Error cards

Error cards are cards in the TCG that have certain elements on the card that are incorrect. The errors on these cards vary from minor to major errors. Often there are only a very small amount of these cards available which make these cards sought after by collectors.

Original Series

Base Set

File:BS68Vulpix-HP50.png

Vulpix listed "HP ##" instead of "## HP".

• Blastoise: A few Base Set Blastoise were printed without the word "stage" in the "put Blastoise on the stage 1 Pokémon" text.
• Gyarados: Most Base Set Gyarados were printed with the "6/102" too far to the left.

• Ninetales: A few Shadowless Ninetales lack the damage done for their attacks.
• Machamp: Some cards were printed with the holo background in the Japanese Galaxy style (ie Round stars instead of pointed.)
• Kakuna: This card has the word "length" repeated twice.
• Wartortle: A number of Wartortle have pictures of Wartortle in its evolution box or have a small type symbol next to the HP.
• Bulbasaur: This card has the word "length" repeated twice.
• Caterpie: A number of these cards have their HP listed as "HP ##" instead of "## HP".
• Diglett: A number of Diglett have their attack energy cost symbols rotated 90 degrees.
• Metapod: A number of Metapod cards have their HP listed as "HP ##" instead of "## HP".
• Pikachu: A number of Pikachu cards had a number of minor errors in their flavor text and image, such as the Pikachu having red cheeks. This Pikachu is the most commonly known misprint.
• Pikachu: A few copies of 1st edition Pikachu have a misprinted 1st Edition logo which is only partially printed with the "1st“ and the letter "d“ in "edition" missing.
• Sandshrew: A number of these cards have Sandshrew's attack say "this attack does nothing" while it's supposed to say "that attack does nothing".
• 1st Edition Staryu: This card has 5 typos in its description.
• Voltorb: This card refers to Poké Balls as their Japanese counterparts the Monster Balls.
• Vulpix: A number of these cards have their HP listed as "HP ##" instead of "## HP".
• Water Energy: A number of these cards have no space between the margin and the water symbol, along with "ENERGY".
• Select Base Set cards: Some Base Set cards had their Energy symbols not centered.

Base Set 2

• Seaking: Card reads "Put Seaking on the Stage 1 card" when it should say "Put Seaking on the Basic Pokémon"

Jungle

• 1st Edition Electrode: A number of Jungle Electrode have the image of Base Set Electrode.
• 1st Edition Butterfree: Due to a bubble in the printing ink, a number of Butterfree Cards were written as "Edition d" instead of "Edition 1".
• Rapidash and Seaking: Seaking and Rapidash are Stage 1 Pokémon but the text tells the person playing the cards to "put XXX on the Stage 1 card". This error applies to both 1st and Normal Edition sets.
• Jolteon: Some Japanese holofoil Jolteon cards do not have the hole punched out on the foil for the previous evolution art window.
• Select Jungle cards: In an early print run of the Jungle set, all 16 holographic cards were printed without the Jungle Symbol.

Fossil

• 1st Edition Holo Zapdos : A number of Fossil Holo Zapdos cards have a space for the evolution box punched out of the holographic foil, even though Zapdos is a Basic Pokémon.
• Normal Edition Holo Zapdos : A number of Fossil Holo Zapdos cards have a space for the evolution box punched out of the holographic foil, even though Zapdos is a Basic Pokémon.

Team Rocket

Dark Golbat reads as "Pokémon.Apply"

• Holo Dark Arbok and Rare Dark Arbok (1st & Normal Edition): Dark Arbok was printed with the number three accidentally inserted into 2000, so it was written as "©1999-23000 Wizards".
• Holo Dark Dragonite (1st & Normal Edition): The attack cost symbols for Holo Dark Dragonite are not centered. Also, a number (around 5000 cards) of this card were accidentally printed as non-holographic.
• Dark Golbat (holo and non-holo): The English Pokémon Power mentions "Apply Weakness and Resistance", while in the Master Rules Document, the Japanese Dark Golbat's Pokémon Power says "Don't apply Weakness and Resistance." There is also a lack of space between the words "Pokémon" and "Apply". (Reads "Pokémon.Apply")
• Non-Holo Dark Vileplume (1st & Normal Edition): Non-holo Dark Vileplume have a weakness to Fighting instead of Fire.
• Dark Rapidash: Dark Rapidash's stats lack the word "Length".
• Grimer: English Team Rocket's Grimer's Poison Gas attack puts Pokémon to sleep, although the Japanese version Poisons them.
• Dark Raichu (1st and Normal Edition): Dark Raichu's Evolution Box is colored light gray instead of dark gray. Additionally, the card reads "Put Raichu on the Basic Pokémon" instead of "Put Dark Raichu on the Basic Pokémon". This wording error was fixed for the Legendary Collection reprint.

Gym Heroes

• Rocket's Scyther: In the first attack there is incorrect extra text of "or is evolved)."

Gym Challenge

• Misty's Seel (1st and Normal Edition): All prints of this card have a transparency error; there should not be a white space around Seel's tail.
• Blaine's Charizard (1st and Normal Edition): Early prints of these cards have a Fighting-type symbol instead of the Fire-type symbol. Also, "energy" is misspelt with a small "e" instead of a capital "E".
• Blaine's Charizard : In late print runs of the Normal Edition the Fire-type symbol was corrected but the small "e" in energy remained.
• Giovanni's Pinsir (1st and Normal Edition): Pinsir's "Snapping Pincers" attack is supposed to do 20+ damage and not 10+ damage.
• Rocket's Minefield Gym (1st and Normal Edition): Early prints of this card do not mention how many damage counters are needed to put on a Pokémon.

Neo Series

Neo Genesis

Focus Band has a white bar below its picture, due to a presumed misalignment.

• Meganium (1st and Normal Edition): The Pokémon Power title text is black instead of red.
• Slowking and Typhlosion (1st and Normal Edition): These cards' damages are off the center.
• Horsea (1st and Normal Edition): One of the attack cost energy symbols for its attack is oddly off.
• Natu: Energy symbols for attack are moved to left margin
• Focus Band (1st and Normal Edition): The picture on the Focus Band has a white bar beneath it, apparently due to being improperly positioned during the card's design process.

Neo Discovery

• Holo Scizor and Rare Scizor (1st and Normal Edition): The attack's damage done is "20+" while it's supposed to be "20×".
• Umbreon (1st and Normal Edition): The Psychic symbol in Umbreon's resistance is bigger than normal.
• Kakuna (1st and Normal Edition): The copyright text of all other Neo Discovery cards is "©1995-2001", but for an unknown reason, this card's copyright is "©1995-2000".
• Unown O (1st and Normal Edition): The first sentence of Pokémon Power should have the text "Once during your turn"

Neo Revelation

• Delibird (1st and Normal Edition): The energy cost for Delibird's attack is off the center.
• Raichu (1st and Normal Edition): For an unexplained reason the "Put Raichu on the Basic Pokémon" text on the card is unnecessarily bold and italic.
• Zubat (1st and Normal Edition): Zubat's resistance lacks the "-30".
• Houndoom (1st and Normal Edition): A small number of these cards were printed where the complete picture is holographic (normally only the upper part is holographic.)

Neo Destiny

• Dark Croconaw: The card's Pokédex entry states that Croconaw has 49 teeth, but it only has 48.
• Dark Exeggutor: There is an unnecessary letter C in Exeggutor's name.
• Dark Haunter: Dark Haunter's "Call Back" attack's clause leaves out the word "opponent's".
• Light Flareon: The "b" in "benched" is not capitalized.
• Togepi: The "before applying Weakness and Resistance" text should be in italics.
• Unown C: Unown C's "Chase" Pokémon Power adds an unnecessary "Apply Weakness and Resistance" even though the attack does not inflict damage.
• Unown P: There is an extra space in the Basic Pokémon title on Unown P.
• Gligar: The energy symbols on Gligar are not in the correct position. Also, in the description beneath the picture the Pokemon Type is missing the "n" from Flyscorpion. This applies to both 1st and Normal Editions.
• Shining Tyranitar: The word "just" is spelled wrong. It is written as "hust".

Legendary Collection Series

Legendary Collection

• Reverse Holo Exeggcute: Normally on Reverse Holos, the Energy costs for attacks aren't reflective. On Exeggcute, they are.
• Holo Dark Raichu: Electricity on the tail is holographic, which is inconsistent with the original Team Rocket illustration. This misprint causes the tail of Dark Raichu to look disembodied.

e-Card series

Expedition Base Set

• Alakazam: The "This power stops working if..." text is italicized while it is not supposed to be.
• Dugtrio: Its Attack Energy Costs Symbols are larger than the standard size.
• Gengar: Gengar's Chaos Move Pokémon Power game text has a few spots where the text could go up a line.
• Charizard: This card tells the player to "Put Charizard on the Basic Pokémon".
• Totodile: When Cyndaquil's card is scanned with the e-Reader a "Cynda!" sound is added to the Melody Box. Totodile being scanned, however, adds "Wani!" rather than "Toto!". As Chikorita and Pikachu (two other cards which received this effect) have the same English and Japanese names, it is unknown if Totodile's was the error, or if Cyndaquil's is.
• Energy Removal 2 and Multi Technical Machine 01: When these cards are scanned with the e-Reader, the TM01 card names the card's move as "Paralyzing Stare" (on the card, it is "Paralyzing Gaze"), and the reader refers to "Energy Removal 2" as the ordinary "Energy Removal".
• Darkness Energy: The card text implies that it can add to damage done to benched Pokémon, which normally cannot be increased.

Aquapolis

• Crystal Nidoking: The Crystal Type Pokémon mentions Grass/Lightning/Fire energy, but the Crystal Nidoking's attacks only use Grass/Lightning/Fighting energy.
• Reverse Holo Lanturn: There's a Poké-Body icon on it for no specific reason at all.
• Magnemite: The text on this card is quite faded as opposed to other Metal Pokémon in the set.
• Weakness Guard: The "Attach this card..." text is in its own separate paragraph, unlike other cards in the past.
• Ariados: In its Spider Force attack, it should say "Defending Pokémon", not "defending Pokémon". This error is not present in the non-holographic version.
• Rare Holo Cards: For some reason, the bottommost cut out on the left side of the card is not holographic.

Skyridge

• Nidoqueen: The period is misplaced at the left of the end of Nidoqueen's last attack. This applies to the Holo, Rare and Reverse Holo versions of the card.

EX Series

EX Emerald

• Blaziken: The card was printed with "1/106" but is Not a Holographic-foil.
• Manectric: The card was printed with "7/106" but is Not a Holographic-foil.
• Sceptile: The card was printed with "10/106" but is Not a Holographic-foil.

EX Ruby & Sapphire

• Slakoth: For some reason, the last "f" in the attack "Slack Off" isn't bolded.

EX Sandstorm

• Vigoroth: there is a grammatical error under its "Focus Energy" attack where it says "Vigoroth's Slash is attack".
• Marill: This card is supposed to have a Retreat Cost of 1 but a third to a half of these cards were printed with a Retreat Cost of 0. Alternate Holo version of this card don't have this error.

EX Dragon

• Combusken: The card was printed as Stage 2 while it is supposed to be Stage 1. Only cards that were printed from EX Battle Stadium set have this error.
• Latias ex: In its holographic-foil, there's a circular space as if the evolution box was used to cover it up.
• Latios ex: In its holographic-foil, there's a circular space as if the evolution box was used to cover it up.
• Magnemite: The reverse holo version of this card has a white circle where the Resistance would be.

EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua

Some EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua cards have the Retreat Cost energy misaligned to the right.

• Team Aqua's Crawdaunt: The Retreat Cost energy is supposed to be centered under "Retreat Cost". It is misaligned to the right.
• Team Magma's Claydol: The Retreat Cost energy is supposed to be centered under "Retreat Cost". It is misaligned to the right.
• Team Magma's Torkoal: The Retreat Cost energy is supposed to be centered under "Retreat Cost". It is misaligned to the right.
• Team Aqua's Sharpedo: A few of these cards say "Evolves from Team Aqua's Spheal" instead of Carvanha.
• Team Magma's Camerupt: In the Poké-Power explanation the second Magma's was misspelled as "Mamga's".
• Team Magma's Baltoy: Under the "Psymist" attack, it reads "choose 1 of you opponent's". It should read "choose 1 of your opponent's"
• Team Magma Belt: The "T" in Pokémon Tool isn't capitalized.
• Absol: The lower texts "Weakness", "Resistance" and "Retreat Cost" have been printed in white, not black. Also at the end of the first sentence of Feint Attack, Pokémon is missing the accent over the “e“.

EX FireRed & LeafGreen

• Hypno: The word Drowzee under the evolution box was written as "Drowsee".
• Drowzee: Drowzee was misspelled as "Drowsee".
• Gastly: The card is a common card, but it says it's an uncommon card.
• Magikarp: The card is a common card, but it says it's an uncommon card.

EX Deoxys

• Starmie: In the evolution box, the picture of Staryu is Ken Sugimori's stock art from Pokémon Red and Blue, used in earlier TCG cards, rather than the stock art from Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, which had been used since the release of EX FireRed & LeafGreen for Generation I Pokémon like Staryu.

EX Crystal Guardians

• Select Crystal Guardians cards: Some of these cards have some of their attacks' descriptions spelled wrong.

EX Power Keepers

• Charmeleon: Some prints of this card indicate that this Pokémon evolves from Vulpix, despite having a picture of Charmander.

Diamond & Pearl Series

Diamond & Pearl

Empoleon LV.X's icon is misprinted as Poké-Body instead of Poké-Power.

• Empoleon LV.X: In early print runs the Poké-Power was incorrectly stated as a Poké-Body. This was fixed for Tin Promos.

Mysterious Treasures

• Select Mysterious Treasures cards: A number of cards from this set have their yellow border off-balance.

Diamond & Pearl Trainer Kit

• Riolu (Trainer Kit 6): The total number of cards in the Trainer Kit set is misprinted as 61. The correct number of cards in the set is 11.

Secret Wonders

• Mew: Mew's stats lacks the second "s" in the word species.
• Breloom: A few cards of Breloom for the move Drain Punch, it says "Remove from Breloon a numbe of damage counters equal to the amount of Energy attached to the Defending Pokémon." "Number" is missing a "r" and "Breloom" has an "n" instead of "m" at the end.

Great Encounters

• Dialga: The illustrator is erroneously credited as Daisuke Ito, instead of Nakaoka.

Majestic Dawn

• Old Amber: The font of the "50" in the cards HP is incorrect. It is actually the font used for Trainer cards' titles, as well as other titles such as Pokémon and attack names, even though HP and attack costs use a different font.

Stormfront

• Mamoswine: The Pokédex number listed on the card is 474; however, Mamoswine's Pokédex number is 473.
• Gastly: The effect of the first attack was printed "you opponent" instead of "your opponent".

Platinum Series

Platinum

• Dialga #23: Some reverse-holographic prints of the card are printed as Pokémon instead of the correct .
• Dialga G LV.X: Some prints of this card that were included in the Clash of Legends promotional box have misprinted Energy symbols for weakness and resistance; the background of Dialga's weakness was yellow, and the background of Dialga's resistance was light blue.
• Bronzong G: The Weakness and Resistance were switched on this card, with it having a Weakness and a Resistance.

Rising Rivals

• Luxray GL LV.X: On some copies of this card, the copyright date is both 2008 and 2009, with the eight and nine overlapping.

Supreme Victors

• Pachirisu #118: On this card, "EleSquirrel" is misformatted as "Elesquirrel".

HeartGold & SoulSilver Series

HeartGold & SoulSilver

• Ninetales: A promotional version of this card included in the Template:Merch was incorrectly printed with the Undaunted Set Symbol instead of the HeartGold & SoulSilver Symbol.
• Vulpix: A promotional version of this card included in the Template:Merch was incorrectly printed with the Undaunted Set Symbol instead of the HeartGold & SoulSilver Symbol.
• Lugia LEGEND: The word "It" is misspelled as "IIt" in the Pokédex entry.

Undaunted

• Some card backings on Undaunted cards are unusually lighter than others.

Triumphant

• Psyduck: The word "Flip" is misspelled as "Filp" in Tripping Headbutt.
• Weepinbell: The word "Flip" is misspelled as "Filp" in Corrode Target.

Call of Legends

• Phanpy: In some early prints, the name "Phanpy" was misspelled as "Phanphy" twice in the Ultra-Thick Skin Poké-Body.

Black & White Series

Black & White

• Zekrom: Some copies of this card were printed with a grey background instead of the usual black one.

McDonald's Collection

• Maractus: The Height is misprinted as 3'07" instead of the correct 3'03".

Next Destinies

• Zoroark: The graphic border near the HP is the graphic used for Stage 2 Pokémon, though Zoroark is a Stage 1. The error was eventually corrected in later print runs.

Dark Explorers

• Many cards in this set are miscut, as miscuts in this set exceed averages of other sets.

Dragons Exalted

• Hoppip: The Pokédex entry on this card is Skiploom's Pokémon Black and White Pokédex entry instead of Hoppip's. The error was eventually corrected in later print runs.

Dragon Vault

• Exp. Share: The card was printed without the Pokémon Tool rule.

Plasma Storm

• Charizard: Scorching Fire displays the energy requirement with a Fighting Energy instead of the Fire Energy that the card this card is a reprint and the Japanese version of this card of require.

Plasma Blast

• Blastoise: A promotional print of this card included in the Template:Merch erroneously lists the copyright as ©2012 even though the Plasma Blast expansion was released in 2013 and the XY Blisters in 2014.

BW Black Star Promos

• Altaria: The illustrator erroneously credits HiRON as the illustrator instead of 5ban Graphics.

POP Series

POP Series 5

• Mew δ: Numerous cards were printed with the back printed upside down.
• Zangoose δ: Kouki Saitou's name is misspelled as "Kouki Saito".

Other/Promotional Cards

Wizards

Prerelease Raichu

• Prerelease Raichu: Arguably the rarest card printed by Wizards. Rumored to have been about 6 to 50 made, some of which were retrieved by Wizards themselves. These cards came about during the printing of prerelease Clefable from Jungle, when some Base Set Raichu cards were attached to the side of sheets of Clefable cards. Wizards staff denied their existence for years, but have since confessed to the card's existence.
• Pikachu: Promotional Pikachu #1 was accidentally released with 1st Edition Jungle, with a 1st Edition symbol on it.
• Mewtwo: Promotional Mewtwo #3 was accidentally printed with the Pokémon the First Movie logo upside down in the lower left corner. So far only three have been found in this condition.
• Meowth: The HP is nudged too far over to the left, and the attack cost symbols are much smaller than the normal cost.
• Eevee: Promotional Eevee's Pokémon Power text lacks the accent mark (it's e instead of é).
• Dark Persian: A number of Dark Persian were printed without any HP.
• Team Rocket's Meowth: Team Rocket's Meowth species is listed as "Scratchcat" instead of "Scratch Cat".
• Marill: Its "Length" stat is listed as "Height" instead of "Length", its Water Gun attack is missing a Water energy symbol and its 20+ damage done is off the center.
• Scyther: Scyther's game text in the parentheses isn't in italics.
• Mew: Mew's attack: "Psyshock" inflicts confusion instead of paralysis.
• Celebi: The art is credited to "Hajime Kusajim," a misspelling of Hajime Kusajima.
• Slowking: Slowking's length is listed as 6' 8" instead of 6' 7".
• Promotional Hitmonchan: Hitmonchan's HP is written as 60 instead of 70.

Nintendo

• Ancient Mew: When it was first being printed in Japan, the copyright text was misspelled "Nintedo" instead of Nintendo.

DP Promos

• Carnivine G: Copies of this card read 80HP instead of HP80.
• Probopass G: Copies of this card read 90HP instead of HP90.
• 2008 and 2009 Burger King promotional cards: A fair amount of the cards, if not all, were printed with the content closer to the left. This is more easily seen in the 2009 promotion.