I recently bought a Japanese Base set booster box and have some concerns I wanted to air. I was a bit naive when doing the deal; I could see the broken seal in the photos but I didn’t think it was that bad, and the seller didn’t include a photo of the base, so that was a bad surprise. I was too excited and eager to secure the box I wasn’t cautious enough.
Split seal on the right side - The split is across the full length, so if you squeeze the corners you can see straight inside and can easily remove the packs. My main concern here is whether the box is full, and if the packs been tampered with.
To sate my curiosity I had to take out some of the packs to check. They all looked ok, the seals look normal. I weighed them to compare to my other loose packs. Interestingly, they were all heavier. The box packs were 16.80-17.00g and my loose packs 16.40-60g. I weighed the box in it’s entirety to compare with my other boxes and it seemed about right (1.4kg) but scales I used don’t seem too accurate.
The plastic seal itself looks and feels right. It has the open oval on the sides and the sealing seam runs across the base.
Water damage? - Is this water damage, and how did it happen? The plastic across the base is completely intact, no holes or cuts, so I can’t think how the intrusion happened. My concern is how much has this effected the inside of the box and the packs
The dirt inside the plastic seal - There’s a considerable amount of dirt/debris on the inside of the plastic. I remember reading from someone here (Gary, I think) that dirt on the inside can indicate a reseal since there wouldn’t normally be any from the factory. But maybe it’s from the water damage?
I guess most of my concerns can be answered by opening it up and having a look, but obviously I’m hesitant to do that, even though I can’t really call this a sealed box. I’m thinking I might take all the packs out via the split and see what’s what.
Dang. What a mess. I’m almost at a loss but, I guess I’d just throw out the box and Che k a few packs to make sure they’re legit. Them being heavier than your other base packs is very suspicious so even more reason to check a few.
If your packs turn out ok you could always buy an empty base set box. They go for as little as $15 on ebay but of course the end result wouldn’t be a sealed base set box, which is what you’re after.
I removed the packs from the box through the split in the plastic, without breaking the remaining seal. I know it seems silly to have done it this way, but I can always do that later if I want to. I can’t see any of the stain from base on the inside of the box, and I can’t see any marks or discolouration on the packs which were on the bottom, no warping/bending of the cards within those packs either. So I’m quite relieved that aspects seems ok.
So then I weighed all the packs. I’m not well versed in pack weighing but it looks like there is a almost 1:1 spread of heavy:light packs. I think I’ll open one of each to check. I used a cheapo Chinese digital scale with a range up to 100g and a couple of coins with known weights to indicate accuracy. I don’t intend to sell any packs as these are for my collection, and I’m more than happy to have a booster box full.
After weighing all these box packs, I tried the rest of my loose packs that I had bought over the years. Perhaps not surprisingly, they appear to have been weighed, with 1 out of 16 on the heavier side.
Now, the strangest bit was one of the packs from the box was significantly heavier than the rest. The average weight of the box packs was 16.91g but this behemoth was 19.33g, almost 2.5g heavier. So does it have an extra card inside? It feels thicker but I can’t measure it in any meaningful way atm, so I ordered a micrometer/caliper. It was from roughly the middle of the box.
Has anyone seen or heard this before with Japanese packs of this era?
I opened one of the heavy packs, got a Raichu, so I’m mostly satisfied the box was ok.
I measured the thickness of the really heavy pack (19.33g) with a digital caliper and it was 3.67mm, whereas most other packs are about 3.05mm thick. So I think there’s at least 1 extra card in there, maybe 2. I’ve decided to keep it sealed for now, unless I’m convinced the extra card is a zard.
I don’t think so. This pack was from the middle of the box, about 25/60. There was no sign of the stain on the inside of the box. I carefully checked the packs that were positioned on the bottom, none were compromised, no bending/warping, no weight discrepancy.
haha. looks so sneaky. how they sliced the side like that, to check, and keep the wrapping on. this happens a bit in japan. they keep things nice and neat, and leave original seals on, but with cuts and slices to access the sides.
