Pokemon cards are beautifully-made, but with a couple billion cards printed since the TCG began, there's sure to be some errors.

It's easy to make mistakes. Everyone does! Imagine how many times you've produced art, cooked a meal, or written an essay. What percentage of that included a mistake? Now multiply that by several billion. That's a lot of mistakes, but that's how many we're talking about when it comes to the Pokemon TCG. Over two billion cards printed means that error cards are now easier to come across than ever.

RELATED: Pokemon TCG – The Most Nostalgic Cards From The Base Set

It's definitely worth checking through those Pokemon cards stockpiled away in the cupboard — there might be a slight defect on one or two of them, and the fun thing about error cards is that the range of errors is almost endless, and each error card is unique.

Updated June 30, 2022, by Gabrielle Huston: Pokemon card collections only grow with time, so we figured we ought to revisit this article and see what other defects could mean that your cards are worth more than you thought!

With over almost a thousand Pokemon, remembering how to spell them all can be a real test.

Xerneas? Exeggcute? Get outta here.

Apparently, the folks at the Pokemon Company suffer from this too. Pokemon, moves, brands, and illustrators have all been spelled incorrectly. Examples include...

...but rest assured that there are many, many more.

Most of these go unchanged and can be picked up for a couple of bucks online, though the Ancient Mew that reads 'Nintedo' can get a little pricey. Treat misspelled cards with caution, though, as they could also be indicative of a fake.

Miscut cards are just that — miscut. Cards are printed on a large scale.

Sheets of cards that are (usually) 11 by 11 are cut into individuals within the factory,but therein lies the risk of human error. Sometimes, the cards will be slightly misaligned before being divided and this results in cards with thicker or thinner borders than usual.

These are some of the more common error cards, but as one can imagine, cards with more noticeably disproportionate borders are often worth more. The miscut Seaking from Reddit user u/Jurgatron that's featured in the image above is a fantastic example of this.

No, it isn't a Normal-type full-art Reshiram (the Vast White Pokemon!) on a snowy day. This is a pretty extreme printing error. Sometimes, the front of the card will not be printed correctly, resulting in a completely blank card!

What's more, sometimes these cards still retain their holographic foil, resulting in a sparkly white card. These cards are quite a hot commodity within the error card hunting community, so fans will want to keep their eyes peeled.

Prerelease cards are particular cards that are printed with a 'PRERELEASE' or expansion logo stamp to promote a new set, often given out at special events. Legend has it that during the printing of a Jungle Clefable prerelease card, the stamp ended up on a certain number of Base Set Raichus and so the elusive Prerelease Raichu was born.

Considered by some to be the 'Holy Grail' of Pokemon card errors, Prerelease Raichu is a card that is a bit of a mystery. Many deny its existence, and for good reason: there hasn't been an official record of it existing at all, though there are many that claim to own it and it's not hard to find a couple for sale online (note: probably fake).

Very early on in the series, a small set of cards was printed with the wrong backing. Both Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering were handled by the same company — Wizards of The Coast.

Evidently somewhere along the line, Wizards used Magic: The Gathering card stock to print a few Pokemon test cards. Only four have been officially certified as genuine (all Blastoise, which sell for some nice pocket change) but there exist photos of Growlithe and Arcanine cards with the same defect. Other interesting points to note about this card include a small lightning bolt next to Blastoise's HP and the use of a different font to the one we all know and love. Due to its scarcity, this card could match Prerelease Raichu in price.

During the time that the first Pokemon movie was in cinemas, special promo cards were given out to anyone who bought a ticket. These cards were Mewtwo, Electabuzz, Pikachu, and Dragonite. Each was printed with a gold 'Pokemon: The First Movie' stamp in the top right corner of the artwork.

For some reason, a small number of these were flipped during stamping and ended up with the logo on the bottom left of the card instead. While everyone in the schoolyard seemed to have one of the movie promos, the flipped stamp error card is highly rare and can fetch upwards of a few hundred dollars on eBay.

Like most products, Pokemon cards are given a test-run before being mass-produced and sold to the public. Obviously, these test cards will not be able to be sold, so it's important to mark them in some way, shape, or form that says "do not sell me."

"For Position Only" works well, right? No one will want these cards with big ugly white text over the face of their favorite 7ft nightmare cobra, right? Right? Wrong. Over 100 of these cards escaped being thrown away and have appeared on eBay and Pokemon TCG collection sites, all with a price tag that one might have to take out a loan for.

Much like the miscut cards, misaligned holographic cards occur when the holographic foil is moved slightly during printing, creating a 3D or cut-out effect, such as on the Fossil Articuno card pictured.

Misaligned holo cards are somewhat closer to miscuts than 'For Position Only' cards in terms of value, but aren't cheap. Like miscut cards, misaligned holos tend to be worth more based upon how badly misaligned they are. Do note that this error is most common on the pre-E-Series Wizards of The Coast cards.

Returning to a more affordable style of error cards, we have the violent-sounding Holographic Bleed cards. The 'bleed' here refers to the fact that the holographic effect 'bleeds' onto the area of the card that is not usually holographic. See? That's not so bad.

If there's an error most likely to be in someone's collection, it's a bleeder or a miscut. Like most other cards on this list, the degree of error here is what defines the worth of your card (also if it has that big orange lizard on it, it's probably worth a few cents regardless).

There are a fantastic number of text-based errors in the TCG — often minor grammatical mistakes or dropped words, but occasionally something wonderful happens. Sometimes, the higher-ups at Wizards use their power to ensure that their apparent favorite card, Dark Arbok, remains their intellectual property for the next 21,000 years. I mean, it is pretty snazzy — one of Arita's best illustrations, for sure. It's understandable why they'd do this.

That, or it's an uncommon typo on Dark Arbok cards that anyone could nab for $25 online. I prefer the former, to be honest. Still, it's a wonderful addition to any collection, like that of Reddit user u/junkietoons — note the slight holo misalignment on this one, too!

Occasionally, things just don't print right. We all know the pain, right? Printers are the pain of any household's existence - they just never seem to work flawlessly. More often than not, you'll spend a half hour trying to get it to connect to the wifi or recognize your computer.

So, no big surprise that Pokemon card printing also comes with a few mistakes. A common one is an ink stain - it's distinct from the other printing errors we've mentioned, as you can see in the Haunter card displayed above. The ink, usually for the Pokemon's picture, gets smudged, stains the card badly, gets placed where it's not supposed to, etc. Lots of cards over the years have had small errors like this, but they're still uncommon enough to earn you a pretty penny.

Often, information on the cards is printed incorrectly or, in rarer cases, not at all. To be fair, there are a lot of cards to keep track of, with a lot of text on them! They get it right most off the time.

The HPs on Pokemon cards, however, have been misprinted more than once. The most famous example of this is the Dark Persian card. A significant number of them were printed with no HP at all.

Image errors are things that don't fall into the other categories; other than the wonky image, everything about them is fine. It's not a printing process error necessarily - kinda seems like someone just got sent the wrong JPG or something. In some cases, you'd barely notice the difference if you didn't know about it.

That's definitely true for the image above of a Pikachu, which has red cheeks - they should actually be yellow. Unsurprisingly, Pikachu being such a popular Pokemon, misprints of those cards can be especially valuable.

NEXT: The Weirdest Looking Pokémon Trading Cards, Ranked

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Gabrielle "Belle" Huston is a writer and long-time gamer based in Ottawa, Canada. Reach her on Twitter (@TalkToGabrielle) or by email (gabrielle.h@thegamer.com). She's played video games for at least as long as she could write, and vice versa! As a current undergraduate student of journalism, she's seldom away from her computer. Belle uses what little free time she has to play Guild Wars 2 with her partner, work toward that 5-star rating in Animal Crossing, and wonder when the new Dragon Age installment is coming out.