I’m assuming that there is not a known way to differentiate between the Cardhouse Gold Star dogs (or cats or whatever you want to call them) and the ones that were actually distributed in booster packs – or at least, if there is, I haven’t heard about it. Well, my question is: does anyone think it’s potentially possible to differentiate between them? The reason I think it’s possible that there are differences is that, AFAIK, the Cardhouse ones were printed separately (perhaps even years later). There are so many examples of separate print runs in different TCGs being distinct in some way (i.e., Alternate 4th Edition in MTG). So the original and Cardhouse print runs might vary super subtly from each other.
Has anyone done an extremely careful comparison of samples from both print runs? I know that a significant amount of the Cardhouse ones were graded around the same time, so I imagine that one could pinpoint some graded copies that are very likely to be from that illicit print run.
Additional question: does anyone else think that it’s kind of unlikely that the Gold Star dogs were the only cards ever illicitly printed after the fact? The situation is concerning not just in terms of the long-term impact on those specific Gold Stars, but also in terms of the likelihood that there are large quantities of other cards that have been more subtly injected into the supply or haven’t yet hit the market. Does anyone have reason to think that this has or hasn’t happened? Or is it just a lingering uncertainty that we may never know the answer to?
No, not currently possible to differentiate. Maybe technology can progress to the point where you can trace molecules on a card surface to their original location or country, but even then it would not be financially worthwhile. Printed with the same equipment as EX Unseen Forces makes it different case than Alternate 4th Edition.
As for large quantities of cards being slowly injected, meh, technically possible but I would not worry about it, if they’ve been doing it with something like gold stars (besides these ones) it’s been fifteen years of no one noticing and unlikely to change any time soon.
Sealed stacks of 25-100 promos are legitimately distributed but more personally concerning to me when speculating long term value of a card.
The problem is large chunks of those cards are located many places. Hes got some number, A guy in Wisconsin has roughly 600, and the rumor is he sold a good amount to troll and toad and they have been very slowly leaking cards into the market.
Re; the difference from Alt 4th – that’s true. Still, as I understand it, these were likely printed 5-10 years after the original print run of EX Unseen Forces. Even if it was on the original equipment, are we confident that there was no difference in terms of printing methods, ink, etc.? I’m talking about differences even as subtle as factory print lines, centering irregularities, or text alignment. Or is it certain that they created absolutely indistinguishable cards?
I’m not really worrying about it so much as I am curious about whether or not there is some way to differentiate between print runs. A better example would be Alpha and Beta in MTG. Technically different print runs of the same set, but the corners were intentionally narrowed for the Beta print run. However, people have been able to fairly convincingly trim Beta cards to resemble (more valuable) Alpha versions. But the MTG counterfeit detection community has recognized highly subtle differences between the Alpha and Beta print runs besides the corners. With the help of a loupe, one can recognize consistent alignment differences of mana symbols and text between the print runs. This is one of the most effective ways to recognize Beta cards trimmed to resemble Alpha cards.
My point is that there might be similarly subtle differences that could be pinpointed. And, if so, that could be extremely useful if another situation arises in the future similar to the Cardhouse one.
I get your explanation about print differences, but there’s not really any evidence that they were printed 5-10 years later. IIRC the first public news of the mass binder was 2014/2015, he had been trying to privately sell before then, and he had purchased them in USA. There’s no way of knowing how long the original seller had held onto them.
I’m inclined to believe they were printed close to the release of Unseen Forces. If someone was deciding what sheets of gold stars to print for money post - EX Era, gold star dogs aren’t the logical choice. Maybe they printed others but the way they have trickled into the market hasn’t disrupted prices like with the dogs in 2015.
5,000 seems like a huge amount but it’s only 10,000 boxes worth of product; I’m not surprised they’ve slowly grown in price despite massive saturation.
It wouldn’t need to 5-10 years later for the difference to be there; though it would make it more likely, I think. Related to this: are you or anyone else aware if there is absolutely any way(s) (besides the presence of the stamp, obviously) to distinguish between non-Base Set English 1st Edition and Unlimited prints?. Like, are there any centering issues or print irregularities that are present or more often present on 1st Edition variants of cards?
The big irregularity would be errors corrected in the Unlimited print run. If you’re super curious you could always test the print and ink etc of something like a corrected energy type Unlimited Blaine’s Charizard vs uncorrected Unlimited vs 1st Ed. (All uncorrected)
Another reason to believe the cards were not printed later enough to have recognizable differences, even if not to the naked eye –
What’s easier, sneaking out cut sheets of cards that are already being printed en masse at the same factory and “went missing/unaccounted for/destroyed”? Or deciding while HGSS is printed that printing out gold star sheets from 2005 without anyone noticing is the best way to make money, and Raikou will make more than Charizard star or even Charizard ex?
[Added edit: having worked at my day job with printing companies to print things like direct mail letters and cardstock, stamped sticky notes, pamphlets, and funny enough Member cards that are cut in sheets sort of similarly to Pokémon if they’re not in rolls, two outcomes here are much more likely than the other:
Outcome A: “Whoops, I misread the clients email request and printed 5,300 gold stars instead of 5,300 regular holo rares and 300 gold stars… Guess I’ll have to destroy those extra 5,000… Even though they’re worth a pretty penny… And it will look bad to let the client know about the mistake…what should I do…”
Outcome B: “Gee quality control at this place isn’t great and they pay me crap. I could probably print and sneak out some expensive cards from this set and if I get caught can always claim miscommunication about the print run order.”
Unlikely Outcome C: “Gee quality control at this place isn’t great and they pay me crap. I hate this job and want to make some money on side. Printing a relatively cheap card from a totally different Era of the one being printed is the best method for sure.”
That is a fair point – but it makes me wonder how this could’ve only happened with the Gold Star dogs. After they were successfully able to print thousands of extra identical copies of these, they never attempted this again after 2005? How is that even possible? I just can’t imagine how this was only successfully executed once.
Outcome A or something similar to it seems the most likely to me for reasons that I just mentioned in my other reply. Because I agree that Outcome C is unlikely. And Outcome B would make it HIGHLY likely that this has been done with other cards – which it doesn’t appear to have. Although maybe it was and the Gold Star dogs just happened to be the one botched attempt.
Maybe the culprit got caught after he got rid of the cards? That’d probably spark some new measures against practices like this. All speculation though
Maybe they figured it wasn’t worth risking their job. I mean they sold them in bulk so they already figured it wasn’t worth it to sell them one by one.
I also think it has been like the first scenario @qwachansey mentioned which would make them indistinguishable.
On the other hand it would definitely be nice to research this further by acquiring some cards and compare them with a thread counter.
It’s Pokémon, we don’t even know their official print numbers. It’s certainly possible that other cards were slipped out the back door over the years, though the same quantity would surprise me, BUT:
If so, they’ve been clever enough to not oversatutate for fifteen years
The illicit amount would still be a fraction of the actual print run
Pokemon has used different factories with different employees, plus tightened how they oversee prints, and if this was a one-man job for the dogs, we likely would have seen evidence of their hoard of other gold stars as well by now had it existed
Having the main proven source of illicit printing be gold star dogs and not something much more expensive and easier to liquidate from within the same time span (eg Charizard ex Dragon 2003, Charizard ex 2004, pretty much any other gold star (At release, the dogs were like $20-$30, while Charizard was $50-$60 – even within Unseen Forces, Lugia ex was $50 at the time so ex sheets could’ve made more money) suggests to me this was a one - time mistake/error or one - time purposeful scheme.
It’s actually kind of surprising to me that Nintendo never (as far as we know, at least) pursued this with the printing company. This was almost certainly a breach of the original contract (which likely specified certain print numbers), and this would be something that Nintendo would obviously want to prevent from happening in the future, as it could really shake consumer confidence if another situation like this arose.