Fakes are getting out of hand

@folid I agree, it’s easy to spot for most of us here because most of us have been in the hobby for awhile now,.

For example, when I rejoined the hobby in like 2018/19, I couldn’t even tell the difference between base unlimited/shadowless, I couldn’t tell the difference in centering between cards, etc. This could easily fake out a lot of newer collectors who would hope for a quick flip so they can buy some other cards that they like.

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I agree 100%. There’s a lot of hindsight bias from knowing that these cards were fake to begin with. I think people have a hard time admitting that these are passable.

The problem is that there are fakes.

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Have received a mail back from the customer support, this shop/guy will be investigated!

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@shadowless yep, seems like they’re actually caring about the integrity if their brand, quite unlike TPC that are notoriously apathetic towards fake product. Here’s the response from PSA:

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I kinda agree, and I would like to hear from others how in this specific picture, you could clearly determine that the card was fake (aside from the case). Are the colors wrong? Or is the holo pattern not convincing enough? I’m really having trouble to identify the card as fake and I’m sorry to say that :slightly_frowning_face:

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Scary! Been seeing a lot of those pop up on Ebay.

Base2 charizards have had really plastic feeling fakes around for some time (also usually base2 venusaur, base2 blastoise, base2 mewtwo, and blackstar holo mew are found in the same fake style and usually together. Beware of any lots featuring just those 5 cards.) The whole card is slightly holo which gives it a strange washed out color at times (sort of seen around the name here) or that yellow saturation you can see at the top half of the card. Also the holo pattern is fixed and doesnt fade in or out and is always the same pattern (on all of the 5 cards I listed). Its immediately noticeable in person. The border also looks slightly strange or the wrong size. If they show the back, usually they are also poorly saturated or with poor color.

Hopefully the seller had multiple images so you could see that the holo doesnt move or the other issues. I only know all this because I bought a set of them from mercari a year or two back, with questionable the images, so I immediately requested a refund when I had them in hand. Hate seeing how someone is trying to pass them off as graded.

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Good news indeed! Would Pokemon themselves ever look to take action into something like this?

Agree with some of the other posts r.e. Fakes not being super obvious to everyone, but thanks goodness there’s resources like efour!

Personally I’ve collected sealed and raw for a while now, so would feel confident identifying fakes of those… But I’ve never owned a PSA slab, so think this would easily slip me by!

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Awareness of fakes in general is the best I think,
What lyleberr said above was my point in my earlier comment too, these fakes are not new. The only new thing about them are them being inside a unbranded case with a printed PSA label. I instantly knew they were fake simply because I’d seen them before but some things to look out for are the colours, print quality of the text (and the whole card) and the holo pattern since they all have the same exact holo.

Here is a link to the same card so you can check out the holo pattern, also if you check his other listings he has the other cards as well.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313499192964

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Damn I just went to the website you posted and that is FUCKED UP! How are you gonna just make legit fake cards and put them in fake PSA slabs and then market them as perfect replicas that will deceive even the sharpest of eyes? They even have legit cert numbers to match the actual graded card. SUPER fucked up.

Another thing that bothers/worries me is the amount of fake sealed product starting to leak into the market. Will make it hard to tell what’s real or fake and there’s some big money on the line with these products. Better be careful and make sure you purchasing trusted sources.

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I also remember a time not so long ago where from a newbie perspective you can look at a card and its all really a blur, you dont take in the give away signs of a fake as you havn’t seen enough of the real. I hate the faked/replica market, I even stayed away from evolution boxes after seeing a few listings saying something along the lines of ‘These maybe replicas’.

I posted it here a couple of months ago but I opened 2 ex delta species boosters and they were re sealed. I literally had not one inclination of them being such but its stopped me buying sealed now, which is sad but I just dont have the time to stress over buying fakes, especially at these prices.

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Sry low level karp, but quality of those proxies is crap

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Wow, Etsy is literally a hellhole filled with counterfeits & scumbag activities.

www.etsy.com/search?q=psa+pokemon
www.etsy.com/listing/937106524


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These fakes are good from far, but far from good :stuck_out_tongue:

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Also, fake cards being sold on ebay, e.g pikachu mario are hard to tell apart from the real ones. Puts me off bidding on some high value items