So I won this at auction and I had known about match prints of later sets from TCA Gamings videos a few years ago, however I had no idea until I saw this at auction that they existed for base.
There were a few on goldin, a diglet, rattata, machop and machamp.
Can anyone tell me a bit more about the history of these?
Any idea why it’s labelled 2000 and not 1999 and why they are non-shadowless?
While it’s not a holo I’m happy with my purchase as it’s so unique (plus diglet is a beast) - would just love more info!
Yeah I saw them for the first time last night too, I also have no idea how they are known to be from Starter Deck A unless you know the whole sheet it was cut from.
Yeah I agree it’s odd. What’s interesting to me is at the bottom of the card for the year it says “1999-2000 Wizards.” Base set cards just have 1999 printed there outside of the 4th print and then base set 2, but those actually released in 2000 so it makes sense for them but not for these match prints. If it’s really a match print for the Starter Decks that were released in 1999, then why print 1999-2000 on there?
It makes more sense to me now that this would be from a UK facility that printed these match prints for the 4th print UK version of the 2 player starter decks, hence the 2000 labeling by CGC. Thanks for the info. Pretty cool to see these regardless!
If anything this proves that the Diglett is not from that sheet. That sheet has “IMATION MATCHPRINT COMMERCIAL BASE” all over the back of it but the Diglett’s back is completely blank.
Could be the case that the scan flattens it out or it falls between the text? Seems weird that we have this picture of the back of the Starter Deck A and these cards popping up at the exact same without them being connected. Did you ship it to yourself or a vault service @charizardespana?
The only possibility in my mind would be that the scan isn’t picking up the white text. I checked 5 of the scans and none of them had it and I find it highly unlikely that they all fell between the text.
Matchprint is a thinner paper so it could also be that these were backed to a card stock. For instance, the prototype alphas that recently sold on Goldin were “mounted” on card stock.
My only guesses as to why would be that the alphas were originally printed on a much thinner paper and would not be very gradable otherwise. You can see that the centering/edges are liberal if we’re just looking at the original card outline, but when the clean card stock is considered, suddenly the card can achieve a 9.5.
Similarly that matchprint sheet may not have been able to be professionally cut unless it was first mounted. I know in the past some match prints were cut by hand or straightedge but with these all having pretty insane Mint+ grades, I’d imagine they were professionally cut as well.
