I’ve noticed recently that there seem to be more and more sealed WOTC era booster packs for sale than ever before.
I understand that a lot of people had the foresight to store vast amounts of sealed product back in the day but I just cannot comprehend how there seems to be more available now than ever, especially with how I see people opening them on a daily basis via YouTube or Instagram.
So this got me thinking … I am starting to suspect that someone is counterfeiting booster packs and filling them with legitmate cards.
Prior to starting my Pokemon store I worked as factory engineer and project manager in engineering design. I worked with various packaging machines and I can tell you now that with a relatively small amount of money and a competent level of knowledge, you could easily replicate the WOTC booster pack wrappers. They are a very simple print on foil and crimp design and unlike replicated cards they would be near impossible to detect.
With the current price of booster packs you could easily fill light and heavy packs with legitimate near mint/mint cards (which are easy to source) and sell them on for major profit margins. With the price of heavy base set booster packs you could even afford to buy PSA 8/9 holographics cards, crack them and then repackage them and sell on. In fact the profit margin on this is so large and the process seems so easy I would be shocked if someone isn’t doing this already!
I would love to hear others thoughts on this as I haven’t seen it spoken about before.
For every 1 fake box, there are 100 paranoid buyers. The latter is a bigger issue than the actual amount of fake sealed product. I had to block multiple buyers who asked about vstar universe, “are these legit”?
This is a fair point, paranoid buyers are a major issue that is exacerbated by the attention fake product gets.
What I am suggesting is possible though would likely never be picked up as being fake. If a buyer buys a booster pack listed as heavy and it contains mint legit cards including a mint holo why would they ever suspect otherwise?
Someone could easily be out there constantly recycling mint cards into packets and selling them on at profit.
You could buy a psa 8 Poliwrath for £100, package it with £10 woth of mint non holos and sell a heavy base set booster pack for £500
You have to remember during the height of pokemon in the 90s, certain sports card sets didn’t get a release in 1999 because the printers were full of pokemon cards. I don’t doubt there are the handful of scammers, but its still the exception and not the majority.
I would say I suspect this more because people can make a lot of money out if and from my experience working with packaging machines it doesn’t seem like a hard thing to do.
I feel like scammers are gonna take the easy route and sell “obviously” (to us at least) fake packs/shoddy reseals on ebay than take the time to assemble a “legitimate” heavy pack for a slightly higher profit (if any)
I think most scammers would indeed take the easy route and I also agree with @smpratte in the fact that there are a majority of legitimate sellers and product out there. I probably worded my initial statement wrong in saying that I suspected this because of there being more product on sale right now. What I should of said is that I find it hard to believe that someone isn’t doing this right now.
From my experience for about £10,000-20,000 you could buy the equipment that would allow you replicate the packaging perfectly. It would not take long to recouperate these costs and get into serious profit, even if slowly trickling these packs into the circulating supply.
They are bad because they don’t care about quality and china has extremely relaxed copyright laws. The fact is though they still require expensive machinery to print and package regardless of whether they are shit!
It is not outside the realms of reality to think that at least one person in the world is cunning enough to do it properly and in a way that is near impossible to detect. The fact that they only have to replicate the packaging as well makes it a lot easier to do.
I hate to make generalizations, but most scammers in Pokemon are young and with little money. They’re hustling because they need the extra cash. Most individuals with the requisite education and training to do what you are suggesting would take a relevant engineering/manufacturing job over scamming Pokemon enthusiasts.
What you are suggesting is stepping over dollars to chase pennies.
I think there are just easier ways to make money if you lack the morality. You have to produce and sell $40k-ish worth of packs before even breaking a profit? It’s easier to just participate in the market normally for that kind of money. Distribution is also a bit of a problem, you have to sell all these without people raising an eyebrow.
Where do you source all the mint wotc bulk for this too?
Not to say it can’t be done, but just because something is plausible doesn’t mean it’s necessarily happening. And if you can 1:1 replicate a pack without detection, then does it ultimately matter whether your pack is real or not if there’s no way to tell? More of a philosophy question there
