I don’t know if it’s a flex (often people will keep their collection to themselves), but for sure the idea of having something that’s desired by others is part of the appeal; as collectors, we’re nothing if not egotistical. I think that stems from the difficulty of acquisition - you need the chase for it to have meaning.
Also, if you’re going to use somebody else’s art to make money, I think at the very least the artist should get a cut (to say nothing of using it without permission).
Fake cards offer none of the history of real cards and they look like trash.
Is a disingenuous compliment just as good as a real compliment if you can’t tell the difference?
That’s actually an interesting comparsion. Imagine you have an (almost) perfectly faked card, maybe even authenticated. You’ll live a happy and fulfilled collector’s life, until someone points out that it’s fake and finds a way to prove it. You’ll become a sad little collector and your hopes and dreams are in shambles, even though the card stayed exactly the same.
Not quite sure yet where this puts us in the actual discussion, but I find it interesting nontheless.
Correct, rarity is nothing without authenticity.
I personally don’t support proxies/replicas/fakes in any hobby I partake in because I want to support authenticity and quality as well as help further goods be produced. My new purchases directly support the Pokemon company which supports the artists that make works for them. If I buy 3rd party from eBay or something, somewhere down the chain the company that produces the goods that I like was supported for the exact good that I am purchasing, and the card has just been moved and traded around since. If you buy fakes, you’re actively not supporting the production or design of future products of the goods that you like. It just doesn’t make sense if you care about the hobby to support fakes to any degree.
Before I got really into Pokemon I was into modifying cars, and the car scene is rampant with replica awful quality parts. I didn’t support fakes then even when I couldn’t afford the genuine product by a long shot, and I don’t support them now. To me, if you support/buy replicas then you are openly advertising that you don’t care about the health or integrity of the hobby and I’d rather you not partake at all.
Here’s a link from a prominent authentic manufacturer of very high quality parts (who is one of the more severe victims of replicas) explaining why replicas are a cancer. It’s not exactly a 1:1 with Pokemon cards, but it’s very close. www.vertex-usa.com/~vertex/index.php/no-knockoffs
Let me put this to you another way. You’re going out for a weekend with the boys to Las Vegas. You’re renting a limo, packing Dom Perignon, planning on eating the finest Filet Mignon at the steakhouse where you need to have a reservation 3 months in advance, everyone’s got their best outfits steamed and ready to go, everyone’s got a fat stack of cash they’re ready to blow on gambling and the strip clubs. Someone is tasked to bring the groups weed and cocaine. Do you want generic shitty ass substitutes that might make you sick? Some gross af MJ mixed with twigs, stems and god knows what? Some baby powder and numbing cut into your snowy goodness? No. You want th real deal. There are no substitutes, even if one is much cheaper than the other. It’s cheap because it’s shit. There is no substitute for the real thing.
Brand image, value associated with the ‘‘real deal’’, legitimacy, rarity, some sort of insurance that the value won’t go to zero, history, social norm dictating what is socially considered real and not and so on…
What happens when you’ll have proxies of other proxies? Having a fake card helps sustain the ‘‘image’’ of the real one
I think the distinction for me is in the history, age and personal memory associated with the product.
I like that a card I own is part of a moment in the hobby, most of them I have are from the ‘golden’ period in the late nineties. And generally most are played, reflecting that they’re 25 years old!
I guess the NFT comparison would be one produced at the peak of the ‘craze’ vs an identical re-issue later, even if it’s the same or even more exclusive in release/number/rarity etc.
The only nuance in this is that ‘peak’ is subjective, so likely people will have different personal peaks depending on their own nostalgia/entry point.
This is a tricky question to answer because it’s quite a complex one! I won’t mention legality aside because that is besides the question you did not want to focus on.
I think there’s a variety of different values that an original have that a proxy does not:
As pichufan mentioned, historic significance plays a big part, along with how the card was obtained. If you buy the original, it feels (to me anyways) you’re buying part of the history of the card, how the card was released and how it was obtained. Buying the proxy makes you lose this type of ownership, even if the card is nearly identical. Pokemon reprinted a lot of rarer cards in the past, but clearly collectors feel there’s still a difference between the release of one card compared to another. Strong examples of this is the Billingual Exeggutor from tropical mega battle or the Kamex Computer error. Both of these cards can be bought for a dollar from other sets and they look pretty much identical to the expensive variants, yet people are willing to pay more for the ownership of the history, where top level pokemon TCG players competed to gain ownership of these cards. Frankly I think if these cards were released as a limited release magazine promo or a random lottery, the cards would still be expensive, but not even close to the same value as they are priced today because of its historic significance.
I don’t think value is dictated simply because of the “flex value of owning a limited qty card”; it’s more like supply and demand is dictating the price of the original cards. Not everyone cares about the the limited amounts of the card being produced; some people want it for the art, some people want it for the history, some people do want it for the rarity, etc. and some people would be fine just buying a near identical copy of a card. However, for the small subset that cares about certain aspects of the original, it’s just that the limited quantity drives up the price of the card. There’s more pokemon illustrators than other certain trophy cards, but there’s still more than enough people who want the illustrator card over other’s trophies to drive up its price. I think you’re just asking this question in a forum full of people who are serious collectors so evidently everyone wants the original. I’m sure some people are fine with a proxy, which is why so many proxy cards are being sold on ebay. Another example of this is when there’s a Pop 1 of a PSA 10 random card that no one else really cares about. Technically there’s only one PSA 10 in the world of this random card, but no one really cares, so even if it’s really limited, the price doesn’t really reflect that. The market and value are dictated by the collectors who are willing to put money into the hobby, and while there are disagreements from time to time (where price does not reflect what someone values the card at), over time, it adjusts.
Another thing that makes this question difficult to answer is that there is no 1:1 perfect copy of a card that’s a proxy. Any card that has been re-released by pokemon does have a difference that differentiates the original expensive versions to the reprint, and any proxy out in the wild are all hand-made and do not look even 90% close to the original. Therefore, it makes it hard to appreciate the same card when the card quality is not the same. Of course, the general population may not see a difference, but for more serious collectors they can see the difference and it becomes unappealing. This is more to answer your question about the painting in van gogh; yeah to the general population a low quality print is satisfying enough to look at, but for painting enthusiasts, I’m sure looking at the original painting is much more aesthetically pleasing than the low quality print.
There’s more but I feel like I have typed enough!
Haha what are you talking about? People do value Evolutions Charizards.
This made we think of another unique Japanese phenomenon: Real looking life-sized plastic dolls. I do not think it will be appropriate for me to attach a picture of one to my post here. Anyway, enjoying “the company” of a silicon plastic doll instead of a real woman is similar to buying fake Pokemon cards, in my opinion.
Owning a proxy card for your collection is like owning a fake signature.
Or maybe it’s like owning a fake Louis Vuitton bag.
It looks similar enough, but it’s not the real thing, a cheap knock-off.
You may be fooling someone else, not yourself, and anyone who knows anything about cards, signatures or fine designer bags is going to think you’re lame AF.
If there were two sets of gold star dogs on a table in front of you, each set is labeled, one set from the stolen stash and one set was not.
Both sets in identical condition and impossible to distinguish.
Which do you choose?
I’m glad someone mentioned Evo Charizard. Reprints ≠ Fake/proxy. They are still official and have their own identity, history etc.
Imo Reprints are like clones, they have a half life. Naturally if I can buy the original for the same or slightly more, I will. That is why reprints are typically less expensive.
@breakingpokemon, I bet if you gave people the option to buy a 1st Ed. Base Set Charizard or the Evolutions Charizard at the same price, 99%+ of people would want the 1st Ed. Base. People buy the Evolutions Charizard because its a reprint of the item they really want
I like the hunt and the challenge. If i could roll up to Canal street and have someone print off a sheet of Tyranitars and be done with it I’d be doing something else.
Also, the question posed discounts “flex” value. While I think this hobby has the benefit of a lot more value aside from stacking status symbols (and many of those values have been outlined already), I can’t agree that displaying status is an inherently lesser motivator to own the original.
I work in fashion, specifically in authenticity and trust, and 95% of that world runs on status symbols and the desire to own the real deal is 100% centered around exclusivity and access. I understand stuff like that might taste icky to some but to me those drives are just as human as wanting to feel nostalgic about a dented pikachu. People chase status and power - and the signifiers of those things derive some value from communicating access to status and power.
Hi fellow New Yorker! What kind of fashion projects are you working on? Are you a designer, photographer, stylist…?
@chrisbalestra, I’ve worked for a few major resale platforms managing their authentication departments and am working for one now (though remotely from VA). I am also a collector/dealer of collectible fashion. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you wanna chat 
