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 releases

Base Set

• Blastoise: A few Base Set Blastoise were printed without the word "stage" in the "put Blastoise on the stage 1 Pokémon" text.
• Gyarados: A few Base Set Gyarados were printed with the "6/102" too far to the left.
• Fire Energy: The word Energy was spelled Energie.
• Ninetales: A few of Base Set Ninetales lack the damage done for their attacks.
• 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 cards have their HP's 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's 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.
• Sandshrew: Sandshrew's attack says "this attack does nothing" while it's supposed to say "that attack does nothing".
• Voltorb: This card refers to Poké Balls as their Japanese counterparts the Monster Balls.
• Vulpix: A number of these cards have their HP's 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.

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".
• Select Jungle cards: A number of Jungle cards during the last few Jungle print runs were printed without a 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.

Team Rocket

• Dark Arbok and Dark Arbok: Dark Arbok was first printed with extra zeros and the number three was accidentally entered so it was written as "©1999-23000 Wizards".
• Holo Dark Dragonite: 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 lacking space between the words "Pokémon" and "Apply". (Reads "Pokémon.Apply")
• Non-Holo Dark Vileplume: Non-holo Dark Vileplume have a weakness to Fighting instead of Fire.
• Dark Rapidash: Dark Rapidash's stats lacks 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: Dark Raichu's Evolution Box is colored light gray instead of dark gray.

Gym Challenge

• Misty's Seel: All prints of this card have a transparency error; there should not be a white space around Seel's tail.
• Blaine's Charizard: A number of these cards have a Fighting-type symbol instead of the Fire-type symbol.
• Giovanni's Pinsir: Pinsir's "Snapping Pincers" attack is supposed to do 20+ damage and not 10+ damage.
• Rocket's Minefield Gym: This card does not mention how many damage counters are needed to put on a Pokémon for an unsuccessful coin toss (flip).

Neo series

Neo Genesis

• Meganium: The Pokémon Power title text is black instead of red.
• Slowking and Typhlosion: These cards' damages are off the center.
• Horsea: One of the attack cost energy symbols for its attack is oddly off.
• Focus Band: 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

• Scizor: The attack's damage done is "20+" while it's supposed to be "20×".
• Umbreon: The Psychic symbol in Umbreon's resistance is bigger than normal.
• Kakuna: The copyright text of all other Neo Discovery cards is "©1999-2001", but for an unknown reason, this card's copyright is "©1999-2000".

Neo Revelation

• Delibird: The energy cost for Delibird's attack is off the center.
• Raichu: For an unexplained reason the "Put Raichu on the Basic Pokémon" text on the card is unnecessarily bold and italic.
• Zubat: Zubat's resistance lacks the "-30".

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.
• Shining Tyranitar: The word "just" is spelled wrong. It is written as "hust".

Legendary Collection

Legendary Collection

• Reverse Holo Exeggcute: Normally on Reverse Holos, the Energy costs for attacks aren't reflective. On Exeggcute, they are.

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.

EX series

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.
• Latios ex: In its holographic-foil, there's a circular space as if the evolution box was used to cover it up.

EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua

• 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.

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: The Poké-Power was incorrectly stated as a Poké-Body.

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.

Supreme Victors

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

HeartGold & SoulSilver series

HeartGold & SoulSilver

• 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

McDonalds Collection

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

POP Series

POP Series 5

• Zangoose δ: Kouki Saitou's name is misspelled as "Kouki Saito".

Other/Promotional Card

Wizards

• 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 one has been found in this condition and is owned by Matthew Gibson.
• 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 parenthesis 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 misspelled the word Nintendo.
• Some cards lack a front. This is shown here: [1].

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.