Has anyone ever seen sheets like these before or have any information on them? (see images attached) Or does anyone know someone that used to work on the printing lines for WOTC? The sheets are not mine, the pictures were sent to me by a potential client looking to auction them. Their story is that they received them from a printer factory in the UK years ago. They were visiting as a client of the printer and they were gifted these sheets. They have no affliation with WOTC directly. They cannot remember the name of the printers.
I personally have not seen anything like them, I have not been able to view them in person yet and I am concerned about the provenance. Some observations I made from the pictures were these:
They are all one sided printing (blank white backs to the sheets), this includes the sheet with the Pokemon card backs.
The base set cards are unlimited print but with a 1st edition stamp.
There is no “Property of Wizards of the Coasts” or “Produced by Wizards of the Coast” written on the edges of the sheets. I was under the impression most/all uncut sheets have this?
The print quality at least from pictures appears to be very good. And the sheets do look as if they are factory produced with the colour coding etc. Just wondering how easy it would be to replicate this?
The dates on the sheets showing them as printed in 1999 (although if you were faking them you would write a date that corresponds obviously)
Why would you print common cards/theme deck packaging if you were trying to replicate a uncut sheet?
Something to note, it uses one Pokemon of each type, all energies and one trainer which makes sense for testing.
Another interesting thing is that it uses the Jungle and onward 1st edition alignment and not the base set one, which actually makes sense. Also the sheet has a thin stamp
I cant add much except that the pokemon deck display sheet has all the correct copyright information and details for 4th print UK distribution decks, which corresponds to their story.
Use a magnification loop and check the CMYKK offset printing. Find cards from the same sets/time-period (looks to be UK unlimited print), and compare the rosette patterns. They should match up.
I’ll also say about the deck display that i was finding odd and your linked video confirmed it is that there are no cut guides for the display based on the photo. It could still be something from production showing just the mockups.
An update on this now. I have the sheets in hand and have been able to look at them in person and through a microscope. I also have taken some pictures as best I can using the microscope and phone camera and using a camera with a high zoom lense to check the CMYKK printing. As far as I can see the sheet rossette pattern looks the same as unlimited base set cards I used for comparision. Below I compared Magikarp and a Bulbasaur cards. The individual cards are on the left overlapping the full sheet below which is on the right.
On the sheet you can also see it has the additional protective layer (would you call it gloss?) as shown in the photo below if you look near the corner/edges.
Another thing I observed is most of the sheets exibit some wear and tear/damage/marks/dirt which could be a sign of their age potentially, and some pencil marks/writing as shown in the above picture.
On none of the sheets is there the usual “Property of Wizards of the Coast” printed though.
To me they appear real, I just wish I could get some confirmation from where they were originally printed. I am trying to see if there is any way to obtain this now.
The client has given me the name of a printers in the UK called Paragon-leycol, (I think they used to be just Leycol). I have been trying to contact them but not having much luck so far.
A significant update – I believe there is enough evidence now to confirm that these sheets are almost certainly genuine.
I managed to track down an ex Sales Director who worked at Games and Print at the time when these sheets would have been printed. Games and Print printed Pokemon cards in the UK in the early days of Pokemon. Stephen Wilks who is the former Managing Director of WOTC UK confirmed WOTC used Games and Print to print Pokemon cards during a conversation I had with him on a Podcast (listen from around 34m 45s in the link below).
I also asked why the unlimited cards on these sheets have 1st edition stamps, see message below:
“These sheets were printed in Sept 1999 and as said were part of the preparation testing.
They are just print files that were used and are not “official” 1st edition cards.
To qualify for 1st edition the 1st 10% of a live production run was printed with all cards bearing the 1st edition logo , with the remaining 90% plus any subsequent reprints not bearing the 1st edition logo…”
They also confirmed Leycol (now Paragon Leycol) printed cards under contract with Games and Print. Leycol was where the sheets came from originally. Our client was gifted the sheets at the time by an employee at Leycol. I also found reference to Leycol on the Games and Print website that doesn’t look like it has been updated since the 90s! See image attached. http://www.gamesandprint.co.uk/
