Hi all,
I purchased this Jigglypuff signed by Imakuni back in October of 2023.
I was super happy with the purchase at the time and threw it into a binder without a second thought.
A few months later I was showing some collectors and they pointed out that it was likely fake as it didn’t look quite right.
So, its been a year and a bit and I thought I’d revisit the card and ask the forum their thoughts.
This card was purchased on Mercari through Buyee. The seller at the time had no other Pokémon cards listed apart from these two. The description is somewhat vague without the go-to flipper #Hashtags. And to this day the seller does not have Pokémon card listings. Currently they are selling antique furniture.
These reasons lead me to believe it was an authentic card as most fake signatures are sold by people who list more than one, or are in the Pokémon hobby in general.
If the signature looked a little more fluid and less stop and go, i don’t think I would have ever doubted the authenticity, but here we are.
Are there other examples of an Imakuni signature looking as scuffed as this one?
My hope is that some people on the forum think it has a possibility of being authentic. I have written off the cost as a loss in my mind, so the money doesn’t matter at this point.
Finally, I know people have doubts of any sort of 3rd party authentication of autographs, but would sending this for a PSA authentication help the situation at all?
Their authentication hasn’t been the best recently so grading it won’t really provide a definitive answer on whether or not it’s real. Only reason to grade would be for value reasons.
It differs a lot from other imakuni autos. Unless PSA has an example on hand of that style of his auto it likely won’t go through. They don’t like grading autos that are different because as they say “they may still be real, but we can’t put our guarantee behind it”.
I can’t comment on authenticity though, I have not seen one like that before, maybe someone else has. Seller seems to check out though.
A listing back in May was discussed with some friends from mercari that has similar style imakunis. A lot of red flags that point to them being forgeries, I wouldn’t be surprised if yours was done by the same person. The link is broken now but I was able to find a screenshot.
Eh after a second thought yours looks slightly different than a lot of those ones, being more boxy with the ? Where those are more round. I still would lean towards a forgery though, but potentially not the same source. I will leave the post up for you to compare
Autos can vary over time, but comparing to the ones I personally received from Imakuni, these do not exist the same characteristics and I would personally not touch it, especially if it has zero provenance.
Yeah, in all instances of the signature that I have seen online, the tip of the question mark is never properly connected. It is, rather, where the signature starts or ends.
Without knowing anything about signatures, I respectfully disagree that having only one Pokemon card makes it seem more legit, that would be an instant red flag for me
If it’s a high value item, I would only ever buy from a Japanese seller if they have good reviews from non-proxy services and the backgrounds of their other listings match. Oftentimes the proxy services automatically give good reviews which pays out the seller and provides no repercussion if they send a fake. I’ve been looking for a fan club shining magikarp and the amount of scams on mercari/yahoo/rakuten is insane. Every other listing is highly suspicious at best
I think I got used to specifically looking for sellers selling their old collections etc. my favorite purchases on these sites have been sellers with only one or two pokemon listings as they may not properly price out the collection.
In this situation I was not experienced with identifying the telltale signs of an authentic autograph, and for the most part i am still not.
This signature kinda goes against both authentic and fake ones because no one fakes them so bad
Thank you everyone for your replies, I’m glad I made this post. not quite sure what to do with the card though, I guess it will just sit in a random binder with me forever :')
If any copies of an imakuni signature that looks similar to this one pops up, id still be interested in seeing that. For that 0.1% chance
Ah I see! That is a valid way to go about it if you think the seller is trustworthy enough! Either way I’m sorry you were scammed into buying a fake, that sucks
