The card itself is absolutely authentic! However, the cut was done outside of the factory. PSA normally doesn’t grade hand cut cards, but will be more lenient if there is a signature.
He wasn’t saying they always come from outside the factory. Just that in your particular case it did, at least that’s how I understood it. The problem with square cut cards is 99% of the time they were made at a later point outside the factory. That makes it really hard to identify that last 1%. The point being there is a chance a card comes like that from the factory, it’s just not very probable.
Numerous Base set cards were hand cut and sold on the open market.
An actual error cut distributed in a pack won’t have 4 pristine corners. This is the dead giveaway. Notice in the video you linked, the corners will naturally have indents due to packaging.
Unless you were at an official WOTC event, and can name the staff member, there is no legitimate way to authentic a WOTC square cut card. They were only given to the staff/prizes as jokes. Charizard was not one of them.
I couldn’t care less about your item. I am only posting to inform people who have less experience. Enjoy it for what it is, but its not cut from WOTC.
I don’t care about your card at all. I am only responding in relation to authenticity. Sorry that the seller was ignorant to the origin or didn’t disclose the origin.
What Scott said earlier was that it’s likely that what got it authenticated and graded was the fact that it was signed. It’s quite easy to get a handcut base card and have write sign it. Not really an error, my man. They’re all just trying to help you
Yes the card is an obvious hand cut (this coming from someone who has authentic WOTC square cuts) but it is also a very cool card and imo, in its current form, worth close to what the young man paid. I’d love to have it;)
Neat card! I’m surprised it was graded by PSA. I think you did ok $1500 too;)
I want to mention though… that the “black dots” around the edges really provide no validity to the card’s authenticity as a square cut. I’ve noticed some people say that this is how to tell, but that is false. I assure you that it only means that it was cut off of a WOTC sheet (whether hand cut or factory).
If you’ve been in the game as Scott and many other experts (Gary, [Not Zelda Gilroy] who commented above has been 100% active in the game since 1998), then you will understand how common it is/was to find sheets/cards that are hand cut. Especially around 2008-2009. Scott is right that it is very likely a hand cut. It has been confirmed years ago that some sheet owners paid to have several base sheets cut, but realistically it’s not that difficult to do yourself…
We don’t want to detract from your joy of having the card or it’s value to you. But the truth is nice to know as well