“There seems to be some fraudulent cards in the mix of this set? The smaller stack imaged of about ten cards are a darker shade of blue, near purple. The larger stack are a lighter shade and include all of the other cards. The darker shaded cards have no border issues on the backside of the card, while the lighter shade had at least 10 significantly misaligned cards (seen in the images below). I’ve done a lot of research and it’s pretty clear that the backs of the cards are never misaligned and have an equal border around the entire card. If there’s an issue of alignment, it means it’s a fake card. What’s your take?”
I bought a bulk lot of WotC last year and noticed that difference. Is it just different print runs? That’s what I challenge it up to. Luckily there was only one fake card in the lot, a shadowless Tangela that was glossy all over and about 4/5 the size of a regular card.
Different print runs and possibly even variation within the print run.
If they were fake cards it would be undeniably obvious, like that Tangela you got.
And with the lots i sold, i carefully sorted them. I inspected every card to ensure no creases and NM or better with no duplicates. If there were fakes I would have noticed.
Besides, the reasons he is citing for fakes shows he’s just misinformed about legitimate pokemon cards.
It’s a shame, yet another reason fake cards need to be expunged. They instill doubt in the buyers.
I had this happen to me last year with a mother who was buying cards for her son. She said I should be ashamed of myself for selling fake cards to her son who bought them with his allowance… after telling her I’d been dealing with cards in the hobby for 16 years at this point, that they clearly were not fake and were bought at Walmart. The thing is, quality control is so poor with TPCI that these minor differences are extremely common and someone that isn’t as engaged in the hobby won’t know the true signs of a fake card.
I realize your situation is WOTC and not TPCI like mine, still a similar situation though.
I will say that I have found a incredibly convincing fake. I was going through a few cards I had lying around and found a fossil ekans that I had probably passed by a dozen times.
The fake was very well done unfortunately. There were very minor discrepancies and sure enough, holding it up to some light, it was see through.
So these cards do exist, I really doubt yours were though. I have passed hundreds of cards with different shades of blue on the front borders and on the backs of the cards. It’s just something that happens.
Recently (yesterday) I was sent fake cards after a purchase on eBay. It gives you an option to send pictures, so I sent a lot of pictures (holding the up to light, showing a picture of the real card accompanied by the fake) and explained why those prove they are fake
So it seems your buyer should have actually tried to prove they were fake instead of mentioning small differences that any card could have.
