And here we are! Finally, I can inaugurate the News section of the website.
Within this section, you’ll find various posts where I’ll provide updates about the world of Pokémon error card collecting. Here, you’ll find recaps of the Comicons I’ll be attending, news about new printing errors released on the market and never seen before, and, as in this case, articles about peculiarities emerging in various communities.
Specifically, I’ve decided to name this column “The Spotlight”. The aim is precisely to shed light on cards that have come out within the groups that deserve to be analyzed and highlighted.
Ivysaur EX Crystal Guardians Prerelease with misaligned gold stamp
The first thing I want to highlight in this column is an auction that took place on the Facebook group “Pokémon TCG: Gotta Misprint ‘Em All” where a person put up for sale a total of 46 copies of the Ivysaur Prerelease Promo from the Crystal Guardians set.
Specifically, all these cards had the gold ‘Prerelease’ stamp misaligned from its usual placement, which is typically at the bottom right of the artwork.
Source: Pokémon TCG: Gotta Misprint ‘Em All
Most of the stamps were printed in the same positions. For this reason, I’ve selected 4 copies where we can see the different positions in which this stamp was mistakenly printed.
As we can see from the picture above, the shadow behind the stamp is printed during the card’s production (which is, of course, in the right place).
Let’s take a look at the stamp itself. Copy #2 has the stamp shifted further down from its placement. However, in the other three copies, we can see that the stamp isn’t just misplaced but is actually tilted upwards or downwards. This could lead us to consider that the printing sheet was incorrectly inserted into the printer or that the printing machine had alignment issues with the gold stamp.
Now, let’s explore how these gold stamps are actually added to the cards (of course, we can’t be 100% certain, but the production process I’ll explain is essentially a standard in the printing industry).
How are gold stamps applied to a Pokémon card?
To apply the gold stamps to the cards, a process called “hot foil printing” is used. In the video below, you can get an idea of how the process works, although, in the case of Pokémon cards, it’s more likely that industrial presses are used rather than manual ones (like in the video).
As seen in the image below, the heated die contains the text to be imprinted onto the card. Once the press is released, the cards end up with the gold stamp.
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