This has been done before, in a way! @qwachanseyinvestigated the holo patterns of the Illustrators and was able to conclude that the pkonno extra copies were almost certainly cut from the same sheets as the Illustrators awarded to winners (i.e. not printed in a basement). The tl,dr of the thread is that holo patterns on a sheet are not random and have identifiable repeating parts, you can match up those parts to tell which cards came from the same holo sheet.
With regards to the thread topic, I am skeptical of the idea that multiple high-end trophy cards have been printed recently. I think weāve seen the best efforts of Akabane and others to fake trophies, and they were the very obviously questionable ātest printā trophies. However, I wouldnāt touch any new-to-market trophy just in case. If itās in a CGC case, Iām running for the hills.
Heās been selling through Pkonno for years and years, it could just be someone decided to pay the prices he wanted, or he lowered his prices from the highs we saw on yahoo via Pkonnoās account. Who knows. Iāve heard with no evidence but from long time collectors I respect that most trophies had three sheets printed of each. To me this is far easier to believe, even with the less than ethical source of these cards.
That could very well be the case, I would defer to long term collectors. Iām not fully convinced either but man the past year has been a roller coaster with what is/is not reasonable
I know this comment comes from a general gut feeling, especially considering CGCās recent scam. It makes me think about where we can establish a cut-off for placing trust in a slab.
Whatās the threshold for PSA cert number that you would trust?
CGC blue vs new label slab? Or none?
Does cert number matter if itās a lower tiered trophy? Say non holo victory ring or something under $5k?
The problem is we just donāt know. They could all be real extra copies that just stayed mint for 25 years. Some or all could be real. I think the problem is that it seems Akabane has the means to do it if he wanted to and thereās no reason to think he wouldnāt do it morally. What is the limiting factor? the holosheets? Whatās stopping him from just wiping another sheet he has with acetone and printing on it again? The timing is also extremely suspicious. I would really like to know what he did to have his ties with TPC severed.
Even it we put the odds a 1%-10% they were printed recently, even that is extremely discomforting in my opinion. But I do think itās important to acknowledge we really donāt know.
Not knowing registers very differently today than it did a year ago. I would have mentally dismissed this then. Now, I donāt want to rule anything out.
Looked into it a little more & saw that most of the higher end trophies that were recently graded like TMB & SSB are confirmed to be old copies. TMB for example has 2 officially award copies graded by Nidouken, 3 copies by Flowersandturds (his copies originated from Pkonno) & 3 copies by Rarecandy from that collection they bought. The vast majority of those cards are accounted for within the community as well & mostly confirmed to be acquired years ago.
Also the influx of Japanese high end graded in general coincides with PSA opening their first official grading facility in Japan in 2023. Japanese collectors have become much more open to grading since then, where before they never graded their cards. Plus weāve all seen those incredible Japanese collections with multiple ungraded Unikarps & trophy Kangs over the years. I still think the number of illustrators is highly suspicious & should be investigated though.
those are almost certainly the two where kenny claims he sold one āprivatelyā for $2M and then immediately after (like within 2 weeks) the other was auctioned for like a quarter of that literally makes no sense
Appreciate that, but the SSB and TMB donāt show the spikes the others have seen. Great to see how they trace back.
PSA opening their facility in Japan in 2023 isnāt insignificant. Without CGC data itās all anecdotal, but it feels like more than that. 9 illustrators, 18 trophy kangs, and 17 bi-lingual eggs just seems like so many to be graded in less than a year, and again thatās PSA only.
Like spiffy piffy mentioned, we donāt know anything. I just donāt feel good about it knowing who is likely involved here.
I do think it would be useful if anyone has any insight on how much the culture has changed around grading in Japan. That could explain a lot of it.
But it does not really explain the large CGC submissions I noted above.
Is there any chance that the large surge in grading is due to one (or a few) reclusive collectors who are deciding to grade all at once? If we could figure out who is making the big CGC submissions then that would go a long way towards figuring out where the cards came from.
Relatedly, to the extent that any of this is at all related to the prototype scam, any lawsuit against CGC and/or the others involved could turn up this sort of information in discovery. I would be particularly interested to know what other cards were submitted by the people who submitted the prototype cards. Itās my opinion (and I am a lawyer) that information like that could be fair game for discovery requests. I think that communications between the submitters or middlemen and Akabane would also be plainly fair game in discovery. Needless to say, these documents and communications will be exposed if there are lawsuits relating to the prototype scam.
I think looking for old certs is missing the point. The cards are either real or they are not. A completely correctly printed card on original stock would essentially just be a ārealā copy of the card. I feel weāve had these discussions for many years and itās always interesting when they come back up, especially in the framing of the newest scandal.
It still just seems much more likely to me that they would produce a sheet or a couple of sheets of these cards, because almost no company would ever create just enough to be awarded when producing them. This is not the same type of item that can be easily produced in an extremely accurate way, even with the source files. Texture, gloss, rosette, and many things would be noticably different.
When we have modern cards hitting thousands and thousands and there are millions of copies itās also an interesting piece of perspective for me.
Ultimately Iāve always collected and loved these cards. although I do believe there is plenty of shady things that could happen even outside of Akabane with how much access may have happened in the full gamefreak leak, or who knows what else, I donāt think it takes much away from their appeal for me as it was never just about a singular factor with them.
An unpopular opinion would be that if they were printed into the ground on huge stores of unprinted original cardstock (which is extremely unlikely due to the process) I would just be happy to buy lots at a low cost and enjoy them
I think the larger issue is the integrity of the release. If a card was supposed to only be awarded at a tournament or specific event, yet in the case of the illustrator, there are almost double the estimated copies awarded, it feels disingenuous. I think it ruins the magic when majority of the cards are not awarded copies and no one can say for certain their true origin.
Totally understand what you mean, but I think Iāve learned the lesson too many times at this point that release information is more a general guide than a fact.
When the art academy cards went up for sale, and it was still confirmed one of the winners has their 100 copies sealed it was kind of the true death of that idea for me.
I believe the card game flesh and blood had prize cards that they made a big deal out of destroying all the other copies on the print sheet. Thatās pretty cool. I think itās definitely the exception rather than the rule though.
Iāve lived my whole life by the expression, āIf you donāt laugh, you cry.ā I think itās pretty applicable here because my options are either to enjoy the cards for what theyāve meant to me so far, or to sell my trophies and just be disinterested in the card game as a whole. Any card has the potential, and even the likelyhood that something crappy or shady has happened with it. I wouldnāt blame someone for that sentiment, but I choose to laugh at the absurdity of our development on release quantities and try and enjoy what I can
Thatās a good way to cope! Iām lucky because I know most of my copies were awarded, but I had a call the other day with a newer collector who loves pokemon. He was pumped to buy an illustrator and just wanted to talk over everything with a few veterans. When no one could answer why all these illustrators were available, he decided against buying the card. That call was actually the motivation for me to make this thread, as I was curious where everyone lands.
literally makes no sense