it any easier to get a deal on one in good shape; but still a super awesome thing for the hobby to have this on video
The odds of even finding a pack with the pikachu in it is very slim. We have all heard from Gary on more than one occasion that he has NEVER pulled one before and this is despite opening a ton of 1st edition jungle boxes. Finding one is basically like winning the lotto. These guys won the lotto x9 lol
1st ed jungle box is now a stonks!!!