Some very nice additions!
I have started collecting the Japanese booster packs, I would like to get all the wotc era packs graded, starting very slowly! I find the Japanese artwork for the booster packs is incredibly beautiful and would love to frame them all!
Already have the jungle and fossil, and I bought some last week! I got a friend living in New York that I am visiting next month, so he is the one receiving the packages ( he will save me a LOT of shipping and taxes).
Here I got the neo discovery PSA 9 , and the rocket booster pack! Also got this Amada booster pack from the same seller as it was kind of cheap and cool!
8 Likes
Beautiful card. Wish I pounced on the trio sooner but I think theyâre a little out of reach for me either way
2 Likes
Finally picked up a long-time want. Sealed Pokédex by Tiger Electronics. Definitely a necessity/centerpiece for sealed Pokémon toy collectors
16 Likes
I accidently bought fakes as I was super naive and not comparing to real ones, spent too much on them on yahoo auctions, as a relatively new collector, mistakes like this make me want to break down but instead iâll just learn from this problem and double check everytime from here on in.
1 Like
Donât feel bad! Those actually look decent for fakes, especially with yahoo japanâs notoriously bad photo quality.
4 Likes
Thank you, Apparently these gold star and crystal cards are ones that are everywhere with rainbows, i can see why they choose rainbow because all the latest pride colours are in modern sets to fool newbies.
Are you implying they arenât fake because japanese use rainbow cameras?
I picked up pikachu mario and luigi too but i noticed other people were using the exact same identical image post buying them. I tried looking for what difference from a real to a fake but i could not find what to look out for, nor any videos on youtube.
Itâs important to figure out what makes the cards you seek authentic before purchasing. Your previous purchase post and buying into listings that have identical photos are going to be very expensive lessons for the untrained eye, so I encourage you to take a step back and continue researching.
Mario/Luigi Pikachu (among others) are commonly forged in YHJ listings so I would avoid YHJ altogether for the time being. Try ebay or PWCC for graded copies (PSA/CGC/BGS) as they provide the minimal assurance that what youâre looking at is authentic. The longer you look at cards that are real, the more you gradually figure out what isnât.
3 Likes
TL;DR: Most important part of telling fake from real is to check price, description, and seller, and err on the side of caution, as through a proxy, you are very unlikely to get your money back on Yahoo Japan or other Japanese websites, compared to eBay or PayPal G&S. Price and seller are the number one red flags: if price abnormally low compared to EN market, especially if it is an EN card, and seller has <100 or so feedback, even if all of them are positive, it is a scam.
Here are some red flags you should look for, for both EN and JP cards:
-
Low Feedback Account
If the account doesnât have a couple hundred feedback (two digits is most prevalent in scams) then exercise caution. It doesnât matter if ALL the feedback is positive, it can be faked with 1 yen listings. -
Low Price
If the price is too low to be true, then it is definitely a scam. Yahoo Japan is filled with dozens and dozens of these scam listings every day, and they get pumped to the top, but have extremely cheap prices. Compare prices for cards on the US market. It is normal to be somewhat cheaper, but not many times less expensive. People in Japan generally know how to price cards, and overseas people experienced with auctions will know what to bid on and what to not. -
Scam Vocabulary
YJA scammers tend to use common words or phrases that are easily detected through Google Translate (right click and translate to English).
Some of these include:
- Overseas Version
- Replica
- Aurica
- Flea Market
- Any phrase/sentence indicating uncertainty about a card (unknown details, etc)
-
Other Quirks/Details
Lots of times, scam listings will feature the card in a magnet loader. Idk why they do that, but it makes them easy to identify when combined with other red flags. In addition, many scammers have listings of a page (or a few) of many copies of the same, high-demand card, such as Shining Mews, WOTC Holos, Lottery Promos, Shinies, you get the gist. These are more often Japanese cards, though of course, itâs a scam in either language. While the cards are real, the feedback is most definitely low, and it doesnât make sense why a seller would sell multiple copies of the same, fast-selling card in an auction like that. They also put extra keywords in the auction, or description, though that is just something extra to take note of. View all the pictures of the auction as well, to make sure nothing is off. If you want to bid, I also suggest looking at the sellerâs other items, and look if there are any suspicious listings there. Scammers will probably have at least one more scam item listed.
Afterword
Yahoo Japan is a scary place. However, the more you look through the site, and practice sorting out the scams for yourself, you will find yourself not falling for these scams. Personally, the most important factor for me is the amount of feedback a seller has, and the listing description. These are universal, and will apply to everything. It also depends on what youâre buying as well, as itâs easier to tell a fake card from real than to know if a booster box is resealed or case is actually full of opened booster boxes or not (happened to me once), so use extra caution when trying to buy something âsealed,â especially the more high-end sealed.
The reason why I recommend buying from sellers with lots of feedback and listings that add up is because even if the photo is right (100% real card, a booster box, product, etc), and the description isnât too suspicious, if the seller is low feedback, there isnât anything preventing them from cancelling a bid from someone in Japan and selling to an account owned by a proxy company instead, sending you an opened booster box or removing a few high-end cards that you thought were pictured in the lot, or worse, as they automatically get positive feedback from the proxy.
Proxies arenât going to check for authenticity or if every single card is there, unless you ask, and even if they find something missing or fake they most likely arenât going to try to get the money back for you, like in @HumanForScale case; he was offered a 190 yen refund for a 190k yen lot, and was a long-time customer too. However, something like graded cards are difficult to fake or modify, and as such, I am more inclined to buy from a several hundred feedback seller selling only graded cards, than a booster box or case, or various high-demand cards, such as shinings, gold stars, and WOTC holos.
All this aside, once you start browsing Yahoo Japan for a few hours, youâll start to get better and better at finding scams and good sellers. I think proxy sites have a function to save or follow sellers, and watchlisting, building a list, and checking the various good sellers is quite fun for me at least. Watchlisting items will be your best friend, and itâs cool that proxies have snipe bids, though of course itâs hard to win due to the 5 min extension they have. Itâs something I miss when switching from a proxy to my own YJA account.
All and all, bid on well-established sellers, avoid sellers with these obvious red flags, and take more precaution depending on what youâre spending and what type of item youâre buying, and youâll be good! The more and more you buy from Japan, the more youâll pick up on everything. Hell, Iâm only 15 haha, though Iâve been collecting and selling for a while.
Iâve actually written an entire article, oops, I guess Iâll end it here. If you have any questions or concerns, you can ask me, or use #help-me in the discord! I apologize if I made buying from YJA seem more daunting than it really is, I tried to make it more in-depth and cover what I wanted to say.
Happy hunting!
-Leo
8 Likes
Unfortunately i donât have a deep pockets for graded cards, so i opt for raw cards and in japan they are cheaper than ones found on ebay as half the time or majority of the time are highly competitive where many deep pocket people buy them up leaving the major marketplace ebay all dried up with little to no raw cards. And regarding PWCC, they have an awful rep of known shill bidding on ebay.
The point I was attempting to make is that graded cards help you deduce what validates its authenticity - card stock, ink colour/saturation, holofoil patterns, text font, symbols etc. You donât have to sink money buying graded cards to observe them, which is why marketplaces like ebay and PWCC (with their high res scans) are great resources to self-educate upon. Pricing is a whole other category but properly understanding the cards you seek takes priority.
4 Likes
@lysandre Feel free to share a potential purchase in a thread next time and members can help see if itâs sus!
2 Likes
Thank you, that helps tremendously! Cheers! I was always sus of those magnets. What is G&S?
G&S refers to paying for âGoods & Servicesâ on paypal. That means you have protection if the item doesnât arrive or is not what you ordered.
2 Likes
oh right yes, as much as i like buyer protection, paypal has a serious bad reputation, like read their Litigations on wiki, they are as corrupt as anything, not to mention buyer protection, yeah thatâs cool but how about not being able to delete your paypal, goodluck haha! Sorry didnât want to get off-topic but people must know the negative side of paypal. Iâll post up my recent purchases when all my goods arrive, i have learned so much today about the wild east marketplace.
Got a new binder recently (Ultra Pro zippered 4 pocket) which was a great excuse to organize some newer cards. Impressed as it leaves a wide berth between zip and pockets:
11 Likes
Does it come with prof oak watching over your shoulder at all times?
3 Likes
13 Likes
Itâs strange, I now have this sudden urge to cram all the doubles into my computer in the hope of some kind of reward
2 Likes
