I’m hoping to get some opinions from people with experience with the Van Gogh Pikachu.
I recently sold one (Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat) via Cardmarket, and the buyer is now claiming it’s fake. I was honestly quite surprised, because I’m very confident the card I sent is real, I got it myself from the Van Gogh Museum and it went straight into my binder.
After going back and forth with the buyer, I suggested that he could just send the card back and we would cancel the order so I could check it again or have it verified. Instead, the case was escalated to Cardmarket support, and they ended up refunding the buyer and deciding that the card would not be returned to me, completely disregarding the proof i sent just based on the buyer sales volume and rating.
I’ve attached a few photos.
The photos in a dark background are the photos i took before shipping, the other photo of the back was the photo he sent just saying that card is fake.
What’s confusing me is that the card in the buyer’s photo looks noticeably more worn than mine, more edge wear and corner damage , while mine only had very minor whitening and one small ding. The centering looks somewhat similar, which makes it a bit tricky at first glance.
So I’m trying to understand what I’m actually looking at here.
A couple of questions:
Does my card look authentic based on the photos?
Does the buyer’s card look like the same card, or a different copy?
I’m not an expert, so I’d really appreciate any input.
It’s super difficult for me to believe it , I got it in my own hand from the museum. I have one more Pikachu grey felt hat, this one from intertoys , the year after the release in the museum, some selected stores in the Netherlands were giving those away for every 30 euros spent in the store on Pokemon articles. Would you mind checking if that one is real ? I’ll send photos in a minute.
I’ve edited the position of the pictures in your post, to hopefully make your question a bit clearer.
I agree with @wisewailmer that the picture of the back from the buyer is definitely fake since the colors are wrong.
I’m not really an expert when it comes to fake vs real authenticating though, so I’ll leave whether the card in your pictures is real to other people. I personally don’t see anything obvious wrong with it with a quick glance. (Any pointers what might be fake about it in those three pictures, @wisewailmer?)
Only thing I noticed is that both the card in your pictures and the fake one in the buyer’s picture are off-centered left to right (on the front, so right to left on the back), which you did also mention yourself I see now.
Thank you for making the post for understandable !
Yeah i get what you guys see, i have couple posts in other places about this same card and situation itself and some people also pointed out the red in the pokeball.
But im so confused how could this card be fake… I never bought one online, i had 2 in total, this and one from intertoys, i always noticed the slight color difference but i thought they were different runs since one i got in 2023 and other in 2024 in dutch stores.
It’s indeed a weird situation. I have heard of stores in the US sometimes selling fake packs by accident, so perhaps the one from the Intertoys store was (accidentally or purposely) fake. Still very odd, though.
I’m personally also not 100% sure yet whether the card in your three pictures is fake. The one in the buyer’s picture certainly is, but maybe they tried (and possibly even succeeded) to scam you.
Unfortunately, as mentioned before, I’m not too good at authenticating real vs fake cards, especially not based on pictures, so I hope someone else could tune in on your three pictures for that.
I highly doubt the one you got from the Museum was fake, since it would be too fast for fakes to have already been made. I’ve been to the Museum myself just a month after the action started, and the promos were already gone at that point (so I bought mine online - for 80 euros[1] - when I got back home). So I assume you went within the first 1-2 weeks for your copy?
Greetz,
Quuador
Even though they’re 1k+ nowadays, so in comparison not too bad of a price. But compared to the expected ‘free’ at the time, it was a bit of a bummer.. ↩︎
The back colour gave away that the card was fake before I even finished reading your post, it’s one of those things that once you see it and know what the fake backs colouring is like you see it in a second, instantly in fact.
Hello everyone, and thanks again for all the input.
After going through all the feedback here and on Reddit, I’m now convinced the card is indeed fake. I honestly don’t know how it ended up in my possession, especially since, as I mentioned, I never bought one online.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is similar to what @Quuador mentioned. I originally got one from the museum, which should be real given how early it was and how unlikely fakes were at that time. Then in 2024, I got another one from Intertoys. It has to be there that something had gone wrong, maybe employees swapped the cards, Im not sure but its a possibility. Somewhere along the way, those two must have been swapped, and I ended up selling the fake one thinking it was the original.Either that, or something very unlikely happened like someone accessing my binder. (this is really super unlikely)
What made this even more confusing is that both cards came with certificates, which I still have, and they look exactly the same. I always assumed any differences were due to print variations between years. Only after digging deeper yesterday did I learn that it was actually a single print run: part of the stock was distributed at the museum, and after all the issues there, the remaining stock was later released through selected stores like Intertoys and GameMania. So there wasn’t a second print run like I originally thought.
As soon as I reached this conclusion, I contacted both Cardmarket and the buyer to sincerely apologize.
Feel free to close the post, or leave it up if it helps others avoid a similar situation in the future.
Thanks again everyone — great community here. Came for the help, might stick around for the vibe.
I didnt see anyone mention it, but was him sending ONE photo of the back and no front pictures enough evidence to claim your card was fake? (I get the back is fake in this situation) couldve been any card on the front, no?..Its too late now, but if this is how some platforms are handling fakes then its truly scary for people selling if its that simple to game the system. Id recommend more authenticity guarantee like ebay has if possible to lower the chances of things like this happening. Sorry you had this experience.
Still very odd, though.
- when I got back home). So I assume you went within the first 1-2 weeks for your copy?