A decent amount of information here. I have not fully gone though it yet so I’m curious about other people’s thoughts.
As bit of context, I was looped into these cards in confidence a couple years ago. I was told @smpratte and Leonhart and some others were also contacted about their existence but I was not provided any images or much information about them at all. I was instructed not to tell anyone, but silly me didn’t realize that extended to people who already were looped in. The guy who randomly contacted me lost it on me and told me I was no longer allowed to see/purchase these because I had failed some weird trust test that was set up by asking smpratte what he knew.
Completely a tangent, but a funny story nonetheless. Fortunately for me I guess, if we believe these are real (Mike Boozer is also the person behind the Prerelease Raichu) they are extraordinarily underwhelming. I promise that’s not just sour grapes.
Regardless, the information and history is still interesting.
I thought this was going to be new information. Not that this isn’t an interesting article, but obviously I read it when it came out last year. Please never post anything I’m already aware of. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
I still think the most interesting part of the article is that Jamboree cards ended up in Sandstorm, which is just weird.
I also don’t feel fulfilled by the marker-on-cardboard mock-ups, nor do I think those hold any value or intrigue. It’s not what anyone has in mind when they say “I would give anything to see a Jamboree card…” That’s not a Pokémon card or even close enough to count.
TLDR: Wizards owned the patent for trading card games in the USA because of Magic. Japan needed to deal with WOTC to distribute their absolute banger pop culture phenomenon in the mid- to late 1990s. Problems and friction arose because WOTC, the guardians and creators of Magic, wanted to make their own cards and modify the pokemon TCG, while Japan was like “no, you guys only do translations and print our cards. You are the conduit through which pokemon flows to the west”.
Pokemon was a phenomenon by this point. Worldwide. Japan decides to consolidate all of the rights and IP under one company that administers that IP (“The Pokemon Company”). Wizards realizes that their time is up. But they realize that they still have one last bullet in the barrel. After releasing Skyridge and Aquapolis, their last gasps, WOTC is like “but wait, there’s more”. That would be Jamboree; AKA ‘Akimbo’. But they never get their chance; probably because of the potential legal issues involved with them being out of scope with their IP contract with pokemon.
Embarrassingly, I had intended on pasting my post and instead pasted yours by mistake.
Before posting my reply here, I made a quick search and saw your recent post and opened it in case I had missed some new information (when I skimmed over it, your article looked good by the way).
I had left the tab with your article open and intended to leave a message to be part of the discussion.
I seem to have had too many tabs open and in my haste, clicked on the wrong one - which was thankfully still on topic though. But to avoid confusion I have updated the original post.
I ran out of time before being able to reply in your thread, as the talking point I wanted to discuss required a little more time than I had.
I think because of the mystery behind the set, it makes it interesting. I did enjoy watching the video, especial the idea behind “Wizards” going scorched earth by just dumping the last of their product in hopes of ruining the value in the cards.
The article says it’s the author’s best guess (and cites some pretty convincing arguments), so I suppose we can’t know for sure…but it’s enough to pique my interest in the card.
