Fanatics/PWCC has indefinitely suspended the sale of any sealed tcg product. This is a major blow as they had the best system to sell sealed. This order came from Michael Rubin himself, the ceo of fanatics. The reason is because tcg, specifically pokemon has a higher rate of fraudulent boxes.
Currently they will only sell sealed tcg items authenticated by a third party. This leaves pokemon with just psa graded packs as there isn’t a third party authentication option for boxes. BBCE exists for sports, but doesn’t do pokemon since they were duped by Logan Paul. Even pwcc’s open and seal authentication isn’t enough. They did that to one of my 1st Ed fossil boxes and now it can’t be sold.
Ultimately this is a major net loss and another chapter in why we can’t have nice things. I put it up there with eBay & pwcc’s divorce. Hopefully down the road they reverse the ban.
It’s frustrating when initiatives like this limit options and make it harder for collectors. Hopefully, there will be a way to address the authentication issues in the future.
Fanatics/PWCC was the most comparable to eBay in pricing and volume. Heritage or goldin will do vintage sealed but their pricing and volume is inferior or completely non-existent. Perhaps their significantly lower volume makes it less of an issue. Basically you can’t really sell most sealed with other auction houses.
@connorc I was told it’s entirely because of the higher liability of tcg, specifically pokemon.
This is awful for buyers and sellers, but I can’t fault Fanatics for taking this risk-averse approach. I would have done the same if my goal was to limit business losses.
I expect that this decision will push more vintage Pokemon boxes to Goldin, Heritage, and RareCandy.
Even worse - box break streamers.
Probably the safest place to sell to if the streamer is well known and both parties agree to a guarantee if opened in a certain timeframe
Real cards in a real box can pass a CT scan. That’s why imo they’re useless for box authentication. I’m glad they didn’t go that route. Sure they can pick up a GI Joe case but how hard is it to get some LP fossil cards and opened fossil packs to fill an empty fossil box?
On a semi-related note…will Fanatics still accept and store sealed items? For example, can I still send a booster box to my vault even if I don’t want to sell it?
You speak of the limits of what an expensive CT scanner can do as if you are an expert. Personally, I don’t know that the limitations are but I do know if I wanted an idea of what was in a box I’d rather have access to a CT scanner than not.
well from all the images its a blurry grayscale half image. When it can start determining card quality as pack fresh then sure we can use it for boxes. But MP and Mint cards atm cant be differentiated. unless weve got secret HD CT scanners. We can just assume theyre Mint and that is usually enough but I could see any decent scammer passing off a good fake. Its all in the seal imo
The new rule of no sales was made by the ceo, who doesn’t care at all about any nuance. Numerous employees thought it would be fine, I was on the phone with one of the vp’s and they just don’t have the ability to override the decision. Ultimately it sucks as I only committed to opening the box due to their policy and wouldn’t have done so knowing this would be the outcome.
I was wondering why all my sealed stuff was saying it couldn’t be listed, sucks that this is the reason. Honestly surprised that open & seal verification still isn’t enough nowadays.
This just seems like a nuclear option the CEO chose to avoid further liability for potentially fake sealed product sales. I can imagine during a board meeting one member could have brought up a chart that said “we lost X amount of money refunding sealed” and then a knee jerk reaction was made to suspend all sales of sealed.
I would be in favor of Fanatics utilizing an expensive CT scanner to help authenticate boxes more confidently if possible. I’m very hesitant to sell sealed on ebay because of potentially problematic buyers.
I just sold some sealed items through Fanatics a couple months ago to test it out. It was nice and easy and I was pretty happy with the results. Only complaint I had was that a single booster pack had the same $15 fee as a giant set of 3 boxes. I was thinking that I would send some more for the end of the year so this is a bit of a let down.
Also, one of the booster packs didn’t get paid initially and sold again almost 2 weeks ago but hasn’t been paid so I wonder if they will relist it again or just send it to my vault.
