To try and help make everyone feel more comfortable. I personally called topps right now. The representative I spoke to was named Lucy. I asked her about this product. What she said is that Topps does not keep any info on products once they are more than a year old from being retired. What she suggested was that I contact Beckett as they provide all their retired product info directly to them. What makes this interesting, is I did not tell her that Beckett had already graded some of these. With everything I know and can see, there are absolutely a legitimate/licensed product. If anyone else feels differently, I would recommend reaching out to topps and see if you find anything different.
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Until evidence is brought forward to suggest that these items are authentic, we can’t just assume that they are. This conversation with Lucy doesn’t prove authenticity.
Please let me know if you get information from BGS. @Versy was unable to get credible evidence.
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Beckett responded to her and confirmed they authenticated the product and there are 6 currently graded. This is included in her screen shots above at the start of the post. Apparently not everything likes that answer. I’m convinced they are real so not much else I can do here short of providing pics from topps headquarter in the 90s with printing machines spitting them out.
Well if they’re not Topps cards and they have the Topps logo printed on them then they must be fake.
No topps is known to make stickers. They’ve made stickers with tons of their sports cards as well. That statement was due to multiple people above saying they are trading cards. They were also showing side by side comparisons to topps trading cards and saying they are fake because they are a different size. They are not, they are vending stickers by topps. Just because they aren’t topps trading cards does not mean they are fake.
Yes Topps made stickers however the ones shown here are not those stickers. These are bootleg stickers that stores had back in the 90’s early 2000’s for like 50 cents.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say these are shown to be fake. But the agnostic position is to believe they are not legitimate until there is actual evidence they are produced by Topps.
Unfortunately I do not consider BGS evidence, especially since they don’t even have information about this in their pop report or what set it came from.
Evidence doesn’t have to be in the form of pictures of the factory. It could be a sealed box of these that show they were bought from Topps or anything that traces Topps as the actual source of these. Or at the very least, other sets of stickers that look similar that Topps has sold direct for vending machines.
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Pretty sure Miller thinks this is about the Topps Merlin Pokemon stickers and is just confused as the graded stickers are indeed bootlegs.
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The variation in color/which part of the card is blocked for the holo pattern across these also doesn’t suggest authenticity
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Nope, in fact I may be the only person here not confused. I’m aware of the topps/Merlin stickers in the picture as well. Those were disbursed in packs like your picture shows. The prisms were disbursed in vending machines.
I may be the only person in here who has talked to topps and Beckett about this. I would highly encourage anyone in here to reach out to topps or Beckett and see if you get anything at all that makes you think they are fake. I understand you all have not seen them before, but that does not make them fake.
This will be my last post in here because it’s not possible to reason with people behind keyboards. I will leave everyone with this thought. You all ask for proof they are real. The OP reached out to Beckett who confirmed they authenticated them. Topps has confirmed they release all their retired product info to Beckett. There isn’t one graded that happened to be a mistake. There are 6 graded with far apart serial numbers. It didn’t just slip past some random person. Call them if you would like. If not, feel free to sit back and say they are fake but to a reasonable person, everything points to them being authentic and rare. I’ll post pics when I get my graded ones back.
There is a reason why PSA has not graded these. PSA often needs formal documentation from the manufacturer to register products. BGS clearly does not follow this same protocol. So no, I would not consider BGS grading these cards as proof of their authenticity.
And to be clear, I have no skin in the game here. I do not financially benefit from them being real or fake. I just prefer proof whenever possible as there were many, many bootleg products made in the 1990s and 2000s.
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Falsifiability is crucial here - we need to be able to prove something wrong.
We will never find proof of a counterfeit object (unless a bootlegger said, “Yep, I made those!”), but proof of an authentic object would exist in some capacity.
It’s like saying, “Look pigs fly!” And when people question your reasoning, you say, “Show me that I am wrong.” When nobody finds a flying pig, you say, “They must be very rare.” Falsifiability means that we start with, “Pigs don’t fly.” And then if we spot a flying pig, we change our mind on the subject. This is how science/archival documentation works across many disciplines.
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If the only evidence is BGS - which they don’t even have a page for when you click on " 1999 Pokemon Topps Vending Series" - then unfortunately I’m not convinced. I’m not sure who would be.
The other thought I have is that even if BGS had secret knowledge this set that seemingly doesn’t appear anywhere on the internet existed, what exactly are they looking for on the sticker to authenticate these?
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Topps only ever made the Merlin stickers and no other stickers that I am able to find.
Sorry but just because BGS authenticated something doesn’t mean its real just like others they have graded fake things before.
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Reminding everyone that both BGS and PSA have a history of authenticating and grading counterfeit Carddass cards…
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Yep, this is 100% true!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but PSA has never added a fake set of cards to their registry but they have authenticated/graded fake cards in sets that were deemed to be authentic. PSA is notoriously careful/slow to add to their registry (e.g., non-English Neo-era cards).
Does BGS have a history of adding fake sets to their registry or would this be the first example? I just don’t know.
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It’s not the first example because it’s not even on their registry!
Well it’s clearly in their registry on the backend [1999 Topps Vending Series], but it’s not visible to customers. 
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Does anyone else think it’s wild that Topps got rid of their retired product information and handed it off to a third-party grader without keeping a copy for themselves? 
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