My friend brought over his childhood collection to show me his cards. His base set Zapdos has a very different neon yellow color than other base set Zapdos cards I’ve seen. I checked the back, did the light test, checked the edge of the card for the thin black line and everything looks like a normal Pokémon card to me other than the color on the front. The front of the card is also holographic through the entire card instead of just inside the frame.
Is this a fake card, misprint, error or some sort of altered card? Would appreciate everyone’s opinion. It’s been sitting in my friends collection for 20 years. I’ve added images below to show the color difference, the back, the edge of the card and the holo foil through the front of the card. I can add additional images if needed.
I have a box containing a couple thousand Damaged-Lightly played wotc holos, many in similar condition to the cards shown that I can use for reference.
I have some old wotc holos that just appear to have gotten too much ink…to the point where it kind of covers the entirety of the card and there is discoloring.
+Additionally, I have quite a few wotc holos with the holo bleed that when photographed, appear like your last picture where it looks like the whole front is glossed over, typically a red flag but in this case, it seems to just be the way the card is photographed. A holo bleed when taken at the right light would look like this.
+I’ve noticed that a lot of fake cards don’t so much “whiten” on the boarders as they do “peel away” because they lack the middle layer. Your card doesn’t seem to be doing that. Fake cards typically have font that doesn’t match up, bolded words that don’t match up, can have blurry areas, and the back is always a dead giveaway with the colors never quite matching. Besides the obvious yellowing of the front of the card, The card doesn’t have any of those issues.
The blue colors on the back don’t exactly match up with the card on the right, but then again, the card on the left is heavily played and one would expect that some of that fresh blue color has worn away.
What throws me off is your second to last photo that shows, what appears to be two layers of cardboard? If his whole collection is like that, red flag.
I think most people could tell within seconds of handling it in person but by the photos alone, I’m not entirely convinced it is fake. If it is a fake, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen.
We can be a little too quick to jump to the ‘fake’ conclusion sometimes, when there’s quite a lot that should be considered.
20 years ago, were fakes of this quality being produced? Perhaps, but unlikely, and if so probably in relative small quantities compared to the majority of fakes in the late 90s that were obvious at a quick glance (think European flea market boosters) that were carelessly produced in a short space of time to capitalise on the new Poke-phenomenon.
Environmental storage conditions - exposed to cigarette smoke / certain type of light?
Printing conditions: printers aren’t infallible machines, don’t forget that behind each printer is a team of programmers and operators. Ink quality, mix, density, speed of print and other variables can affect the appearance.
That said, it could be fake - a few more pictures would help particularly of the holofoil pattern like acebren suggested - a couple of suspicious patterns in that top left image. How does the card ‘feel’ in hand? Is it bendier? Does the gloss on the back feel different to his other wotc cards? Difficult because of the age - obviously not booster foil fresh and exposed to environment - but how does the card smell compared to other genuine wotc cards?
2nd to last picture almost makes it appear like 2 stickers pressed together to form the card? Never seen a genuine card having perfect separation like that across the entire top
It is certainly strange, but I wouldn’t write it off as fake right away. Font, focus, and coloring all look on point outside of the “additional ink.” If it is a fake, its a very good one. I’m leaning towards print error but more pictures and angles would definitely help. Seeing a high-resolution scan of the front so we could compare ink dot patterns may help as well.
That is what bothers me as well, apart from that it does not really look fake to me. The holo has some stars and it looks like it is shining the right way, a few more pictures of the holo or even a video of it would really do wonders in classifying this card.
