My take: This is a contemporary resealed fake box from around 1999, not a modern forgery.
What I could see from the outside:
The best I can tell, for now, is that this box didn’t have the plastic seam line going horizontally across the base of the box. It looked like a smooth flat surface, which it shouldn’t be. The oval windows on the sides seemed cut and more jagged, I’d expect them to be smoother. There were a couple more things I could see which my might be an indicator, but they’re iffy at best. The plastic didn’t sit quite right, and overall looked a bit too smooth.
The packs themselves:
Like PokeRev said, the crimp along the bottom foil, but also the back spine is too crude. It should be a finer checkered pattern. Quite often when you hold the pack up to a light, you can see small holes in the foil like it was perforated. The proportions of the pack looked off. The top foil bent upwards, IME it nearly always bends down. The hole in the top foil wasn’t punctured enough. Again there were a couple of other things that are hard to describe.
This is the first time I’ve come across a fake Japanese box. I naively thought that the Japanese side of the hobby was safer than English.
If anyone can contact PokeRev directly, I think it would be helpful to send examples of the packs and also the plastic seal to people (including myself) so we can learn from this.
I’m not sure how I feel about sealed product going forward. I might only trust packs honestly. These fakes were unbelievably realistic and I’m worried about the future of sealed product.
K I definitely agree. I was talking about 1st ed base set box scams in 2012-2014 when they were $10,000. I was highlighting $10,000 because that seems to be a threshold for a “sophisticated” scam.
The colour of the packs immediately stood out as not quite right, and the cards themselves are pretty obviously fake. Easy mistake to make for someone without a heap of exposure to the real thing though. The box itself was pretty convincing too. Props to Rev though, handled a stressful live situation really well.
I think going forward this puts even more importance on buying sealed product from established sellers/figures who can identify this sort of thing. Maybe there’s room for middlemen to start mediating high end sales of sealed product to determine authenticity?
unpopular opinion. When you produce content on YouTube, you are constantly in need of new content. No one doubts that pokerev would never not do the right thing. But Dumbmoney with their fake booster box, logan paul with his fake illustrator, tiktokers with their “old 90s collection with a modern proxy illustrator” etc. It all draws in huge amount of viewers. When TCAgaming got legitimately scammed, the video pulled in about 250k views and is his second most viewed video of all time.
Are packs and boxes faked… we know they are.
Are scam videos real…we know they are.
Are Scam videos scams themselves… we know they have been.
Absolutely no hate on pokerev or anyone for that matter. Just making the point that if we keep seeing scammed videos, maybe we ought to have some skepticism of buying selaed product but also of the legitimacy of the videos themselves.
Again, not claiming this is the case with Pokerev, just the voice of the skeptic with what’s going on overall.
I have to believe that as convincing as fakes might seem on video, experienced collectors can spot a fake flimsiness/rigidness of card/texture/smooth , by text of the card (blurry, incorrect font), the color, glossiness, etc. When you’ve handled hundreds of thousands or millions of cards, I think most experienced collectors can spot the fake with their eyes closed. The cards in the video had the light reflecting off of them from the beginning, the box looked off.
If there was a thumbs down option, I’m sure I’d get many but I really think that we can’t be naive enough to think that “scam” videos aren’t scams in and of themselves. When it comes to any sort of skepticism, you can follow the money for some revelation. Controversy/hot topics/provocativeness = more viewers = more ad revenue. All youtubers do it, it’s a proven model for gaining clout.
Not asking to be crucified for this post. I think it’s healthy to throw out some different ideas here for what is going on. Love for pokerev and others who have only done positive things for the community and helped it get to where it’s at with its growth. Videos like Dumb money’s scam video (real or not) is an overall net negative for the hobby as it decreases confidence of people in the hobby.
A lot of people brought up this idea during the dumbmoney fake box and the sketchiness surrounding CG during the event and in general in the hobby so you’re not the only one.
I will say it took him an awfully ‘long time’ to 100% determine the box was fake. He kept saying well maybe this and maybe that possibly to extend the length of the video. My personal opinion was that it was legitimately unknown to him but there are certainly some portions of the video that could lead credence to this idea.
I get that. But he was under a lot of pressure. The box being fake means refunding everyone and a thousands of disappointed viewers during the live stream so there is a lot of pressure. And he can’t just go ripping cards to be sure if they are real because it’d ruin the entire box break and he’d have to refund everyone. Pokerev has been a great and genuine personality in the hobby who would be the last one I’d expect to fake a box break for attention. It’d be far more negative for him than positive imo so I don’t think this was faked or milked in any capacity by pokerev.
Did you notice anything about the nonholos? The holo were blurry but I couldn’t see the issues with the non holos. Also the stock looked real when he ripped the non holo card next to the real neo card.
Edit. Also the evolution box on the furret is clear unlike the blurry fake holo. I think the normal cards are real and someone hand put the packs together
Rev sells a lot of packs but has said it himself he’s only been doing this seriously for like 5 years so it’s possible he hasn’t had the exposure to some of the sets so I don’t necessarily consider him an expert. He does have an entertaining channel though.
Oh I agree - I was just providing a few points I noticed through out the video that seemed odd that’s all. Yes if it were staged then all then he wouldn’t have actually sold the packs.
Yea and if it were someone else I might be a bit suspicious. But also like @sal85012 said, theres a good chance he hasn’t actually opened up japanese neo genesis exactly before and he’s clearly suspicious from the get go of the packs being opened but is just making 100% sure. As for any other personalities who will inevitably in the future end up opening fake booster boxes and getting ‘scammed’ we definitely should be a little cautious.
Compare your peeled off top layer to pokerevs. Yes there is a full holo layer underneath all holo cards which you can reveal if you rub acetone on the card, but his top layer is unrippable see through plastic layer.
