Very cunning fake?

[piecemeal]

Hi! I'm new to collecting the TCG. I bought a huge lot on eBay and most of them were fakes. I spent several hours going through them and setting apart the real ones. I used the awesome guide from this site to identify the fakes. Also, I downloaded checklists from pokemon.com to keep track of the loot. One of the real cards was Secret Wonders #1 Ampharos. The checklist says this card comes in two foil versions, but the one I have is not a holo or a reverse. It is otherwise indistinguishable from other cards I have that I know are real! It doesn't display any of the hallmarks of the counterfeits described in the guide. Maybe there's something I don't know? That seems more likely than this is a ridiculously accurate fake.

 

[donavannj]

It's probably the one that came from the Powerhouse theme deck for that set.

 

[Rocket_Executive]

Right, it must have been from the theme deck. In the theme decks, they give you a rare card that's normally a holofoil in booster packs, but they're too cheap to make it a holofoil in the deck.

 

[piecemeal]

Interesting. I hit up Bulbapedia for info on theme decks and I noticed that there are also holofoils in the theme decks that aren't holofoil in the set :/ (Electivire in the Powerhouse deck). I'm trying to decide if I care enough to differentiate for collecting purposes. I've limited the scope of the collection so far to exclude Energy, Support, Trainers, and promo material. The first three because they aren't Pokemon and the last because there's just too much of it scattered about and pinning it all down could be spendy. Are the rest of the cards from the theme decks identical to the set versions?

 

[donavannj]

Usually they are identical, yes. Except for the Trainer's Kit ones, which have their own symbol and some of the cards have unique artwork.