Not that we could not see that coming, but it seems they’re out in the wild now. First saw on this IG story:
On this case, there are other clear signs (eg., eyes, shadows, thickness still seem to be a thing) but this puts things on a new level given the logo was a long time reference for them.
Please share additional resources / tips on how to track this, or add more info to the discussion. Chinese seem to be a restricted space still - for instance, it is hard to find detailed info on all editions of the massively faked 151 boxes; not sure if anyone is tracking something else, such as exclusive cards.
I remember an e4 user showing a bunch of cards last year, including one of the Pikachu’s in the video. However, those cards didn’t have the embossed logo, although they do look similar otherwise.
As for why theirs didn’t have the embossed logo, their claim was that they were printing samples. This was disregarded at the time since it’s well known that fakes didn’t have the embossed logo, but if similar fakes are out there with the embossed logo now, it does add a bit more credibility to their claim, though it could of course just be a coincidence.
They did also warn about Chinese fakes like this circulating in the market at the time, and suggested that more would be coming, though they did not provide evidence for their claims.
I actually bought a Gengar from Ali so I could have it to help me compare fake vs real and yes, there is an embossed logo, I’ll post some pics when I arrive home, easiest tell however is that there’s a thick black core sandwiched in the center if you use a magnifying glass, whereas the genuine ones have a very thin blue core running in the middle.
Some of the comments on the post mentioned feel a bit off to me - especially the source being previous card suppliers in China, as common knowledge says all chinese cards have always been printed in Japan (and I could not find any counterevidence to that). That would mean fakes are either japan-made (unlikely), or that is there non-public knowledge on chinese printing (less but still unlikely - I’d assume major leaks associated to it would have already happened?) - and simple forgering improvement would make more sense.
Given that raw material might eventually still be a difference, I wonder if weighting present some significant difference that could assist (for now). Additional visual comparisons (on both art and embossing, as potentially discussions on the back printing patterns) would also be really insightful, at least for the moment, in terms of properly establishing the foundations of originality.
