First time poster here. Heard about this place from smpratte’s YT channel (big fan).
Anyway, I used to only send cards in for grading until I realized it was more economically viable to buy certain cards already graded (talking 1st Edition Base Set here). I only use eBay and only go with sellers who are reputable. Reputable is a subjective word, so I typically go by the guideline of having a least a few hundred sales, sell multiple Pokemon products, and has a reputation of at least 99%. I also try to go with the PSA cases that have the lighthouse sticker so it’s harder to fake.
So today I check on my order and see that it’s arriving Saturday. I also see that the seller has either re-listed or is selling a similar product. Cool, I’ll check it out.
The seller is selling the same exact card I just purchased. Same PSA number and everything. I reached out to him and haven’t heard back yet, but wanted to reach out to the community and get your thoughts, see if any of you have experienced this before and maybe spark a conversation on how to avoid Shade City in the future.
Hoping there is a reasonable explanation or he relisted instead of making a new listing, but I’m pretty sketched out. Luckily this card was dirt cheap so worst case scenario it’s a life lesson. Any advice or thoughts? I’ll follow up if the seller responds and when I get the delivery.
Graded Power is a trusted seller, probably just has multiples in the same grade and is reusing the pic. This happens a lot with the guys that deal in a lot of graded cards. You’ll notice it in the PSA auction price report where it looks like the same card is being sold repeatedly by the same seller for a month or so.
Thanks for the info. Good to know that this isn’t all that uncommon and that I purchased from a recognized seller.
Slightly false advertising IMO to post a picture of one card and sell another - even if it is the same type of card with the same grade. Might’ve picked this one over another due to the sequence number, case style, or even if one was a stronger looking example of the card from the other.
I agree with this. I recently purchased a PSA 9 1st edition base Metapod on a best offer because the one shown was a grey stamp. When I received it it was a normal 1st edition stamp. I went back to the listing and somehow I managed to miss the part where it said that the numbers and whatnot may not match the one sent out. It was my fault for not double checking the listing before offering, and I was surprised I even missed it to begin with, but I still felt a little miffed that I was shown something a little more special than a normal 1st edition stamp and didn’t get the one I had seen. I had a moment where I thought, “Did he do that on purpose?” Oh well, I learned something.
Ppl like that have like 50 of the same cards and arent going to take a picture of each individual one. You’re basically buying the grade, not the card instead of the other way around
I’ve been in the same situation, actually got a PSA 10 Pryce’s Lapras that has an odd red spot in the artwork. Didn’t notice it in the listing, so I went back and saw they had multiple copies available.
I just recently acquired another PSA 10 that’s completely clean, so all’s good.
I am willing to bet that the price is the reason for the relist. A cheap card that he has a ton of is not worth the time to put a picture up for. Remember, this is a business for this guy and he has tons of listings and time is money. He simply believes the time to put up a new picture is not worth the price of the card.
As a hobby seller, I can see the point in doing this because it does take time to make a reliable listing.
A charizard would have the actual picture all the time I bet.
On a side note concerning your choice of sellers: having a few hundred sales has nothing to do with reputability. There are hundreds of literal online stores run by complete jerks, and there are really awesome Pokemon dealers with less than 100 feedback selling cards out of their apartments.
As to fake PSA cases: it’s (almost) a non-issue. Nobody has the time, skill, hardware, etc. to fake slabs. Even the instances of fakes that we’ve seen on this forum have been pretty pathetic: a newbie with 15 minutes of searching could point out the counterfeits. Worse case: you’re always guaranteed a return with eBay’s one-sided buyer protection.
The point is: don’t needlessly limit yourself as a collector.
I think it might have been relisted by error or the seller has multiple copies as others have stated above, which is common practice from some of the bigger dealers. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is. You even have places like Troll and Toad that use stock images for all their ungraded cards so you never have a clue what you’re going to get. lol
Definitely weird to do with such condition-variable cards. But I’m not opposed to the practice as a whole. For my graded modern Japanese 10s in particular, I have a disclaimer that the serial might vary because every copy I own is absolutely identical.
Oh well, I learned something.
