Disclaimer: Most of this is just conjecture for now but the evidence is pretty damning
Additional Disclaimer: Please don’t demonize Chinese collectors in general because of this. They are just as mad (if not more) at Xiao as everyone else. He is getting heat on various Chinese forums and the few private collectors I’ve chatted with don’t have great things to say about him.
Background:
Xiao (IG https://www.instagram.com/xiao_xiao666666/ ) is a wealthy Chinese art collector who recently started buying up a lot of high end Pokemon trophy cards. He’s recently been accused of creating fake PSA 10 slabs.
The alleged scam
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Xiao buys a legit PSA 10 copy of a card
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Xiao cracks the legit copy of the card and keeps the label
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Xiao sends the cracked card back into PSA (presumably he gets a PSA 10 regrade but y’know…PSA)
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Xiao uses the old label and another copy of the same card (a raw, psa 8, psa 9, etc) along with a fake plastic slab to create a new PSA 10.
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He thereby has a system of upgrading any cards into PSA 10s with “legit” labels (from the old cracked card).
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He can continue to make new PSA 10s by cracking and regrading the original legit copy
The evidence
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Xiao sold a PSA 10 Kingdra Prime with cert # 70009645 to another buyer
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Buyer noticed that the new Kingdra prime was in a different plastic holder and had diff holo patterns. The slots in the PSA slab holder should not be this clear.
(This IG post has more examples 6666__ on Instagram: "Alert! Xiao was caught selling fake PSA10s in China. Please spread this out and make sure ppl don’t get scammed by him!!! Recently, some collectors in China found out that the new cert PSA10 slabs that they bought from Xiao have whites or dents on them. By comparing with PSA Scans, they found out that all the new cert PSA10s with weak quality that they bought from Xiao have two empty slots on the slab and some of the cards even have different Holo patterns from PSA Scan! After careful investigation, we could confirm that he cracked his perfect PSA10s and use those labels and the PSA9 or Raw cards he bought to make fake slabs. Please spread this out to the whole community!!" ).
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Xiao has a habit of buying PSA 10 cards AND raw cards in “any condition, any grade”. This allows him to execute the scam above
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PSA employee sylveonthebeach has already called the slabs as fake as well
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Some of the PSA 10 trophy certs are getting deactivated like this pika ring
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Xiao has a reputation of delaying payments by sending bad bank info and such. This makes sense if he needs to wait for his fake slabs to sell before he can pay. He won’t ever sell the original “legit” PSA 10 because he needs to keep that card to make new PSA 10 labels.
While I can’t say conclusively what’s happening here, thing don’t look great.
TL;DR Don’t buy or trade with Xiao at this time. Happy 2023!
Updates:
- IG Post from Chinese collector alleging that Xiao has done this in other collecting communities like fashion toys: 6666__ on Instagram: "Alert! Xiao was caught selling fake PSA10s in China. Please spread this out and make sure ppl don’t get scammed by him!!! Recently, some collectors in China found out that the new cert PSA10 slabs that they bought from Xiao have whites or dents on them. By comparing with PSA Scans, they found out that all the new cert PSA10s with weak quality that they bought from Xiao have two empty slots on the slab and some of the cards even have different Holo patterns from PSA Scan! After careful investigation, we could confirm that he cracked his perfect PSA10s and use those labels and the PSA9 or Raw cards he bought to make fake slabs. Please spread this out to the whole community!!"
- Xiao has disabled IG comments on his posts
- PSA employee providing contact email for anyone who has concerns or more info
- Xiao has responded on a Chinese forum:
“State on the authenticity of PSA-graded cards
There is a lot of propaganda (?) floating around that my store sells fake cards. I hereby promise that if the cards are found to be fake, we will refund no questions asked. I won’t rip off any buyer and also will not sit by as people slander my name” (Translation might not be exact)"
ignorance is bliss sort of mentality but I’m glad that I’m aware now.