inb4 investing in CT scanners was the play all along
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I look forward to more chase cards being pulled after confirming whats in the pack.
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During the peak of the COVID explosion in popularity, there was a guy near me that was caught going to target and using a digital micrometer to measure the thickness of packs to find foils… not sure if it worked but equally as insane
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I have a few thoughts
I didnt even consider this, this could be more downward pressure on wotc holos if people decide to rip the good pulls and not the “bad” pulls (same way people rip heavies now and keep lights sealed)
I didnt like it at first and even tho seeing vintage packs listed with the card inside (and honestly this whole situation) seems kinda insane, i can definitely see this happening. And im not gonna lie, i dont hate it. It would be kinda cool to have a nidoking pack from base for example. Im sure there will be legitmately unchecked packs floating around from trusted sources, same way u can still find unweighed.
It will also be interesting to see how each holo affects pack price bc ur losing money on several of them. Could provide a cheaper opportunity for heavy packs of “lesser” holos, but the hit packs will go up, so kinda a double edged sword.
The implications of this are wild. Imagine people selling guaranteed gengar Vmax SIR packs 20 years from now and the scams that would also follow up
If this is as valid as it seems, surely someone is going to try and turn this into a chargeable service. And the whole roller coaster that comes with that.
I’m glad I am semi-retired already.
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After sleeping on the idea and putting on my scumbagpratte thinking cap, I think the biggest issue is the ability to switch out a pack. Lets say there is a service that provides a photo of the hit, what stops someone from just getting an identical pack and attaching the photo to the listing?
Unless there is a physical denotation or something added by a company to the specific pack, that is going to be an issue. Especially if it’s “just an opinion”. Or if buyers keep the pack sealed and then sell it with the false information. It’s just going to be more messy than something more definitive like the grade of a card or weight of a pack.
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Sender needs to put pack inside a team bag with security seal and provide an additional security seal and team bag. Service providers need to video whole process and re-pack with provided security seal and team bag.
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When it becomes financially worth it to scan the 800 FS packs required to find a gengar vmax, I will hopefully be long gone and my children’s children will as well
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Im all for the oversimplification of this method so people will spend money only to find that you need specific software, specific training, and specific understanding to get usable results. Its already been shared all over but nobody focuses on the difficulty of the process to get results.
The reason weighing is always assumed is because anyone can do it for $10. Not many people have the space or ability to do this. As pfm said, research labs, some universities, people who own their own machine, (hospitals are generally very strict about use of the equipment). But of that, very few are going to spend their resources doing this method when the return is marginal.
Why marginal? A weighted base pack will land you a charizard 1:16 odds. When you already are paying a few hundred for the pack, the only reason to open is gambling for a high quality charizard and this doesnt show condition so it could range psa7-10. The odds are so small already and doing this doesnt really help other than confirming the hit, not worth the extra radiation to most. I think (and hope) its just a topic now because its new but that people will soon realize it really isnt overly helpful information. Maybe guaranteed charizard packs go up, but everything else might slip a bit as people assume everything is searched.
This opinion changes if boxes can be accurately scanned which as of now continues to be uncharted territory.
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I researched a little too, and realized that the CT scan takes “slices”, and in the video, you can see that those thin layers allow for specific details of the card to show. Also, X-rays bounce around a little inside microwaves, and there are “hot spots” where the waves are more concentrated (this is why food doesn’t heat evenly, and why it spins.)
I also thought of this. I wonder, if scanning techniques become more effective, such that the contents of a pack really are knowable, (speaking hypothetically, cuz we’re not there yet) is that the end of physical TCG as a business? Can a business model exist where cards are not distributed at random?
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Here comes another 3 letter company that scans packs and sealed product mapping out their contents and slapping them in tamper proof acrylic 
.
Actually, in an interesting turn of events and a credit card swipe, today I am announcing my new authentication service:
CAT
Certified Authentication Technicians
We here at CAT are highly trained on specialized machinery (like this machine we found on Facebook for $1500) that will radioactively blast any sealed product you chuck our way. We will make sure with 99.9% confidence that we will radioactively fuck your item to inform you all the components your item is made out of atom by atom 
. We will show exactly what major hit is in your 1999 “heavy” jungle pack.
To incorporate our 100% authentic guarantee, we will encase your item in 1" acrylic to make sure there are no “woopsy doopsys” tampering with the now radioactive item.
We will slap our CAT 
logo all over your item to show your future buyers it’s authentic and you aren’t playing around with authentication!
Thank you for listening to me sharks 
I am looking for a 2% ownership with a $1500 cash advance. 
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I think you mean “CAT logo”
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Wow, im right here in this thread 
…
As far as CT scans, yea they do slices but it is difficult to say if those slices will still work with multiple foil layers all stacked. Compared to microwaves, significant modifications would be needed to direct waves from the magnetron but it may be possible in a very controlled environment and yes, youd only get one image per xray film and it would likely be almost impossible to tell, but there is a slight chance that you could.
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People won’t have to do this themselves though. It’s easy to hire someone already skilled in biomedical imaging to do the work for you. People with cash won’t mind chucking $10K away. There are some working CT scanners out there right now on eBay for $1500.
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If the machine only cost $1500, this could be a problem if not already. I think there are enough resources online to give any Shmo a fighting chance to replicate this. Anyone buying sealed vintage packs will be truly “buying it for the artwork” cause you aren’t pulling jack! 
Simply stuff your pockets with vintage booster packs the next time you need to get a CT scan.
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Im sorry sir, the official diagnosis is the pokeflu. There is no cure.
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Magnetron learned “Make me money”!
I both love and hate this. Glorious, @lyleberr !
“Well, it appears you have PkMn on the brain. I’ve referred you to psychiatrics.”
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This is a huge disappointment even though I get that it was probably inevitable.
If scanning pack contents becomes widespread, just like weighing, you’ll essentially have to scan before selling high-value packs. It’s hard to trust sellers saying that a pack is unweighed. It’s almost foolish to do so unless you have an existing trusted relationship with the seller. Buying and selling vintage packs would change from knowing the exact weight to knowing the exact contents of the pack. Pretty boring.
Part of the reason I love my wotc blisters so much is that I can’t (couldn’t, I guess) precisely know what’s in them without opening them. They feel like time capsules where the mystery is part of the allure. If you choose to go for the satisfaction of opening them, you can’t go back. It’s a one time irreversible event that’s been sitting unspent for decades. The existence of scanning kind of changes that. It probably hurts the value of almost all packs too (other than the odd ones that contain Charizords).
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