Poor print quality?

S

superkalle

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Just bought a box of Diamond & Pearl boosters, and I notice that all the reverse holos from the box are darker in print then the same card I got in booster packs bought last year. The yellow boarder for example is not such a clear and vibrant yellow, but more greenish tint.

Here are some scans. First image shows the varying color. Top two cards are reverse holofoils. Look at the difference in yellow border color. Also look at the bottom card and the strange artifact left of the cats head. That's a brand new card. Looks like a color smear from the printing process.

Difference in color

The next image shows the off-center placement of the card image (top border is much smaller).

Different border size

Anyone else noticed these variances in print quality? I guess the cards must come from different print batches, but is it normal that the color varies so much?
 
I can answer these questions.

The reason why the border is like that is it didn't line up correctly so it came out how it did.
They vary in color because the whole card is shiny, thus the way the light reflects on them.
 
Hi Rai-Guy

Thanks for your input.

I understand the border didn't line-up due to a mishap in manufacturing, but I was wondering if anyone else has seen this on any other card? Is it common? Of the reverse holos I pulled in the booster box, about 10% were misalligned.

Regarding greenish tint, I have many other reverse holos that don't have this greenish-yellow looking border. I was thinking maybe there is a new manufacturing process at Nintendo? Or maybe it's simply poor quality consistency during printing? Has anyone else seen this color tint and reacted?
 
The poor print quality I've seen is regarding regular holos. I recently got a couple SW boosters, and pulled a holo Venasaur and a holo Gardevoir. However, the whole card was holographic, not just the background of the image.

And yesterday, I got 2 MD boosters, and got a holo Leafeon, who's holo on the whole card as well.
 
out of the billions of pokecards that are printed, some have to be damaged (if only it wasn't me who got them lol)
 
superkalle said:
I understand the border didn't line-up due to a mishap in manufacturing, but I was wondering if anyone else has seen this on any other card? Is it common? Of the reverse holos I pulled in the booster box, about 10% were misalligned.
Click to expand...

I have plenty of cards with such an issue, not only in Pokemon, but in plenty of other card games as well. It's a fairly common occurence in any game. When the cards were being cut from their sheet, there was a mishap. Basically, the extra part of the border on the bottom was supposed the top border of another card, but was cut incorrectly.
 
the border thing is common, i have a darkrai lv.X thats like that at the top, its really no big deal as long as the cards are in good condition
 
OK, thanks for the replies everyone!

Now I know more about the missaligned cards. Maybe I should almost concider them rare error-prints :) Still I find it a bit strange that Nintendo can't cut the cards correctly concidering they are so expensive to buy.

Of curiosity, does anyone know how the cards are manufactured? I mean, do they make 10.000 of one card, then re-tool to make the next card and so forth? And how do they package the cards so they are randomized? Anyone has some insight?
 
I was thinking this several minutes ago. They probably have conveyer belts spinning [randomizer] into packages which are then are sealed then scoushed closed. I'm thinking this because I've seen similair on How it's Made.
 
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