Old Back Japanese Pokemon Promo Cards: Celebi, Wartortle and Giovanni’s Machamp

What “Old Back” Means

“Old back” (旧裏面) describes the reverse-side card design used before Pokemon’s modern Japanese card back, not a specific set or era with a fixed start and end date. Collectors apply it to promos and early expansion cards that carry that older reverse design, and all three cards in this guide fall into that bucket.

What we cannot do is date them precisely or attach production history from memory. The official Pokemon card database does not index old-back cards; none of these three has a database entry, and the oldest Celebi and Wartortle entries the database does carry are from a much later era than an old-back promo would be. Every identifying detail below — the card number, the set code, the promotion name — comes from our own product listing for that card, not from the database. We label it that way throughout, and we do not add illustrators, print years, or distribution details that aren’t in that listing text.

Wartortle: Old Back [PMCG-P No.008]

Our listing names this card Wartortle, Old Back, card number 008, set code PMCG-P, described as an “Old Back Promotion Card” tied to a “Southern Island movie release commemoration.” As with the Celebi, that promotion description and the number/code pairing are from our listing text only — the database does not index this card, so we cannot confirm additional detail about the Southern Island promotion beyond that name.

We currently list this card graded PSA 10 at ¥93,600 (~$608), the lowest-priced of the three old-back cards in this guide. No dated marketplace figure exists for it in this update.

For more, see our existing Wartortle card guide.

What PSA 10 Means on a Card This Old

PSA’s own grading standards page describes a Gem Mint 10 as “a virtually perfect card,” with “four perfectly sharp corners, sharp focus and full original gloss,” free of staining, with centering inside “approximately 55/45 percent on the front, and 75/25 percent on the reverse.” That standard does not change based on how old the card is or whether it appears in the official database — grading is a physical assessment of the card in hand, done after PSA authenticates it as genuine.

Our own condition guide breaks that standard into four checks graders apply: centering (how evenly the image sits within the border, front and back), corners (all four must be sharp for a 10), edges (checked for whitening, chipping, or roughness), and surface (gloss and freedom from staining or print defects). For an old-back promo with no database record, this is what a PSA 10 grade is actually certifying — the physical card, not its listing history.

We do not publish population numbers, grading fees, or turnaround times for these cards, and we are not going to guess at how rare a PSA 10 is for a promo this obscure. If you want that detail, PSA’s own population report and grading standards pages are the source to check directly.

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