Fan-made card

Revision as of 05:10, 6 November 2012 by Zesty Cactus (talk | contribs) (Splitting from the consolidated article Fake cards as counterfeit and fan-made cards should be distinct. Much credit goes to Nick15 for originally writing this.)
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If you were looking for the article about how to identify a counterfeit copy of the regular cards from the Pokémon Trading Card Game, see Counterfeit cards.

A fan-made card or fake card is a general term to denote any kind of custom, fictional or duplicate card based on cards from any particular trading card game, but are created by someone other than the original creators of that game, generally either by fans of the game or by some other company to sell to unsuspecting consumers. Since the release of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, several groups of fans have formed creating their own versions of Pokémon cards, and still continue to do so to this day.

File:000s.missingno.jpg
An example of a Pokémon TCG fan-made image fake card

There are three main categories of fan-made fake cards: fan-made text fakes, custom cards created by fans that exist only in text or written form with very little, if any, imagery used to create the card; Ffan-made custom cards, custom cards created by hand by fans using tangible tools like markers and correction fluid, either using an existing card as a base or using a blank template to draw their card on; and fan-made image fakes, custom cards created by fans using computer and a system of blank cards and other elements to create a completely new card from scratch, including new text and even an image they drew themselves.

Fan-made text fakes

Probably the first kinds of fakes made by fans, text fakes are simple and easy to make. Most message boards with a sizable Pokémon TCG community have a fake card forum as well, like The PokéGym's Create-a-Card forum.

Fan-made custom cards

Another popular method of making fake cards are custom cards, where creators will make their own fakes using tangible art tools. Usually they will take an existing card, cover up many of the existing bits using correction fluid, and writing in their own text. Other methods include using blank templates provided by the staff at various Pokémon TCG tournaments, including Wizards of the Coast's own Create-a-Card templates; these templates had spaces to draw your Pokémon, write in all the text necessary for the card, and sometimes also included a sheet of energy symbols for its attack, type, weakness and resistance.

Beckett Pokémon Unofficial Collector was known to publish fan-made custom cards which had been sent to the magazine.

Fan-made image fakes

Fan-made image fakes make up the largest and most popular fake card community within the Pokémon community. This format was popularized by Nick15 when his first fake, Missingno., was posted on one of the largest Pokémon TCG websites of the day, the PokéCenter at CCGNews.com. Eventually Nick15 began posting his creations on his own website Pokémon Aaah!, as well as instructions on how people can make their own. This system began to grow in popularity and was adopted by other sites, like Pokémon Zeo. Although image fakes are not nearly as popular as they were in the past, there are still plenty of people and sites who continue to promote them, like PokemonCardMaker.ORG. At times these kinds of cards can be found on auction sites like eBay, sold by people who don't know that they aren't real cards to begin with.

External links

  • FakeCard.com Archive of the first Pokémon TCG fake card website, previously known as Pokémon Aaah!, created by Nick15
  • Pokémon Zeo The second ever Pokémon TCG fake card website, created by The Echidna and purity


  This article is part of both Project TCG and Project Fandom, Bulbapedia projects that, together, aim to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon TCG and Fandom, respectively.