I want to hear Socialmediapratte aka Scumbagpratte thoughts about if these are real or whether to invest in them.
4 Likes
According to statista.com 1,7% of the Indian population had access to the internet in 2003 (about 19,000,000 Users). The GDP per capita was $541.14.
I don’t doubt, that you shipped many orders to India, but who did you ship to? Probably to the wealthy minority.
Even searching the web right now for Pokemon TCG availability in India, leads me only to frustrated Indians who can’t seem to buy legit cards. I found some stuff on Amazon, but I have trouble getting past the €10 boosters.
I don’t want to go off on a tangent here, I just want to put stuff into perspective.
1 Like
I’ve been talking to my friend a bit, and I think I now understand the situation about Funskool and these cards a bit better. Why they look different; why these rumors about them being real Pokémon TCG cards have been spread; why the cards state they are officially licensed; etc. (For those who want a TL;DR, look at the three bullet-points at the bottom.)
In 2003-2005 Hasbro, the toy company behind the trademark Funskool, got a license from Pokémon to produce and sell Pokémon articles and media. And not just Pokémon, but a lot of other similar cartoons as well, like Digimon, Bob the Builder, etc. Since they’re one of the major toy manufacturers in India, this isn’t really a surprise, and something we would see with toy manufacturers all over the world. This license included things like plushies, action figures, dvds of the anime, etc. Here an article from 2005 with the CEO from Funskool.
So they were indeed licensed to produce Pokémon related articles. However, they were not licensed to produce the actual Pokémon TCG® that we all know, and which for example recently have been released in Thailand. Since they were licensed to create Pokémon related articles, they’ve made their own sets. Similar as with for example Topps or BANDAI cards. They are real and officially licensed cards, but very different from the Pokémon TCG we know.
I think over time, due to the limited information we outside of India get, the rumors spread that these are official Pokémon TCG®. And regrettably, I believed those rumors, and thought the same.
The bottom of these Funskool cards also state the following:
which isn’t much different than what we see in for example a Topps card:
Or a BANDAI card:
So, three conclusions (making my earlier thoughts wrong. Again, apologies for being part of this misunderstanding):
- They are NOT cards from the official Pokémon TCG®
- They are also NOT fakes/bootlegs
- They are officially licensed cards, but just a different TCG (just like Topps, BANDAI, etc.). Completely legal, but different.
Greetz,
Quuador
6 Likes
I also think that @daavee is probably right about something he said earlier:
I think for kids growing up in India it made a lot more sense to buy these Funskool packs in the toy shops in a nearby town, instead of buying the actual Pokémon TCG® cards/packs online. Most parents / kids would go to actual toy stores to buy toys instead of shopping online in 2003-2005. Unlike now I might add, since loads of toy, clothing, and other stores are currently bankrupted or close to being bankrupted here in The Netherlands because the competition from online webshops is too great (i.e. Intertoys, V&D, Media Markt, etc.). But that’s irrelevant for now. In 2003-2005 internet wasn’t nearly as big as these days, and I’m sure @daavee is right that for loads of kids in India, this was the Pokémon card game they collected and loved, even though it is not the official Pokémon TCG® we grew up with and know.
Greetz,
Quuador
3 Likes
The thing that bugs me is that there is no accent over the “e” in Pokemon. Perhaps I’m naive, but if they obtained the license, wouldn’t they be required to spell the brand correctly? As previously mentioned, these could easily be bootlegs that were never actually produced by Funskool, but use their brand to try and push their legitimacy. If it was indeed Funskool that made them, but purposefully omitted the accent, that would indicate to me that they are trying to circumvent the license, because as others have stated, only Nintendo is allowed to produce TCG products.
I was initially skeptical of these cards and wrote them off as fake a couple of years ago when I first learned about them. However, the hype built around recently them got me excited and I made myself vulnerable to accept these as real. Something I normally wouldn’t do so easily. Although I think these are still really neat cards, I’m going to have to believe they are 100% fake unless either Nintendo or Funskool can provide definitive proof. If this was truly produced by Funskool, I’d see these as kind of a hybrid between a bootleg and official product, but not an official Nintendo product.
Anyway, hopefully everyone that owns these cards can still appreciate them in their own right. My Electrode is going to go in my collection in it’s very own section at the end of the binder as an asterisks.
I’m still interested to see the entire set and packs scanned so we can get a better understanding of the collection.
2 Likes
It’s settled boys and girls:
4 Likes
Fake yes. That fact they miswrote the name of the franchise sort of makes it a bad fake I’d think?
1 Like
how many Funskool cards would you reckon are floating down the Ganges River?
1 Like
The misspelling aside (relatively minor. At least it’s not Pokeman), I actually think these are the neatest looking bootleg cards. The design is relatively unique among bootleg cards that I’ve come across and the fact that they have an established set list is pretty interesting. They aren’t the worst fakes I’ve seen by any stretch of the imagination, but that is my opinion.
Their uniqueness might be enough to establish themselves as a collectible counterfeit, which I personally don’t think is bad for the hobby as long as people don’t continue to push this as an official product.
Anyway, I’m happy for the video as it helps put this debate to rest. Here’s hoping this thread doesn’t get deleted
LIKE THE LAST ONE so that people don’t make the same mistakes again.
1 Like
Accent and tm? But yea I get that they weren’t licensed by Nintendo.
The statement was in relation to the text on all the cards, not the back symbol. The “tm” comment was emphasizing the word “Pokémon” is a registered trademark and should be present on all legitimate releases, including text.
1 Like
That even verifys it further. Each card has two different letterings…on the same card lol.
They can’t even spell ‘skool’ right😲
www.reddit.com/r/PokemonTCG/comments/9wdsq0/extremely_rare_pokemon_funskool_cards/
www.adverts.ie/other-toys-games/extremely-rare-funskool-pokemon-cards-only-printed-in-india-in-2004/10496794
*Chuckles*
Those are a steal in comparison to this one haha
rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F303091599829
I could have sworn I saw some for even more a few days ago.
There’s a sucker born every day.
1 Like
Uh boy I had no idea my thread caused all this D:
I didn’t get a notifcation regarding all the replies and I just came back to link the smpratte youtube video and I find all this instead DD:
Welp, thank you all for your help with this issue and as always: japanese cards > everything v.v
1 Like
Does someone wanna make a imgur album with pictures from this set? I would love to see high res photos of all the cards
I still have these heading my way. You can see a comparison to the jungle card:
I see what you mean by blurring the lines between copyright infringement. @smpratte, The India cards look like a realistic jungle.
The meadow, purple sky, yellow butterflies, pink flowers… 
I thought it was just a clever variation.
After my partial refund, I did the crazy math on a projected realistic $20 each pricepoin (for collectors sake instead of his original asking price). I’m only losing out on about $25 after my refund so I just hope they get here soon.
You just have to visit more often;)
2 Likes
It’s crazy how we can describe in depth the existence of a license, and yet we can’t produce any media whatsoever advertising these cards. Surely funskool would advertise its completely unique trading cards?
Because I still see people saying: These cards say funskool > Funskool had a license > These are the legitimately licensed Funskool cards
But they have multiple obvious flaws that suggest they wouldn’t be real. Why are we willing to assume these are legitimate because a license exists when the evidence on the cards themselves carries so many signs of illegitimacy? Especially when the most recently cited evidence in this thread actually obscures the role of Funskool in the distribution process, rather than clarifies it?
I think you have to take a major step back and say, “Okay. I WANT these to be real. But that CANNOT cloud my judgment of whether they ARE real.”
If you take that step back, and look at the facts in front of us, there are some substantial holes that need addressed.
3 Likes