Some*of the print shops previously partnered with Pokemon in china are still making product.Their printing partners changed a little over a year ago and those old factories are still spitting out stuff ( non licensed ) The 151 gengar and Pikachu promos I showed off are examples of that. My friend who supplies most of the world with new Chinese pokemon stuff has even had to start paying extra to ensure it’s not fake and he lives in Hong Kong. The espeon master balls I sent out to people are an example of a transitional card. Old supplier new card data. So please be weary, I’ve been told as of yesterday that even the “ Pokemon “ watermark had been perfectly replicated, the print process almost perfectly replicated. It’s going to get to the point where you will need to weigh the cards individually and test the strength of the card stock used to manufacture it.
The Chinese Pokemon market was good while it lasted.
Were the Espeon Masterballs you sent out not from the legitimate printing facility then? I recieved mine earlier this week and finally had time to sit down and look more closely at it. Here’s a 1200 DPI scan of it alongside a Pokeball reverse I pulled from a legitimate Gem2 box.
If the Masterball is indeed fake it’s very worrying. Everything on the card looks like it was printed properly from the source digital files (which would make sense if they were an old factory that had access to those) down to the rosettes and separate black vector layer for all the text.
I’ve tried closing my eyes and shuffling the two to see if the cardstock feels any different. At first I thought the “fake” Masterball felt slightly flimsier, but out of 20 or so trials I wasn’t able to easily discern a difference in the rigidity / flex of the card with my eyes closed and couldn’t easily discern the 2.
Additionally, the watermark on both look identical:
the supplier said they were made in January of 2024 from a supplier who lost their contract. Same digital assets and I’m assuming same printing methods but different material but with the same manufacturing standards. I physically saw the Eveelutions Gem set printed as January of this year. And those were not even brought to market but they were being manufactured.
But specific suppliers have shifted, except those suppliers seem to be still printing product and the Chinese government is doing nothing to address it. The fake gengar 151 sets that are being sold are from exactly this. Suppliers shifted, assets were sent out but suppliers were dropped. I guarantee there are fakes out there that are indistinguishable from the sets sent to market. They used up their supplies and made as many fakes as possible that are essentially “ real “ how do you think there are so many of the hits just setting available for sale, like mountains of them and they are bringing high prices. How many Captain Pikachus in gem mint 10 do you honestly think there are? And many of them popping up nearly the same week as distribution takes place already graded by these Chinese slab mills.
Once the old suppliers run out of the factory correct materials they shift to what’s cheap and available. The Mew promos that are being sold right now are made on card stock meant for Tein Gow.
The Chinese card market is cooked unless their local governments do something about it, but they won’t. China is a tricky place economically, they don’t care about intellectual property, they don’t care about licensing unless the Party has a way to make money off of it. The party being the CCP.
Everyone should be extremely weary with any Chinese Pokemon product made in 2025. The older Sun and moon era stuff is perfectly legit unless it’s some extremely limited promo card. Anything after that, just be cautious.
Did the supplier print them post-contract in China? I thought all Simplified cards were printed in Japan, and therefore that TPC or the Japanese government should have intervened
The problem with stuff being manufactured in Japan is they still will be distributed directly in china. And they will get copies before they are even sent out to market.
The raw materials, paper, ink, the UV material used for the watermark is all manufactured and tested in china. All of it. Even if Pokemon is telling everyone they are printing in Japan now there is still mass amounts of bundled products being manufactured in china, all the gift sets and bundles. Before the stuff is even brought to market it will be opened cloned and sold side by side with the official products. No one has to take what I’ve said as fact, I have nothing to gain from it. But in a year or maybe longer when the bubble pops on Chinese Pokemon TCG products these posts will be here.
did Pokemon always print in china or did they only recently start working with chinese manufacturers? Cause this seem like a problem that could have always existed?
