Rocket's Mewtwo ex

Why Mewtwo

Mewtwo rounds out the six Pokémon in the 2025 top ten most-counterfeited characters. Like Gengar, it has been valuable in almost every era — the Base Set holo, the EX and GX printings, and modern alternate arts — so the counterfeits vary enormously.

Base Set Mewtwo

For the 1999 holo, the era's rules apply and they are unusually decisive:

• 1st Edition cards are shadowless. A 1st Edition stamp alongside a drop shadow is a contradiction and indicates a fake
• Genuine holos of this era show a galaxy of stars, not straight lines, and the pattern shifts as the card tilts
• The small copyright line should stay crisp under magnification

Modern Mewtwo

For GX, V and alternate art printings, texture is the deciding check, as it is for every modern chase card. Genuine cards have a consistent raised pattern; most fakes are smooth.

The check that works in every era

The print rosette under 10–30× magnification. Offset printing produces a regular pattern of tiny CMYK dots on every genuine card ever made, and inkjet, laser and scanned reproductions cannot reproduce it. It is the one test that does not need era-specific knowledge.

What changed

Nintendo took over publishing in 2003. The card stock and printing changed, and two things arrive that matter for authentication: reverse holo cards (where the card body is foil and the art window is not) and Pokémon-ex, with their own distinctive foil treatment.

What to check

The reverse holo pattern. Reverse holos in this era use a fine, regular pattern across the whole card body. Counterfeits often reproduce the artwork well and then get the reverse foil visibly wrong — too coarse, too smooth, or smeared rather than patterned.

The ex card's foil. Genuine ex cards have a layered foil that shows depth as the card tilts. A flat, sticker-like shine is a warning sign.

Text sharpness. Nintendo-era printing is very crisp. The attack text and the copyright line should be sharp under magnification, with no bleeding.

Where this era's fakes usually fail

The print rosette. Whatever the era, offset printing produces a regular pattern of tiny CMYK dots under 10–30× magnification. Inkjet and laser reproductions cannot, and no amount of getting the artwork right fixes that.

Read this first

No single check proves a card is real. Every test below has a way of being wrong in both directions: genuine cards that fail it, and counterfeits that pass. Treat them as evidence that accumulates, not as a verdict.

If a card is worth enough that being wrong would hurt, send it to a grading service. That is the only answer that comes with a guarantee.

1. The light test — useful, and the most over-trusted

Hold the card against a bright light and look through the short edge. A genuine modern English card has an opaque dark inner layer and blocks most light. A cheap counterfeit glows, often with the print showing through from the other side.

Where it is wrong, in both directions:

• Genuine cards that fail it. Older Japanese cards use thinner stock and can transmit noticeable light. Textured Special Illustration Rares and POP Series cards behave differently too.
• Fakes that pass it. Modern counterfeits are now made with a dark inner layer specifically to defeat this test. Passing the light test tells you a card is not a cheap fake. It does not tell you the card is real.

2. Print pattern under magnification — the strongest single check

Genuine cards are offset-printed in CMYK, so even flat colour resolves under magnification into a regular repeating pattern of tiny cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots — a rosette. A 10× jeweller's loupe is enough to see it; 30× or more is better.

• Genuine: tiny, round, evenly spaced dots in a consistent rosette.
• Inkjet fake: irregular, elongated dots, or a chaotic spray.
• Laser fake: toner clumping with melted-looking edges.
• Scanned fake: blocky pixel edges, or flat solid colour with no dot structure at all.

This is harder to fake than the light test because it is a property of the printing process rather than of the materials.

3. Texture and surface

Run a fingertip over the card. Genuine cards have a subtle, consistent tooth. Many counterfeits are either glossier and slicker than they should be, or unevenly rough. Collectors often rate texture as the check most likely to catch a "super fake" that already passed the light test.

4. The card back

Compare against a card you know is real:

• The blue should be a specific royal blue — not navy, cobalt, or turquoise
• The thin yellow inner border should be crisp and even in width
• The Poké Ball should have clean, sharp black outlines
• The outer white border should be white, not cream or yellowish

False positive to know about: genuine cards from the Wizards of the Coast era are sometimes badly miscut or off-centre. Poor centring is a condition problem, not evidence of forgery. Judge the print quality and the layers, not the alignment.

5. Font and text

Look at the card name, HP, attack names, damage numbers and especially the tiny copyright line. Genuine text is crisp at every size. Counterfeits tend to be slightly too bold or too thin, with inconsistent letter spacing, and the copyright line is often where it breaks down first — it is small enough that a reproduction smudges it.

6. Holo pattern

Tilt a foil card under a single light. A genuine holo shows a repeating geometric pattern with depth that shifts as the angle changes. Counterfeits often look like a flat holographic sticker laid on top, with a rainbow smear that does not move naturally.

Holo patterns are era-specific, so compare against a card from the same set, not just any holo.

7. Energy symbols

These are fixed artwork and forgers routinely get them subtly wrong. Fire has three distinct flame tongues; Water is a clean droplet; Psychic is a starburst with a specific number of points. Check the Weakness and Resistance formatting too — the multiplier notation is consistent on genuine cards.

8. Compare against a verified image

Pull up a high-resolution image of the same card and set, and compare the artwork crop, the set symbol, the card number, and the illustrator credit. Forgeries are frequently made from a scan of a different printing, so the crop or the set symbol is subtly wrong.

9. If it is already graded

Verify the certification number on the grading company's own website and check that the card in the slab matches the photo on file. Counterfeit slabs exist. On a genuine PSA label, holding it up to light lets you partly see through the label; a forged label with an added paper front will not.

The rip test

Tearing a card shows the black inner layer directly. It is also destructive — it destroys the card. Only ever do this to a card you have already concluded is fake.

When to stop guessing

Counterfeits have improved faster than home tests have. CGC has documented fakes deceptive enough to fool experienced collectors. For any card whose value matters to you, professional grading is the answer, and a seller who refuses to let a high-value card be graded before sale has told you something.