) available. Since it took so long for only one set to face the real world, I would like to raise awareness that supply in Japan has increased significantly over the last couple of weeks. A big shop even had 3 of them available at the same time. Maybe Akabane is printing them, who knows but please be aware if you consider buying this set.
Im sure its naivety on my part but i want to believe that its only because people now realize what they are and can be worth. Probably is forgeries, but i want to believe.
Can confirm, I was in japan for the past week and saw 2 unpeeled sheets and at least 8 raw sets of the trio across different shops. Prices are also around 40% of last auction solds so definitely something fishy going on.
The top image is one of the prototypes, and the bottom is of a PSA graded 2000 Fan Club Porygon. The copyright looks blurrier on the prototype, but could this be due to a difference in image quality? Maybe someone with more experience in photography could answer if its possible for the lower quality to blur font.
A scan may be 10x the camera resolution but no matter how potato-y the camera is it would not explain missing detail like this, or change of shapes. Almost all the characters upon close scrutiny have different shape completely, just like most bad fakes. The copyrights are practically missing the circles, many letters are wobbly, or missing red entirely (see complete hole in “r” in creatures), which is not possible regardless of resolution. Also look at the back white line behind text, the outer gradient. Poorly done, very clearly not a proper gradient. Right side in particular. And look how bad the word reserved looks. I could circle the entire word and creatures, and the red is completely off, as it would be from phony printing job.
Thats what my gut was feeling! I couldn’t makes sense why the font was oddly shaped and/or missing parts of the letters. Its really noticeable in a side by side of the clean potato and dirty potato photos:
I don’t know much about sheets or about the the time frame the legit versions of these cards were made in, but I would just wonder if perhaps these cards would have come on a sheet with a non-white background. I’m thinking something more along the lines of what the vending series cards came on. Also, in the image showing the front of the cards, it’s hard to tell if the moltres has the artifact seen on previously public versions. If it doesn’t, I would be concerned.
That gradient tho…
You can actually see the reduced pixel density within the image itself… Even between legit potato and fake pot@t0. Sounds like a hot potato to me…