Wednesday, March 27, 2013

How do you spot a fake pokemon card?

How do you spot a fake pokemon card?

I recently bought over two hundred Pokemon cards from a person at a local car-boot sale. It cost me £10, which I thought was worth it for the amount and rarity of the cards. I went home happy until my brother explained to me that some of them were fake. I counted the fake cards and then the real cards and it turns out that only around fifty cards were real. Here are a few ways to tell if your Pokemon cards are fake and a few tips on how to avoid buying them. Please note that this only applies to English Pokemon cards.
Firstly, check the back of the Pokemon card. Though not that obvious, a real Pokemon card is usually a dark blue colour while a fake one would be paler in colour. To easily tell if a Pokemon card is fake look at the light blue spot next to the red bit of the pokeball. To the right of it you should see s light blue patch that is fairly detailed. On a fake card, however, there will just be a blue splat with no detail.
If you want to know if trainer cards are fake, look at the word ‘Pokemon’ on the card. If the card is real then the word ‘Pokemon’ will have an apostrophe on the letter e. If it is a fake card then there will be no apostrophe and the word will just be spelt ‘Pokemon’. You can also look is there are any spelling mistakes or if the image is at a slant or misplaced. The same rules apply here as you can check the back of the card to see if it’s fake.
For actual Pokemon cards, you can still use the same methods above, checking for spelling mistakes and so fourth. There is a way to tell if the Pokemon card is fake, by looking at the energy symbols. There are usually energy symbols after the hit points or HP, next to the attack moves and at the bottom of the card, as weaknesses or resistance. The symbols themselves are defined by their symbol and colour. Real Pokemon cards will have a small symbol so you can easily see the colour while fake Pokemon cards will have the symbol enlarged, almost touching the edge so they will look quite crowded. Fake Pokemon energy symbols will also look slightly darker.

Other ways to tell if cards are fake are if they have a gold border around them or feel like a sticker and scratch off easily. When I wasn’t sure if a Pokemon card was fake or not, I held it up to some light. Fake Pokemon cards will be a little bit see-through and you should be able to see the yellow logo ‘Pokemon’. It is always best to buy Pokemon cards from your local supermarket so you know they are real. I would avoid websites like eBay and drive clear of car-boot sales or Flea Markets. I hope these methods help you to never get ripped off again.

I went to an outdoor flea market in Michigan this summer, and found a store that consisted of large cardboard boxes with $1 items in them. The owners arranged the boxes in rows in the grass for easy browsing. They primarily had house hold items like sponges, kitchen utensils, and things like that (all made in China), but then I came accross two boxes filled with Pokémon cards! Or so I thought o_o

One box had loose booster packs in it, and the other box had kits with pre-made decks and packs inside. I decided to just get one booster pack (sense it was only $1 and I had a feeling it was fake to begin with) And indeed they were fakes -_-


Packaging:
(things to note about the packaging before you buy it)

Pricing: The pack I bought was only $1, when most REAL packs run anywhere from $4-5. That should be a tip off right there!
Poor Art Quality: Some of the pre-made deck packs had HORRIBLE artwork on the front that looked like it was drawn by a young child. The $1 booster packs looked like poor quality scans of real booster packs.

A side by side comparison. The card on the left is real, the card on the right is fake

The Cards:
(things to note after you've obtained a fake card)


Number of Cards: Tha package said that it contained 10 additional playing cards, when it only contained 9 -_-; BIG TIP OFF THERE!

Color: The fake card, when compared to a real card of the same type, is slightly off color-wise. As you can see in the picture, the jigglypuff card on the right is slightly darker than the one on the left.

Energy Symbols: One of the first things you might notice when looking at the card up close, is the energy symbol. IT'S HUGE! Can you see how big the black part of the "colorless" energy symbol for the attack is?

Picture Quality: Upon closer inspection of the fakies, we can see that the general quality of the image is...grainy looking. It seems that the scanner used to copy the Pokémon card wasn't very good.

Card Weight: The fake cards in my pack seem heavier when compared to real cards. This may vary depending on where you find your fake cards, but it is something to note.

Spelling Errors: If you look at the fake jigglypuff card in the picture, you can see they write pokémon without the dash over the e! "The Defending Pokemon is now Asleep" Perhaps the people who made the card didn't know how to make the "é" symbol on their computer? You can catch other spelling errors too if you read slowly through the cards. Usually they just leave out a letter or two from a word.

Card Texture: Often, fake cards are printed on different material than real cards. This can make the card have a grainy or uneven texture too it. So give your cards a good rub ^_^

Back of the Card: Finally, we take a look at the back. I didn't take a picture of it, but the fake card is a very light blue color compared to the real card. Again, the back image is slightly grainy, and off color in general.

The Light Test: Most people have heard of this one. If you haven't you're hearing it now! Supposedly, if you hold a fake card up to a light, you will be able to see through it. For me, this was true! If I hold my fake cards up to a strong light, I can see some of the front image shining through. When I hold up a real card to the same light, nothing gets through. You need a strong light to do this test effectively.

my "10" additional playing cards that were in the fake pack


This wouldn't be a bad draw if it wasn't for the fact that they're fake >_< The Tangrowth is actually a holographic, but the shiny parts look...odd. There is a grainy-ness about it, and it just doesn't seem shiny enough when compared to real cards.

One more thing to note, booster packs usually have an energy or a trainer card in them. This one had none :/

Just keep your wits about you! Something that seems too good to be true (like booster packs for just $1) probably aren't
Since getting back into the TCG earlier this year, I've bought a lot of Pokemon cards. Most of them have been real, but there have been three lot auctions that I won which contained fake cards (two of them had only a few fakes out of hundreds of cards, but the third auction was 590 fakes out of 884 cards because the seller was a crazy bitch). You might be wondering "How can I tell if the cards I buy are real or fake?" Well, it's a good thing you asked, because Frost is feeling nice enough to impart his knowledge for spotting fake Pokemon TCG cards on everybody.

Rule 1: "Pokémon has an accent over the e"
My number-one litmus test to determine whether or not a card is fake is if it has an accent over the e when the word "Pokémon" is written on the FRONT of the card. This includes both as part of the Pokemon's species (e.g. Dewgong is listed as the "Sea Lion Pokémon") and in the flavor text for a Pokemon's attacks. When people create fake cards, they rewrite the card's text for some reason, and they almost never remember to add an accent to the e. So if you have a Togekiss card that lists Togekiss' species as the "Jubilee Pokemon," this card is fake. Note: the accent being over the Pokemon logo on the back of a card does not prove that a card is real.

Rule 2: "Spelling and grammatical errors only exist on fake cards"
This is closely related to Rule 1. For example, look at this Garchomp LV.X card that I unfortunately acquired:
Image
Do I even need to explain why this card is fake?

Grachomp LV.X is just the tip of the iceberg, though. In the auction I won from that crazy bitch, I also got a Latios card named "Lation" and several Luvdisc cards for which the species was listed as the "Rendevous pokkemon." In another one of my auctions, I got a Beautifly who "evolves from Sikoon" and whose attack forces its opponent to "switch 1 of his or her Bengched Pokemon." Legitimately misprint cards are extremely rare in the Pokemon Trading Card Game, and legitimate misprints will be reported on reliable Pokemon TCG sites. Pokemon cards never misspell the names of Pokemon or the name of the series' title (including forgetting the accent on the e). Check your cards carefully for English errors when you suspect they might be fake.

Rule 3: "A card is fake when it's supposed to be holographic but does not have holographic effects"
Image
This Rocket's Scyther ex is supposed to be a rare holographic card, but you can plainly see that it has no holographic effects in this picture. The worst offenders are cards that are supposed to be holographic cards but the person who scanned the card to fake it scanned in the holographic effects, producing a non-holo card that has impressions of static, holographic stars in its background (through this method I was able to tell that my first Togekiss card was actually a fake). Note, however, that there are a few exceptions to this rule because of the pre-packaged decks made by Wizards of the Coast or Nintendo. For example, I own a non-holographic version of the Great Encounters Porygon-Z card, which is usually a holo, but it was a legitimate card because a non-holo Porygon-Z is included in one of the official Great Encounters decks. Check deck listings for further special cases such as this one. Refer to this image to see what a picture of a real holographic card looks like (the Dewgong is a non-holo card).
Rule 4: "Fake cards are thinner and easier to bend"
This rule is pretty straightforward. If you suspect you have a fake card, grab a useless card that you are sure is real (for example, an energy card), and gently bend the card to check the card's durability. Then try to bend the fake card. Fake cards are made out of a flimsier cardboard than real cards.

Rule 5: "The font face is not consistent with a real card's"
Rule 6: "The energy symbols are not consistent with a real card's"
Rule 7: "The yellow borders are non-centered or crooked in a fake card"
Rule 8: "The coloring on the front of a fake card is darker than the real card's"

For the preceding rules, which are all straightforward, refer to this obviously fake Dusknoir card and Pokebeach's legit scan of the same card. Notice that the fake scan demonstrates rules 1-3 as well (e.g., static holographic symbols in the background of the card, the lack of an e and odd spacing in the species listing "Gripper Pokemon", the misspelling of Rhydon's name as "Rhyodn" and the fact that it says Dusknoir evolves from Rhydon in the first place).
Finally, we also have:
Rule 9: "The back of a fake card looks too light"
Although the back of a fake card has an accent over the e in the Pokemon logo, the back of a fake card should still be fairly obvious because it will have a too-bright, almost washed-out coloring. Again, take a known real card and compare the coloring on the back of the real card with the coloring on the back of the suspected fake card. Also, finally, another way you might be able to tell if a card is fake is if you hold the card up to the light and can see through the card.

It's an unfortunate but truthful fact that people out there still make fake Pokemon cards. Even if the card "looks" like a reverse holographic (although a highly crappy imitation of one) or it comes in a "sealed booster pack," your cards may still be fake. Use the preceding guidelines to figure out whether or not you've purchased fake cards online or in stores and then act accordingly. Good luck.

11 comments:

  1. I bought 100 pokemon cards on ebay. ..If they're fake..I'll go to where he lives and throw them at his face and call the cops for copyright.

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  2. i have fake cards

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  3. I believe I have a fake M charizard ex, is there anyone that could look at it for me?

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  4. Just put it up towards the light and if it's see through, it's fake.

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  5. My Friend traded me 4 cards that are exs and have gold borders and hand symbols Is It Fake

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  6. I received an XY sealed booster pack I bought on eBay, thinking it was safe because it was sealed. Inside there was a Meganium that showed a circle at the bottom right corner, indicating it was a common. I already had the same Meganium and it is a rare. The yellow borders aren't centered on the "common" card either and it looks laminated compared to the matte look of real cards. I would say I got ripped off with the booster pack I bought on eBay...

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  7. I have supposedly fake darkrai ex but looks real. People say it is printing error and can be turned in for 10,000 dollars. Is this true?

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  8. can I please have a fake mega charizard??/

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  9. Thanks for sharing this quality information with us. I really enjoyed reading. Will surely going to share this URL with my friends. Yugioh cards

    ReplyDelete