How To Identify Fakes
If youre just getting into Pokémon card collecting or investing, its absolutely crucial that you have the tools for identifying fake cards. Not only are fake cards completely valueless, but selling a fake Pokémon card can land you in hot water with your online marketplace or trade show venue, and its technically illegal.
Check out these three methods for spotting fake Pokémon cards so you can protect yourself on your mission to catch them all.
Look at the edge of the card to find the black ink layer, present in every Pokémon card. Image by Jess Searcy.
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Verify The Credibility Of Energy Symbols
If you spot an irregularity in how an energy symbol appears, you may be holding a fake card. The symbol may be irregular, misplaced, smaller, or bigger. Sometimes, counterfeits do not have elemental symbols. It is also easy for scammers to recreate fake Pokémon cards with funny creatures, especially the Birthday Pikachu set that is no longer being produced by the Pokémon franchise.
How To Determine The Rarity Of Your Pokemon Card
In the Pokemon Trading Card Game, there are certain cards that you might not find as frequently as the others. This makes them rare and valuable. The creators assign such rarity on the basis of their power, complexity, design, rules and other factors.
Heres how you can figure out the rarity of your Pokemon card
COMMON CARDS
As the name suggests, these cards are easier to obtain as compared to the other cards. They have a Circle on the bottom right corner to indicate that they are Common Cards.
UNCOMMON CARDS
These are not as common as the previous category but you will always get a few of them in your booster pack. A Diamond symbol on the bottom right corner of the card will help you identify it.
RARE CARDS
A star on the bottom right side of the card indicates that it is rare. Similarly, cards which have three stars or a star followed by an alphabet also have high value due to their rarity. All packs contain at least one rare card. Preserve them if you find them!
ULTRA RARE CARDS
These cards are also identified by a star symbol on the bottom right corner. The distinction is that the star on them is shiny and can be either silver or gold. It goes without saying that they are rarest of the rare cards.
SECRET RARE CARDS
HOLOGRAPHIC CARDS
Often referred to as Holo cards, they have a holographic sheen on the picture or the background which makes them unique. On your lucky day, you might even get a rare card with such holography ! So, keep taking your chances.
FULL ART CARDS
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Whos More Powerful Mew Or Mewtwo
As we know, Mew can use any move, so it has access to an extremely wide variety of powers, but Mewtwo does not have that much abilities. Mewtwo was created to be a better, stronger, and more powerful version of Mew, and, in terms of raw power, its much stronger than Mew, but it cant do as much things as Mew can.
How To Tell If A Pokmon Gx Card Is Fake
You can tell if a Pokémon GX card is fake by using several of the tests described earlier in this article.
However, there are also some unique features that you can look out for with the GX cards.
Genuine GX cards can be textured as we can see in some of the example images.In this example, fake GX cards often have the shine from a foiling process but no texture.
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How To Spot A Fake Pokmon Card Immediately
Look at the card. Then ask yourself: does anything seem off? Read it and check to see if there are any simple errors in the card. Here is a short list of characteristics to check:
- Does this Pokémon exist?
- Does the card have an accent over every single e in Pokémon?
- Is the card free of spelling mistakes and obvious grammar mistakes, such as missing punctuation?
- Does the card have the year it was printed?
- Does the card have the number of elemental symbols in all the correct places of the card?
- Does the Pokémon have a reasonable amount of HP? For example, if you have an Eevee with over 1,000 HP, then that card is probably a fake. If you are unsure as to whats unreasonable you could look up the card on the Pokémon TCG card database to get a ballpark range of where its HP is usually at.
If you answered no to one or several of these questions, odds are that you have a fake Pokémon card. This is a great and easy way to spot a fake immediately.
Are Fake Pokemon Cards Illegal
Though the seller might think theyre making a lot of money, It is illegal to knowingly sell a counterfeit product. You can fall into a lot of legal trouble if you do this. Whether youre buying Pokémon cards online or at a local card shop, its best to be safe to look out for any suspicious signs that they might be fake cards.
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How To Tell If A Pokmon Card Is Fake
Strategic depth: Medium
Publisher:Wizards of the Coast
Pokémon cards are back in vogue. And with the uptick in interest, there is now a thriving market for buying and selling Pokémon cards. As the number of people looking to buy Pokémon cards continues to increase, so does the number of scammers looking to take advantage of the trend and make a quick buck.
The most notable example of this involved the famous YouTuber Logan Paul. He and a group of investors almost bought a box of Pokémon cards valued at $375,000. The seller agreed to open the box and packs before exchanging the cash. The box turned out to be fake. Fortunately for Paul, he didnt pay a dime, but the mistake even slipped past Pauls Pokémon advisor.
While the average person doesnt have the money to hire a specialised advisor, the average person can easily identify a fake Pokémon card with a little advice. This guide will teach you how to spot a fake and protect yourself from buying a counterfeit card. This guide is structured to give you more detailed advice on how to spot a fake as you go on. Whether you collect as an enthusiast or you just want to round out your latest deck, welcome!
$375k FAKE #Pokemon box…Thats why you buy PSA/BGS graded!Are you kidding me!?!?
Crypto King
The Best Way To Tell A Real Pokmon Card From A Fake One Is To Compare It To One You Know For Sure Is Real
The YouTube web series Bootleg Zone did an episode on bootleg Pokémon cards and compared them to real ones. Consider this picture of a Professor Oak card. One of the English ones is fake and the other is real. Can you tell which one?
The middle one is the bootleg, but its a pretty good imitation. By comparing it to the real one, youll notice that the color is off a bit, but without knowing the correct shade, you cant tell. The bootleg also has some blurry text at the bottom, but thats tough to spot.
Of course, sometimes its painfully obvious to any Pokémon fan.
I especially love how Gyardos is a Fire Horse Pokémon, and that these are rare 2nd Edition cards!
The full video shows lots of other examples, but the difference between a real card and a bootleg really ranges between blatantly obvious mistake or almost imperceptible difference from the original. Some examples of tells were:
- Slight miscolorations
- Text in a different font
- Text with different line breaks
- A different card feel
- A different style of holographic film, especially one that goes all the way to the edge of the card
- A different card size
- Being part of a set that it wasnt originally part of
- Blatantly wrong information
That said, if you got a pack of cards and some of them have obvious typos, Id be surprised if the rest were legitimate.
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Cartridge Color And Embossed Text
From left to right: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins , Game Boy Color with Wario Land 3 , Pokémon Red
If you see a North American or European Pokémon game in a gray cartridge, run away. Nintendo has never produced any Pokémon title on the Game Boy or Game Boy Color in a gray shell. Each game’s cartridge color corresponds with their name Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow have red, blue, and yellow cartridges. Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal have golden, silver, and icy blue cartridges. In Japan, Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, and Silver games were produced in gray cartridges, with Gold having a darker cartridge than the others. If you see a gray cartridge with a sticker showing any language other than Japanese, it’s not authentic.
There’s a concave thumb grip at the top of every Game Boy game with text that reads “Nintendo GAME BOY”. Meanwhile, Game Boy Color games have a convex thumb grip that reads “Game Boy COLOR”. Fake games often don’t have this text or may just say something like “GAME.” Make sure you check for this text, as it’s one of the easier ways to tell a dud from the real deal.
Fake Pokmon Games: Nintendo Ds
From left to right: Pokémon HeartGold , Pokémon SoulSilver , Pokémon Diamond , Pokémon Pearl , Pokémon White , Pokémon Black 2
The Pokémon games available on DS are Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black 2, and White 2. These games, especially the generation 4 games, are arguably the most-faked Pokémon games on the market. HeartGold and SoulSilver have increased in value on the secondhand market, so while you may want a deal, it’s also important to be safe. These games have many tells, so there are quite a few things to keep an eye out for.
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How To Get Tm54 False Swipe
In Pokémon Black and White, you can get the TM for False Swipe as soon as your Pokédex says that you have seen30 different types of pokémon.
Once you have seen 30 types, go back to Nuvema Town and talk to Professor Juniper in her lab.When she checks on your Pokédex and sees that you have seen at least 30 different pokémon types,she will give you TM54 False Swipe.
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Obvious And Common Fakes
The first fakes we will be looking at are obvious fakes. This includes cards that fool only people who have no experience with the hobby. These also include joke cards and custom cards.
Here are some joke cards originally printed in a 1999 issue of Mad Magazine.As you can see, they emulate the look and style of an official card. Although these are technically fake, they were never sold with the intent to fool anyone.
A note on Base set fakes
The North American English Base set printed in 1999 only had first edition stamps on shadowless cards. If you ever see a first edition stamp on a base set card that is not shadowless, it is fake.
An exception to this rule is the foreign language prints of the Base set. These include: French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese.
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Look At The Edge Of The Card
Every legitimate Pokémon card is printed with an extremely thin layer of black ink between the two layers of card stock, making up the front and the back of the card.
The easiest way to determine whether the ink layer is present is to rip the card, but of course this is not an option when evaluating a potentially valuable card .
However, if you were to rip a legitimate Pokémon card, you would see something that looks like this:
A legitimate Pokémon card with a thin black ink layer, separating two distinct layers of material that make up the front and back of the card.
Fortunately, you don’t need to rip a card to detect the presence of this black layer.
Instead, look closely at the edge of the Pokémon card. A legitimate Pokémon card’s edge will appear to be made of two distinct layers, separated by an extremely thin film of black ink.
Inspecting The Size And Weight
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A Great Rule Of Thumb: Ask
When in doubt, consult others who have experience spotting fakes. Contact a reputable seller and ask them their professional opinion. There are Facebook groups where people buy and sell. Post an image of the card. If a group of people respond with a strong consensus that its fake, and they explain why, then you probably have a fake card.
Before you go: this guide is not a replacement for professional advice. If you plan to spend big bucks on a rare Pokémon card, you should consult as many sources as possible when vetting a card. Youre looking at thousands of dollars potentially, so please consult an expert in the space.
Pokemon Go: How To Evolve Magneton Into Magnezone
Everything you need to know!
Magneton is a very unique Pokemon in Pokemon Go, since it can only be evolved under very particular circumstances. Heres what you need to know about evolving Magneton into Magnezone!
Magneton can only be evolved into Magnezone when youre within range of a PokeStop that has an active Magnetic Lure Module. Magnetic Lure Modules were added to Pokemon Goin 2019 along with Glacial and Mossy Lure Modules. When a PokeStop is boosted by a Magnetic Lure Module, Electric-, Steel-, and Rock-type Pokemon will be attracted to the PokeStop for a limited time.
While some of these special Lure Modules have been given away to players for free, you can purchase a Magnetic Lure Module at any time in the in-game Item Shop for 200 PokeCoins .
When youre ready to evolve Magneton into Magnezone, head to a nearby PokeStop and activate the Magnetic Lure Module. While youre still within range of the PokeStop, open up your Pokemon storage and tap the Magneton you want to evolve. Youll see the evolve button has appeared! You can then evolve Magneton into Magnezone using 100 Magnemite Candy.
Heres something important to keep in mind: Anyone near a PokeStop with an active Magnetic Lure Module can take advantage of its effects. Its possible you may come across a PokeStop that someone else has already boosted with a Magnetic Lure Module, and if thats the case, you can easily evolve Magneton into Magnezone without using any of your own Lure Modules.
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What Are Fake Cards And Why Are They Made
Pokémon is the largest franchise in the world. Of course, this includes video games, films, toys, games, the trading card game, and more. The cards first came out in Japan in 1996, and in North America in 1999. Since then, there hasnt been a single year where hundreds of new cards were not printed. Over the course of these 25+ years, some vintage cards have become very, very valuable.
But even modern cards can be worth a lot. TPC sometimes prints very exclusive and limited cards that do not meet the demand. Furthermore, the hobby experienced a massive supply and demand issue around the time that COVID19 hit, heavily restricting the supply chain. With supply low and demand high, prices sky-rocket.
Enter fake Pokémon cards.
The folks who print fake cards prey on uninformed customers . With retail store shelves empty and scalper prices over-inflated online, people turn to third-party sites where they discover Pokémon cards for a ridiculously cheap price.
I know what youre thinking: Isnt it obvious though? To you and me, yes. But to a parent or grandparent who has never taken the time to hold a card and look at it, maybe learn about it, no.
These fakes are often made in China and are found on websites such as aliexpress.com or amazon.com . The good news is that these fakes are easy to tell apart from real copies, so most of the time people get burned for $20 and learn their lesson.
Look For Oversaturation Of Colors
Often times, fake Pokémon cards are produced using images that are scanned, and are printed on card stock that is often more glossy than legitimate Pokémon cards. As a result, the colors on fake Pokémon cards will often appear darker and bolder than the colors present on real cards.
Typically, it’s easiest to detect these indicators in the front and back borders of the cards, where the colors are darkest on any Pokémon card. Often times, the yellow border on the front will be almost golden, bordering on orange, while the back border, typically a shade of blue similar to some of the darker accents present in the design around the Pokéball, can be distinctly darker, sometimes taking on a purplish hue.
It can also be helpful to look at the rest of the card and take note of any elements of the design that seem oversaturated, while other elements appear to be washed out. This can be one of the easiest ways to tell if the fraudsters printed the card using a scanned image of the original design.
For ultra rare cards, look for the presence of textured patterns on the front. Fake cards generally do not feature any texture even if the card is “ultra rare”. Note this fake card, lacking appropriate texture. Image from u/A70guy on Reddit
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