Might be a dumb question but what are these bands Japanese sellers use to hide the cert? I assume it comes in sealed product but I haven’t opened sealed in a very long time.
Those are from Family Pokémon Card Game:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Sword_%26_Shield_Family_Pokémon_Card_Game_(TCG)
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Hmm that’s an interesting request…
Since these are SWSH stuff and not some old supplies people could profit from, if I were you I would DM card shops like Hareruya 2 and ask them if they had these (major card shops like them should have plenty and have no idea what to do with them) and can sell you some (perhaps as an add-on to your next order if they don’t bother shipping just those bands).
whats the point of them hiding their certs? am i missing something?
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I haven’t had anyone be able to explain logically what hiding the certs does. I don’t get it either.
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It’s to prevent people from trying to use your cert. There’ve been fake slabs that would use an existing valid cert. Some of these will get reported to PSA (or whomever the grading company is), and the cert will be taken down. I’d imagine the original owner would need to reholder the slab to get a new cert
That said, it seems to be a very rare occurrence. But I guess better safe than sorry
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Hiding certs really only makes the smallest amount of sense for the cards that will be reasonably faked (e.g. Illustrators, 1st ed Charizards, trophies, etc). Nobody is going to fake a PSA 10 modern card.
Hiding the cert has a lot of negative possible effects though, and is occasionally done maliciously:
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Dropshipping: the seller doesn’t actually own the card that’s listed, and when you purchase the listing, they’ll try to buy the card at a discount and then ship it to you. While these listings are often automated direct copies, if the original listing is bought, covering the cert allows for the dropshipper to possibly find another copy, while you have no recourse.
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Hiding PSA scans: without the cert number, you can’t verify the scans and check for any possible issues with the card on the PSA database (only applies for newer cards).
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Concealing card reputation: a lot of cards that are blatant misgrades have documented cert numbers and people know to stay away from them. Hiding certs makes this impossible.
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Enabling stolen cards: stolen and/or missing cards are most easily tracked through certification numbers. Covering certs makes it harder to check cards against lists of known missing and stolen cards.
Personally, I don’t understand why sellers wouldn’t want buyers to have the most possible information about a card before they buy. Especially since cert numbers provide nothing else about the card than a simple verification check. However for some reason this seems to have taken off in Japan, after being started up in the less-informed circles of instagram.
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As a seller, I have been doing this since 2 years ago - censoring the serial number and barcode of my slabs. Like you mentioned, the probability of a fraudster targetting you is low, but… better be safe than sorry.
Sellers covering the barcode and cert no. just doesn’t make sense. As a buyer, I want to be able to see the cert and crosscheck it on the PSA database, also having access to the scans as well.
I will never buy from sellers who hides cert/barcode. Don’t even know if the PSA copy you receive is the same one listed.
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In this case, I’d argue that hiding the cert isn’t “safe” at all, especially when you’re hiding the cert on all your slabs, not just the ultra-high end which may, in exceedingly rare cases, be taken for fraudulent means. Sure, you may protect yourself against the inconvenience of resubmitting your card to PSA for a new cert, but the downside is that you contribute to a culture which enables far more malicious behavior and decreases transparency between buyers and sellers.
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Thanks @philzcardz and @fourthstartcg for the explanations. I realize I’m biased, but whenever I see a covered cert, I just think dropshipper.
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But those points you mentioned are from seller’s side. I’m the owner of the raw cards and original submitter to PSA, so what buyer sees is what buyer gets and that’s good enough for me.
If any buyer feels unsafe or doubtful, then they’re welcomed to examine the slab in real life prior to buying or buy from someone else. I’m cool too.
One hundred percent agree
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Dropshipping - Doesn’t make any sense to me. If there is a cheaper deal, a resourceful and diligent buyer would have googled and known it. No reason to buy from a seller selling it at higher price. And buyers can also compare the difference from the slab in listing’s photos with the actual slab received. So this point is not really relevant to me as buyer.
Hiding PSA scans - Most PSA scans are not clear enough to see much details. Some QC flaws and defects can only be seen in real life at certain light angles. Some slabs don’t even have any scans at all in the PSA database.
Concealed card reputation - Even undocumented slabs can also be misgrades. Have cracked numerous 8s for upgrades to 9s and 10s.
Enable stolen cards - Buyer would know the serial number during meet up and can check with PSA website. Not a problem at all.
As far as I analyzed, there are more pros than cons in the practice of censoring serial number and barcode of slabs. Have been doing so for years and everything is fine.
Japan is in general is really strict about any kind of personal information being leaked and the cert numbers could potentially be used to track the location, identity and purchase history of sellers and buyers etc. They’ll do stuff like mosaic-ing out the background completely on news shows so that you cant deduce where a crime or something took place. This kind of attitude takes a hold for all sorts of things even as unwritten rule. That is my guess anyway.
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My guess is it’s a generation thing. I’m a gen X-er, and have been taught from school to working life that any serial/ID number is sensitive info, can be tracked or even used in the wrong ways under wrong hands.
How can you say that but also say you cover the certs because ‘better safe than sorry’? Meeting up with someone and letting them handle your cards is way more risky imo.
I’m never going to buy a slab without knowing its cert number in advance; in most cases I’m just going to ignore listings with them concealed. If it’s a card I really want, or I think it’s a really good deal, then I always ask the seller to reveal the cert number.
I doubt I’m the only one like this, so from the seller perspective you’re just limiting your buyer pool for (in my opinion) no good reason.
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I honestly think most Japanese sellers who conceal the certs have no idea why and are just doing it because they saw other sellers doing it and figured that they probably should as well.
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In my head there are two occasions in which a cert could reasonably be hidden:
- Extremely rare and expensive card that is at risk of being fabricated and/or “sold” by other parties through stolen images.
- When you have multiple copies of the same card in the same grade. Rusty ran into this problem a lot when he would make the default image of a copy with a swirl and then buyers would complain that their copy didn’t have a swirl.
In addition to what others have said, I will also add that some sellers hide cert numbers because they believe that their buyers will pay less for their old cert. You see this a lot with 1st Ed Base Charizards or especially rare PSA 10 vintage holos.
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