Re sealed gym heroes box

[thelasscollector]

@pichufan

@wisewailmer

just a general rule for high end stuff

I think it’s a bit irrelevant in this case though. If you can make a fake convincing enough that it can fool anyone it’s not going to matter if you got the box from someone trusted within the community versus completely unheard of. The best thing a scammer who does something like this can hope to achieve is having the box eventually be sold on to someone else after they’ve already sold it, ultimately making it much harder to trace the source of the scam. Especially when dealing with high value items like these which would very much be grounds for police involvement.

Scammers probably aren’t going to be selling boxes like these directly, they’re going to be selling them onto large resellers who they will trust won’t open the box to discover the scam.

For all we know this box was resealed 10 years ago and has since exchanged hands a dozen times.

Yeah, thats nutty.

[Cerulean]

@bartallen2

That’s why it was safer to purchase boxes pre-2019 (cheaper boxes and no point putting the effort into an elaborate endeavour) - before the dark times, before the Empire …

I mean, people were resealing boxes before 2019. The practice in itself is nothing new.

[krill]

This is why im super careful with vintage packs and only have bought a handful. I cant imagine dropping thousands on a box

[BugCatcherDave]

Isn’t this like actually detrimental to the sealed collectors? Unless you bought the box straight from the retailer - you’d go to bed every night not knowing if your sealed product (10s to 100s of thousands of dollars) is legitimate or not

[raider]

@BugCatcherDave

Isn’t this like actually detrimental to the sealed collectors? Unless you bought the box straight from the retailer - you’d go to bed every night not knowing if your sealed product (10s to 100s of thousands of dollars) is legitimate or not

Yes this is a problem for sealed collectors for sure. That said, these transactions are large enough that it will attract real attention of law enforcement. Repercussions will be significant, which will be a considerable deterrent. Buying from parties you know and can trace, doing legit sales, is and has always been important, but especially with big dollar transactions.

Also, I’ll add, I think those of us that collect sealed product should really think twice about reselling boxes and wrappers for product we open. Wrappers just seems immoral, but I don’t know if it’s even usable - seems like maybe this is new plastic.

[mthursty]

Damn, no pictures or links. This is sad

[mcorey777]

Sickening!

[acebren]

As soon as I seen the wizards logos I knew it was not legit, way too big. The plastic wrap is also a different type, seems more firm/rigid.

[crios711]

the buyer claims to have gotten a refund and doesn’t want to out the person now, I would hope the authorities are contacted cause this sucks.

[charizandrew]

This makes me nervous and will reduce confidence in the market if more re-sealed boxes appear. Doe anyone find it odd there was a person trying to buy the seal???

[seafoamarticuno]

I wonder if the reaction to this type of scam will be some sort of box verification service, offered by a PSA/BGS or similar type company.

Obviously the value of sealed boxes are that they’re sealed… but if enough people lose trust because there’s no reliable way to tell that it’s a legitimate sealed box, something will have to be done.

I imagine a service where you send the box to [PSA/BGS/etc], who would open the box, but not the packs, confirm it is in fact legitimate, and then “re-seal” the box in a hard case, similar to how single cards are sealed by the grading companies. Essentially marking the box as legitimate for anyone looking to sell or buy said box.

[casual]

@seafoamarticuno

I wonder if the reaction to this type of scam will be some sort of box verification service, offered by a PSA/BGS or similar type company.

Obviously the value of sealed boxes are that they’re sealed… but if enough people lose trust because there’s no reliable way to tell that it’s a legitimate sealed box, something will have to be done.

I imagine a service where you send the box to [PSA/BGS/etc], who would open the box, but not the packs, confirm it is in fact legitimate, and then “re-seal” the box in a hard case, similar to how single cards are sealed by the grading companies. Essentially marking the box as legitimate for anyone looking to sell or buy said box.

Right, I imagine BBCE will start offering this service. The problem is that Pokemon collectors specifically LIKE the fact that items are factory sealed. We (hopefully Im speaking for most sealed collectors) value the sealed box > the sealed packs inside > the mint cards inside

[seafoamarticuno]

@casual

@seafoamarticuno

I wonder if the reaction to this type of scam will be some sort of box verification service, offered by a PSA/BGS or similar type company.

Obviously the value of sealed boxes are that they’re sealed… but if enough people lose trust because there’s no reliable way to tell that it’s a legitimate sealed box, something will have to be done.

I imagine a service where you send the box to [PSA/BGS/etc], who would open the box, but not the packs, confirm it is in fact legitimate, and then “re-seal” the box in a hard case, similar to how single cards are sealed by the grading companies. Essentially marking the box as legitimate for anyone looking to sell or buy said box.

Right, I imagine BBCE will start offering this service. The problem is that Pokemon collectors specifically LIKE the fact that items are factory sealed. We (hopefully Im speaking for most sealed collectors) value the sealed box > the sealed packs inside > the mint cards inside

Totally agree.

5 years ago it was much easier to find mint, raw holos, but now most holos for sale are not mint. Leading to a shift in preferences for many towards buying already graded cards to guarantee the condition. I would not be surprised to see a similar shift happen for sealed boxes. Mint, legitimate, sealed boxes would be anyone’s preference. But if becomes a 10% or 20% chance that your $15k box isn’t real… “graded” / “verified” becomes a very appealing option for your investment.

[cosrob]

Concerning factor for me is the resealer could continue to sell resealed boxes and just refund when caught. There should be some linking given its the 2nd resealed box discovered.

[BugCatcherDave]

Think of all the eBay boxes and private deals that have happened in the last couple months and this fake was good enough to fool, in-person, a large sealed product seller that handles lots of WotC boxes. How many people out there own just a few early WotC boxes and think they have their child’s college fund maturing in value and its complete garbage…

Literally don’t know how sealed box collectors sleep at night not knowing with absolute 100% certainty their boxes are real.

I own zero sealed product

[octaane]

@zorloth

@shadowless

2/3 are definitely the most reliable methods, even though people require some sort of experience when examining the boxes. You can even see in the video that the plastic itself looks different than the real deal - should be much more obvious when you have it actually in hand.

Agreed. The issue with #2 is that it might be possible for a resealer to convincingly damage the seal to make it match the damage on the box. And #3 is also complicated by the fact that the seals on authentic vintage booster boxes have aged differently depending on how they were stored. If they were exposed to sunlight for a prolonged period of time, for instance, the wrap may display yellowing and be slightly more brittle. So there’s not some objective way that the wrap on a 20-year box should look. Still, it should be possible, with enough experience, to identify if a box was recently sealed.

There may also be ways to chemically test the age of the seal. No clue on this, though.

Alright, so the issue with #1 is this. @zorloth, love ya, but xray doesn’t work like that - not even mm radar can do that. By that, i mean identify re-sealed packs, tell what their contents are, or identify a fake seal. You won’t be able to distinguish a badly sealed box and a fake box seal, let alone distinguish pack content, or distinguish the contents of packs like a recent post around here was talking about. You’re running into fundamental physics here.

[zorloth]

@octaane

@zorloth

Agreed. The issue with #2 is that it might be possible for a resealer to convincingly damage the seal to make it match the damage on the box. And #3 is also complicated by the fact that the seals on authentic vintage booster boxes have aged differently depending on how they were stored. If they were exposed to sunlight for a prolonged period of time, for instance, the wrap may display yellowing and be slightly more brittle. So there’s not some objective way that the wrap on a 20-year box should look. Still, it should be possible, with enough experience, to identify if a box was recently sealed.

There may also be ways to chemically test the age of the seal. No clue on this, though.

Alright, so the issue with #1 is this. @zorloth, love ya, but xray doesn’t work like that - not even mm radar can do that. By that, i mean identify re-sealed packs, tell what their contents are, or identify a fake seal. You won’t be able to distinguish a badly sealed box and a fake box seal, let alone distinguish pack content, or distinguish the contents of packs like a recent post around here was talking about. You’re running into fundamental physics here.

Did you read what I wrote? Because we completely agree. There’s zero misunderstanding on my end. As I originally stated: X-ray would NOT be viable in instances where resealed packs were placed in the box.

But could it be used to authenticate boxes such as the Gym Heroes box in question? Absolutely. I’m not sure if you watched the video, but the resealed box in question literally had just stacks of cards under the bottom two packs. That could without question be detected.

[pokebowl]

Didn’t someone else post another gym box potentially resealed? Or it was in regards to this one? PTPokemon I think on IG… posted a video that the client took saying he thinks it’s a reseal and the rattling noises were concerning. He refunded him and waiting to receive the box to see if it was a reseal or not…

[pikazardcollector]

Getting scarier by the day. I will just stick with graded cards as I always have.

[octaane]

@zorloth

@octaane

Alright, so the issue with #1 is this. @zorloth , love ya, but xray doesn’t work like that - not even mm radar can do that. By that, i mean identify re-sealed packs, tell what their contents are, or identify a fake seal. You won’t be able to distinguish a badly sealed box and a fake box seal, let alone distinguish pack content, or distinguish the contents of packs like a recent post around here was talking about. You’re running into fundamental physics here.

Did you read what I wrote? Because we completely agree. There’s zero misunderstanding on my end. As I originally stated: X-ray would NOT be viable in instances where resealed packs were placed in the box.

But could it be used to authenticate boxes such as the Gym Heroes box in question? Absolutely. I’m not sure if you watched the video, but the resealed box in question literally had just stacks of cards under the bottom two packs. That could without question be detected.

Ah, must’ve misunderstood. It would still be difficult to interpret the stack of cards no matter how you image it, but it would’ve been clear that it wasn’t a homogeneous stack of packs vs cards + pack.