DALLAS, TX.- In the early days of the English Pokémon Trading Card Game, game publisher Wizards of the Coast hosted test league events where players learned the game. Four official prerelease promo cards — Jungle, Fossil, Team Rocket and Gym Heroes — were awarded at these test league events. Whispers of a fifth prerelease card spread for years but were never officially confirmed. During production of the Prerelease Jungle Clefable, the story went, a handful of Base Set Raichu cards were also marked “Prerelease” by mistake, but the error was never publicly acknowledged. The affected cards were dismissed as rumor until 2006, when a former Wizards of the Coast employee produced undeniable photographic evidence.

Today, serious collectors can bid on the mysterious and extraordinarily rare Prerelease Raichu in Heritage’s Sept. 19-20 Trading Card Games Signature® Auction.

Damon Edmondson, a Wizards of the Coast project manager, got his hands on two copies in 1999 when a colleague cleaning her desk happened upon a pair of the Raichu Prereleases and gave them to Edmondson, who passed one on to another Wizards employee as a gift and carefully preserved his own for nearly 25 years. So far, Edmondson’s is the only copy to be authenticated and encapsulated by PSA.

“PSA generally restricts grading to items that were officially released, either made available for purchase through retail channels or distributed at sanctioned tournaments,” says Heritage Auctions Trading Card Games Consignment Director Jesus Garcia. “This example was the result of a factory error. In such instances, PSA’s policy is typically not to grade the card unless it was part of an official release. For the company to make an exception, it must be absolutely certain of the card’s authenticity.”

In this case, they were able to confirm Edmondson’s employment at Wizards of the Coast and the legitimacy of the card.

“It’s really exciting for us to be able to offer this incredibly rare piece of Pokémon Trading Card Game history,” Garcia says.

Also in 1999, before the release of the Pokémon Base Set, Wizards of the Coast — which created the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering — created a variety of test proofs, some of which had Pokémon fronts and Magic backs. This Pokémon Charmander Magic: The Gathering Stock Swamp Test Proof appears to have the front of Charmander 46 from the Base Set printed on the back, with text and shadows missing.

Another highlight of this auction is the Black Lotus Limited Edition card from the Alpha version of Magic: The Gathering. Adding to its rarity is the autograph by the creator of the game, Richard Garfield, who rarely signs autographs, Garcia adds.

Pokémon celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021 with a Creatures Deck half deck sealed box given to staff members, illustrators and others. The gift box included 30 cards that each symbolized a year from 1995 to 2021, with three cards representing the founding of Creatures, Inc.

“They never disclosed how many were produced,” Garcia says. “People received them without any prior notice, as there was no official announcement regarding their release or the quantity manufactured.”

One of those boxes, sealed, will end up in the hands of a passionate collector.

Other top lots include a Yu-Gi-Oh! Blue-Eyes White Dragon 20th Anniversary Gold Edition with its original box and an original sketch of Blaziken, Blastoise and Buizel, signed by illustrator Masakazu Fukuda.