I’ve bought two pairs of holo cards and I can’t work out if something is off with one of each of the pair, even though they look incredibly similar - I’ve never seen something this convincing before, so is this just manufacturing differences, or is there something fishy going on?
Full set of pictures in link below - the two at the top are the ones that I suspect to be fakes. Can anyone advise on if these are real or fake?
It’s just a manufacturing difference. The consistency of quality back then was laughable. I don’t really see anything about these cards that raise any red flags.
Those are all real cards.
They are all real
Thanks all, that’s great to hear, and hopefully this is useful for others identifying similar cards.
These are the first holos I’ve seen where the light shines brighter and bluer through the cards. Presumably a card that fails the light test would be even more extreme? I was surprised at being able to see the Pokeball on the back through the card. Other than this, they looked real in every other aspect.
In my opinion and experience, the light test just doesn’t apply to Pokémon cards. I feel like this is a carryover from Magic the Gathering where the results can be interpreted much more consistently. But I messed around with light tests quite a bit and don’t even recommend it, myself.
The truth is that fake Pokémon cards are best identified by difference in the image quality, spacing, and text. If you ever have a card where a light test yields plainly incriminating results, there are almost certainly more easily identifiable tells that could have tipped you off beforehand.
There are definitely some convincing fake cards out there and the less familiar you are with the cards (like if you’re just starting out) the harder it is to notice the differences. But with WotC era cards, the number one easiest tip that something is wrong is print quality. Text will be blurrier. Energy symbols will be the wrong size. Color will be slightly different. I have never seen a fake from this era that could not be distinguished by carefully examining them side by side with a reference photo or a known original. If all those features look how they’re suppose to, you’re solid.
But light tests have never yielded consistent results for me. Nobody wants to get ripped off and it makes total sense to want to assess your purchases. But you’ll also get better at it with time because it won’t be long after exposure to the hobby that you’ll be able to notice when something is visually “off.”
That said, I think the best way to tell if something is real or not is to do exactly what you’ve done and ask for help. Because when you know, you know!
Looks real 
Man, you had me worried. I have holo cards that dont have any “sparkle”, but nice to know they are still real!
I call them thick holos (not a thing, just something I call them). I just assume for WOTC cards during the process they received a thicker layer on top of the holofoil pattern that blocks out the pattern.
Both of each pair sparkle, it’s just a little tricky to get the right angle, but it was the way the light looked through the card that I’d never seen before.
This came off the back of picking up this sneaky Snorlax, which if it weren’t for the wrong numbering/lighter text at the bottom, I can’t be sure I’d have noticed there was something up with it. Other than the colours on the back look a bit off so that always helps. I think I was surprised at how realistic this looked so I was already a bit on alert when subsequently purchasing the holos.
Unless it’s the holo version printed on regular card stock, but there’s just too many things off about it (grey numbering text, shiny back, no black layer, plus the text is a bit blurry if you look really close) that I’m not overly convinced.
