I ordered a bunch of Amazing rares because i like the art.
Then I ordered one from a shady user for a bit less money.
Then I saw someone offer a proxy on ebay.
Then i looked at my cards and noticed 2 of them reflected light throughout the cards (not just the holo part) and some just reflected at the holo part.
Now Im confused. Did I buy fakes? How can you make sure a card is original? Because looking at the proxys offered in ebay i sometimes dont notice anything wrong if they didnt label it.
I might upload a picture later comparing the 2 versions of the cards so you can better see what I mean.
EDIT1: In the early 2000s fake cards were super obvious. I once tried to print my own blue eyes white dragon at home too. Looked really bad. Just like all the other fake yugioh cards.
EDIT2: Above you see an example, and its hard to tell from the pictures alone, but if you shine light on the right card it reflects it like this everywhere on the card. If you do it with the left one, it doesnt.
It has nothing to do with the languages.
As i said, from 10 amazing rares i have, only 2 of them reflect light like that. Are those 2 fake?
It’s very hard to help without pictures because the fastest way to tell a real from a fake is simply visual recognition.
However, do you have any cards from the era you know are authentic? I would handle them both for a moment. Proxies just “feel wrong” — the weight is wrong, the rigidity is wrong, the texture is wrong. Having a real one on your hand and a fake one in your hand should be pretty telling. I would also compare color to a reference photo of a known original because color is usually different too.
Borrowing this image from Google, but a lot of proxies are also literally just stickers, like this:
I just want to confirm this part. Which language are your two “glossy” ones in? Because there being printing differences between languages is not unusual. This isn’t the period where I have much knowledge but during my own era it was common for cards from different countries to have different finishes.
When you handle the glossy ones alongside the normal ones, do they feel any different? Is the paper any less rigid, is it any lighter, does it feel different to the touch?
You can find fake weedle base set, so ye people would fake $15 cards XD especially when they were 50 not long ago. However I am not saying these are fake, amazing rare would be hard to counterfeit for sure and the finger feel would/should give it away(Yes I said finger feel XD).
I think if the only difference you can tell is that one has a bit more of a glossier finish there’s no reason to suspect it’s fake. As others have said, these are hard cards to fake so it would probably not pass a touch test if you held them side by side.
Unless someone else suggests something that didn’t occur to me, I don’t think it’s a proxy.
Hidden Fates had the same variant/error where the cards were glossy instead of the usual matte. They look similar to the glossy Amazing Jirachi in that picture. I’m not sure why it happens but here’s a link to the HF thread with other members showing off their glossy cards:
Maybe they are all fake and some secret organization is slowly trying to get rid of real cards and replace them all with proxies
It starts with ebay auctions, next thing you know the booster you buy at your local game store is a proxy booster AHHHH
Just to add on, making proxies is really hard for textured cards especially, pretty much impossible when the texture follows the artwork like how the ripples follow jirachi’s head shape. And then on top of that, only a few better quality proxies will be selective on where the holo pattern shows through on the card. This isn’t nearly as tough as mimicking the texture but it’s a lot more work than a lotta modern proxy sellers are probably willing to put in.
