I bought this Southern Island Marill on a whim for 2 main reasons: 1. the Southern Island Marill has my favorite artwork of any Pokemon card in existence, and is probably the most beautiful card ever created, and 2. I couldn’t resist the “Pikablu” labeling. I was just wondering, is the slab from any sort of reputable grading company, perhaps located in Japan somewhere? Or is someone able to translate the text on the back of the label? I think it looks like Japanese script, but I can’t be sure. The fit of the slab to the card isn’t very well done, as the card can sort of bounce around in there. The front of the label has very generic text and a very generic grade. It was given a grade of 8, but I have several other cards graded an 8 from multiple, reputable grading companies like BGS, PSA, and CGC. The Marill is in significantly worse condition compared to any cards graded an 8 from those reputable grading companies. From my limited experience, I would give the Marill a 5 or 6 at best. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this was just a money grab from a random eBay seller who was encapsulating cards themselves. The same seller has several Marill cards with different grades, all with the “Pikablu” labeling. All in all, I thought it was a cool, obscure pickup, and I’m happy with the card regardless of the legitimacy of the grade. Any info would be great! Thanks all!
Yandex has a pretty decent OCR which I find myself using all the time: translate.yandex.com/ocr. It’s not perfect but it works for most cases - sometimes it gets itself confused though and starts spouting Reuters news articles for whatever reason.
The text is “幸せな格付け会社” which is apparently “Happy rating company”.
I couldn’t find anything on Google so I’m guessing it’s just some custom slab.
I also can’t find anything on google. I tried searching the name on the label, as well as “幸せグレーディングサービス” which is a different way to say grading service. With a name as generic as “happy grading service” I’m sure it won’t be easy to find info on it lol
I picked up a card with this type of labeling. You can clearly see that it has glue holding the slab together along the edges, but as you said the card is loose and the label also is very loose (as I was typing this it literally fell into the card holder area, lol). The seller only had 1 other card with the same type of grading company and I have no idea how they got them. Fortunately the card itself is modern so the rating of “gem mint 10” they gave is pretty true and I wouldnt expect less than a 9 currently.
