Hi guys,
Alexis ask me to bring some light in the mysteries. I will do this gladly. The whole thing regarding the German 4th Edition and Two-Player-Introductory Set is not so easy. This is the story:
German Magic starts in end of 1994 with the Revised Edition. All cards have black borders and in the copyright line the year 1994. This edition is called "Limitierte Auflage" (limited edition) in Germany. This first Germany Edition contains many errors and bad translations. So in early 1995 the set was reprinted with many corrections and many many new different card texts. This set contains the same cards like the "Limitierte Auflage" but has white borders and the year 1995 (!) in the copyright line. This set is called in Germany "Unlimitierte Auflage" (unlimited edition). Additionally, both sets has the 4th Edition frame (!).
So far so good.
But now the things will become complicated: Now the 4th Edition comes out.
The German 4th Editions contains the same cards like the english 4th Edition, has white borders, of course the card face of the 4th Edition and in the copyright line the year 1995 (oops!). Many card texts of the fourth German Edition was the same like in "Unlimitierte Edition". Most of the cards looks the same, so in many cases it wasn't possible to decite in first sight from which Edition a specific card comes. So nearly all players, collectors and dealer mixed (!) their stocks of German 3rd and 4th Editions. For a serious collector now a terrible thing and a big problem.
The Two Player Sets come out with 1996 in the copyright line. Now not so experienced players says there were cards from 4th Edition with 1996...
Because nearly all dealers ignore the problems. I believe there is only a very very small amount of complete true German 4th Edition and "Unlimitierte Auflage" sets in the world (I'm still miss some cards for both sets too!!!).
In the late 90' some serious collectors like Ralph Herold and other (like me,
)) are looking for a solution and an important discovery was made: Wizards used for the card title of German 4th Edition and "Unlimitierte Auflage" slightly different fonts! The differences between both fonts were not big, but in some cases recognizable.
Here is a good example to illustrate the facts (Attention, this is valid only for the card title!!!):
Now it was possible to identify most of the cards. But in some cases this won't work. So far I know it was Ralph Herold who discovered that the distance between the characters in card title and the the border of the card picture was different in German 4th Edition from "Unlimitierte Auflage". So it is now possible to identify all cards. You have only to do a high resolution scans of the cards and compare the distance directly on the scans. It is good to see in the above picture for the letter "g".
Hope that helps.
Mark, you see, that your "Seelenlose Zombies" are not from German 4th Edition. This card is from "Unlimitierte Auflage".
Alexis, I will try to compile a list for your info column (from which Edition the card text comes) within the next days, please be patient a little.
