• Hole1
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Topic: 4th or FWB or?

I just came across a few cards in my collection where I am unsure which edition (4th or FWB or?) they are.
I found the following information: FWB uses a slash above lowercase i and j in the card titles, 4th Edition uses a round dot; in 4th Edition cards, the dots of ä, ö and ü in the card titles are shifted to the left.

First card is "Amrou Kithkin" in german, white borderd and copyright 1995.
The lowercase i uses a round dot.
So it should be 4th edition.

Second card is "Amrou Kithkin" in english, white borderd and copyright 1995.
The lowercase i uses a slash above.
So it should be FWB edition but what I know, FWB only uses french, german and italian language.

Where is my mistake or is there an edition which I don´t know?

Re: 4th or FWB or?

Hole1 wrote:

I found the following information: FWB uses a slash above lowercase i and j in the card titles, 4th Edition uses a round dot; in 4th Edition cards, the dots of ä, ö and ü in the card titles are shifted to the left.

First card is "Amrou Kithkin" in german, white borderd and copyright 1995.
The lowercase i uses a round dot.
So it should be 4th edition.

Second card is "Amrou Kithkin" in english, white borderd and copyright 1995.
The lowercase i uses a slash above.
So it should be FWB edition but what I know, FWB only uses french, german and italian language.

You are correct -- Revised FWB is only for the French, German, and Italian languages, while 4ed Edition FWB is only for Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. To identify English cards, you only need to look at the copyright line -- Revised uses the large-print copyright "Illus. © [Artist Name]" style, whereas 4th Edition uses the small-print, two-line copyright. There's no need to check the typography of English cards.

The test you are referencing is only necessary because Revised edition foreign cards no longer used the original large-print copyright line, but instead the 4th Edition style copyright. Because of both that change and the fact that they share a copyright date, the only way to distinguish FWB Revised from foreign 4th Edition cards (French, German, Italian only) are tests like the above one, as well as comparing alignment and line breaks.

TL;DR -- Both of your cards are from 4th Edition.

  • Hole1
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Re: 4th or FWB or?

Thank you for your explanation and help!

Re: 4th or FWB or?

Revised FWB French has a copyright of 1994 which makes it easy

Both German and Italian have a copyright of 1995. Italian has the copyright info in a weird bolder font. The creature power/toughness is also a large font that just looks wrong (I see if I can take a picture of one I have)

German FWB revised vs 4th Edition is the hardest. You have to look at the beveled borders and even that is complicated

I used to have a full FWB/FBB set and collected these cards for years. Sold most but I still have some around

Re: 4th or FWB or?

Here is the FWB Italian Roc. You can see the funky bolding in the copyright line
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48760189771_b5320e87a6_k.jpg

And the FWB German Gargoyle:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48760378622_7190a03a11_k.jpg

Last edited by Derby_MH (2019-09-19 16:51:07)

Re: 4th or FWB or?

As I’ve looked over more and more cards, FWB Italian seems to also have normal bolding at the bottom and normal P/T numbers. Having a 4th edition counterpart helps (though I highly doubt people have that many cards on hand)