My concern with CGC is based less on the end results of the prototype scandal (for all intents and purposes, a good response) and more the philosophy that led them to grading the cards in the first place. CGC prioritizes relationships with high-end, individual submitters. These submitters receive perks in exchange for grading with CGC. The reason why we got the prototypes to begin with was that CGC took the word of a high-end individual submitter and didn’t do their own due diligence as to the cards’ authenticity. If we’re skeptical about a relative flood of old back trophies, CGC has proven themselves to be not only the most vulnerable to exploitation, but also the most willing to compromise for hype.
I believe it was @HumanForScale on discord who noted that in order to produce convincing fakes, you would need three things:
- Access to original materials (holo cardstock)
- Access to original card images/printing files
- Access to an offset printing facility willing to print the cards
In my opinion, the last one is the hardest to achieve and the reason why we haven’t seen convincing fakes. Finding holo cardstock isn’t all that difficult, anyone could buy an old back sheet on eBay and acetone it if they really wanted to. Akabane gets us one step closer to convincing fakes because he seems to have access to original print files and the desire to use them to make fakes. However, the best we’ve seen from Akabane and his outfit are trophies printed on a consumer office printer. Finding a TCG-equipped offset printer and then actually using it to print cards is a very difficult prospect based on what I’ve heard. Certainly not impossible, but offset printers aren’t just available for walk-in use.
I understand the skepticism of newer trophies because we are closer than we have ever been to convincing fakes coming onto the market. Several years ago it would have been inconceivable that such a thing would happen. The prototype scandal exposed that several key firewalls which we all thought would protect against fakes (sanctity of Pokemon’s founders, major professional grading companies) have been broken. Now, the only thing that seems to be holding us back is that these people haven’t found the right type of printer. In my understanding that’s still a huge (if not the biggest) hurdle to cross, but I can’t blame anyone who takes a step back and says that there’s too much smoke for there not to be fire on things like old trophies.