The purpose of this thread is to serve as a resource for beginners concerned about the authenticity of a card. Feel free to use it as a small database to train your eyes.
Og “Rainbow cosmo” foils
Very abundant but fairly easy to recognize, especially when handling them in person: in this case the holo pattern is totally wrong and just copy-pasted from a scan. The fakers applied a generic rainbow foil on top of that, but as you can see, it’s not that good. Text, artwork and layout elements are very blurry.
As a general rule, you won’t ever see all the stars, orbs and swirl shining like that under a natural light. They’re more commonly found in fake vintage cosmo holo, but not exclusively.
Bogus Galaxy foils
These here actually shine, the pattern reacts to light angles like you would expect, although definitely incorrectly. Both black level and holo seems to have a faint appearance. Print quality, as you can see, is variable but the text can be crisp: they tried to make the Charizard look good (it’s still terrible), so be careful in case you’re inexperienced with Base set and first editions. The font used is usually very very wrong.
Neo Destiny Shinings
These can be tricky, considering the different holo pattern used, especially when buying them online with an unfavorable picture angle. A close up or handling them in person reveals the fake nature of these cards, if you aren’t a beginner. The texture is a bit too grainy, font is often thinner and the holo part not quite right.
Mid era Rainbow foils
Something about these can be deceiving, and the print quality feels better. In person, they have a slightly metallic texture with a matte finish. Holo is similar to the “Og rainbow foils” but a bit better made, and they are even sparkly around the attack box. The obvious giveaway here is the totally wrong font for the HP stat, and the terrible QC which often results in exaggerated borders/rotated cards.
Overexposed Gold Stars
Pretty easy to spot imho, for whatever reason they are almost white, with a texture showing burned colors. Probably an attempt made to achieve a sharp look. They seem more common in Japanese, although English ones exist as well. Holo pattern is usually similar to a Galaxy foil (incorrect).
Fake PSA Slabs
They’re becoming increasingly common, so be diligent and always check both cert number and official scans. A deactivated cert is obviously a red flag, but if this isn’t the case, you can always use the holo pattern as a reliable fingerprint. Consider that older slabs don’t have official scans, but this doesn’t mean they are fake.
This is just an example, I recommend to study this thread
Everything can be faked
Scary lesson to learn, but stay vigilant. People printing fakes don’t always care about value or popularity: they can and will produce bootleg of whatever they see. Modern or vintage, they’re both valid target.
Bonus: Obvious ones
Not a homogeneous category but pretty much everything is wrong in these cards. In general, very rare or expensive cards won’t be floating around Etsy/Ebay for cheap.
Also, many of these simply don’t exist in this holo pattern.
Just be careful to not consider them “hand made custom cards” or valuable misprints/test prints, they’re mass produced items coming from China.
In almost every case shown above, the back of these fake cards looks terrible. It will become obvious with experience though, but in general it’s always a smart move to ask for pictures taken from multiple angles.
Hope this little guide can help understanding how omnipresent are those fakes! Please don’t bid on Ebay cards if you’re unfamiliar with Pokemon: consider using your common sense before giving scammers thousands of dollars. Thank you !
