As stupid as it may seem, if anyone has Goldeen sign by our dear fraud, maybe I’d get it if the price was low enough. Feel free to reach out.
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I don’t think it is stupid. I’d also still buy a playtest signed by Akabane. At least now we know the card is fake and we just would buy it for the signatures sake.
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At what level of infamous does it take for you to not want a signature?
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Maybe I’m naive but I just hope that he wasn’t involved in the scamming and was just a victim himself.
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Akabane is just a human, he’s not immune from doing bad things just because he helped make a children’s card game we enjoy.
Assuming the beta-style variants were simply invented in 2024 (which based on the evidence, there’s no reason to think that isn’t the case), there is not much room for an innocent explanation for why they would be signed or why he would go on the record to say they are real.
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Maybe he just wants to own a criminal’s signature? 
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No signings behind bars for Akabane. Could be a big brain move to scoop some up 
. Good people do bad things especially when money is involved. It’s just too bad that this scandal has affected so many of the people we care about in the hobby. To get scammed by a random seller on YHJ we pretty much expect. To be scammed by a creator of the franchise we grew up loving hits different. Will be happy when this is a thing of the past that we can laugh about in a few years. Another thing I will say is that there is a lot of finger pointing going on. Some of the folks being pointed at were genuinely duped and were only trying to help others. Others had less benevolent motives. Have some grace with each other until this gets fully sorted out. We have a great community here and @pfm essentially solved a $30 million dollar case single handedly. Very grateful to him and all who helped. Many beers are owed
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And it’s likely that Akabane has shut the door permanently on any other cool/niche/historical goodies (not just from the TCG but from the franchise as a whole, from other founders) from ever seeing light in the future as the risk to the Pokemon brand may just be too great now.
Hindsight is 20/20 but whatever real prototypes actually exist(ed) should have just been sent to a museum to be appreciated there instead of someone’s social media posts.
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What record? Do we actually know what he told CGC? As far as I know we only know what CGC claims they learned from him. I’m not defending the guy, and I’d be surprised if we hear from him ever again, but all we really have is CGC’s word on this… and that word has sharply declined in value.
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Interestingly, they mention he helped authenticate them but didn’t mention the cards also came from him
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Right so all we have on record is what CGC chooses to present to us. We don’t know what information he provided or whether he acknowledged the possibility of fakes existing.
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We know from CGC’s statements that Akabane was directly involved in the authentication process. We know where the cards came from. We have good reason to believe almost all of them were printed recently. It’s not like it’s a small number of affected cards, it seems like
almost every single copy that appeared during 2024 has questionable authenticity. And we have good reason to believe that majority of the variants may have been invented whole cloth. If true, did that just slip his mind when he chose to work with CGC or participate in multiple CGC witnessed beta signings?
Akabane had at least two virtual calls with grading companies (not just cgc) and I’ve talked to people who were involved. I understand that’s not “on the record”, but what is on the record are multiple articles were CGC explain what the cards are and directly cite Akabane as someone who they “work[ed] very closely with… to verify the cards’ authenticity and history.”
“I helped CGC Cards identify and authenticate these test cards”
Like what do you think happened? that Akabane was like “well I don’t know about these betas and deltas and this presentation variant, I’ve never seen them before” and then CGC grades them anyway? And then later he chooses to sign them and take pictures of people with them that he’s signed for and have others slabbed with CGC, autograph witnessed and the “Akabane Collection” written on it?
Like I understand that we don’t want to make 100% definitive claims about anything but also let’s also be realistic about the information we do have.
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I think CGC was very eager to put their name on these and they may, in their haste, have overlooked or willfully ignored some information.
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I received a high-quality scan privately from the owner of this Pikachu:
- Purchased in June 2023
- Appears to be the same as Akabane’s binder
- Pattern F (Xerox) decoded to July 10, 1996
- Shares the same serial number as the starters (confirmed with @pfm)
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Akabane lied directly to the faces of several collectors who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases millions - and CGC failed to do real due diligence in questioning the provenance of these cards that appeared out of the blue.
Both parties should be held accountable. As far as I’m aware, Japan does extradite citizens to the US in some fraud cases. Akabane and his orbiters should worry about that and I’m sure they are
CGC failed miserably at their job in my opinion. They authenticated these and took Akabanes word for them. Perhaps without comment from other Pokemon employees from that time.
I can’t be the only person that feels that confirmation from only one involved person on items that should be relatively easy to validate with other sources within CGC’s reach as well - is maybe not the right way to go about guaranteeing authenticity. Especially considering they’re a “certified guarantee company” whose entire premise is to authenticate rare items. I’m not the only person that thinks this, am I?
To not approach such high profile items at a level scrutiny that compels you to confirm the items from multiple parties (who are all living) speaks to the existing business practices of CGC that we’ve become familiar with.
The fact they weren’t compelled to put such rare artifacts under a microscope (figuratively and literally) and do a similar level of forensics as they did with the prototype blastoise and look at the cards in high resolution in editing software to modify the channels & decode the dots as @pfm did? Outrageous.
It’s ridiculous and looks like a huge misalignment of priorities at CGC since so many foolishly think before getting into grading cards that these companies already do this type of forensic analysis in the grading process and CGC has published articles making it seem so. Maybe don’t do high res image analysis in production on bulk orders - yeah we all understand that. But maybe you bust out the toolbox when something like this shows up…
It just speaks to how hollow CGC is and I think that nobody is getting refunded or credited the amount they lost from CGC. That would put them under, if I had to make an estimate of their financial outlook from the outside.
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Give pfm a break and some time to heal. We need him at full health before akabane reaches his final form
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Whatnot appreciation post. Say what you want about the platform - but they upheld their buyers protection policy. In this murky landscape of responsibility, they put the customer first. Where CGC continues to hide behind generic verbiage and lack of responsibility - a few other companies have shown their commitment to do right by their customers.
As both a buyer & a streamer on the platform, I am more than satisfied with this solution and wish for similar results for all the beta playtest card holders. #WeAreThe.03percent
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people are buying multi thousand dollar graded cards on whatnot? I thought it was all rip and ship type stuff
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I am losing any hope that any of us will receive anything from CGC. It seems like they’ll let the issue fade away, probably quietly settle a few lawsuits off the record as the time goes by for those who file one.
The fact that a company with their footprint in Pokemon collecting has taken so long to provide a meaningful update for so long speaks volumes.
If anyone that sent their cards hear of any updates let us know. I hope I am wrong!
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While I agree CGC is slow with statements and providing updates on returned cards, its been 17 days since this information came to light on e4, its been 11 days since CGC started asking for cards back.
It probably feels like forever, but it is still very early in the process. Probably won’t hear anything for a few weeks about their investigation
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