Some hobbies can double as investments, with limited edition and rare toys and collectibles reselling for hundreds of times their retail prices. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon TCG cards are among th💝e more popular examples, with desirable cards reaching hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the secondary market.

Unfortunately for new collectors, players, and investors, the high profitability l🍎eads to counterfeits leaking into the market, and some are remarkably convincing. There's no worse feeling than learning that the card you spent $100 on is worthless, but this guide can help you separate the bank from the jank.

What Are Fake Pokemon Cards?

Any cards not printed and distributed by The Pokemon Company (TPC) o𒈔r The Pokemon Company Internatio𒀰nal (TPCi) are fake. Usually these cards are printed by an unauthorized third party, but occasionally cards will be altered to look like older, more valuable prints.

Wizards of the Coast localized and distributed Pokemon cards in the American and European markets from 1998 through 2003, before the license ౠwas transfered to TPCi.

Fake cards can be a big problem for players, since they're prohibited in official tournaments. Players found to be using counterfeit cards may be disqualified from tournaments and Pokemon ൲League events, even if they did not realize that their cards were fake.

Collectors are affected as well. They need to be wary of potential fakes in the market, on which t♔hey'll certainly lose money, and of the possibility of accidentally adding counterfeit cards to their collections. A single fake card in a collection casts doubt on the authenticity of the entire collection.

Realistic counterfeits can be inexpensive, but convincing enough to sell for market value, giving sellers loo♊king for a quick buck an opportunity to make a quick profit. Often you'll find these products on display at flea markets and rummage sales,𒐪 where vendors hope to take advantage of parents and grandparents shopping for their families.

Proxies Vs. Counterfeits

Players testing new decks often use proxies to represent cards prior to purchasing them. These can be as simple as a basic Energy with the name and abbreviated text o🦩f the card or as realistic as a printed copy slid into a sleeve over a real card.

Often players will use translated copies of unreleased cards to playtest them prior to a set being released outside of Japan. Like counterfeits, proxies are not legal for tournament play.

The only exception is if one of your cards is damaged during a ওtournament, only for the duration of that event,🎐 and only if issued by a judge.

The key difference between counterfeits and proxies is that proxies are never sold as real cards, and don't claim to be 🃏genuine. You wouldn't be fooled i💧nto buying a basic grass Energy with "Magma Basin" hand-written on it, or buy an Earthen Vessel printed on a piece of copy paper.

How To Spot Fake Cards

If you've had more than a few weeks of experience with the Pokemon TCG, you've probably run into some fakes. Maybe your kid brough🌟t home a Mewtwo with 550 HP with Electric-type attacks, or you realized that the Umbreon VMAX alternate secret art you paid $500 for on eBay feels a little different from the Inteleon VMAX alternate secret art in your collection.

Here are a few tips to avoid accidentally adding an🍸y☂ more fake cards to your collection.

Read The Card

The lowest-quality counterfeits often have telltale mistakes in💧 their spelling or grammar. Always check for the following:

• Misspelled words, especially Pokemon names
• Obvious grammar errors
• The word "Pokemon" without an accent over the "e"
• Extremely high HP or attack values

There are some offic🌱ial Pokemon cards with typos, like the infamous "Nintedo" Ancient Mew, but they tend to be rare.

The font used on real Pokemon cards has never actually been released for public use, so low-quality forgeries often have a different style of text than genuine cards.

Check The Texture

Special prints such as Full Art, V, and GX usually have a unique texture on the ꧙front of the card. If you gently run your fingernail over the grooves you should be able to feel it clicking through them. This texture is not present on commons, uncommons, and regular rares, and is also absent on Trainer Gallery cards.

The highest quality counterfeits started to apply a convincing texture around 2021, which makes this t🐷est less reliable. Still, the abseಌnce of a texture when it's expected or the presence of texture where it isn't is a clear giveaway.

Check The Back

The♚ backs of Pokemon cards can be a clear giveaway,😼 if you know what you're looking for.

The most obvious tell is that the card has the wrong back. Outside of Japan, Pokemon cards have had the same back since 1999, so if the back doesn't look like the rest of your collection you know it's a fake. This incl🐬udes having a Japanese back on any non-Japanese prin꧅tings.

All English Pokemon cards have the same back except promotional items like the Ancient Mew🌳 and the World Champ🅘ionship decks.

Color is another good indicator. Genuine Pokemon cards use three distinct shades of blue: light and dark blue to make the swirl pattern, and a medium blue for the outer edge. The edges between the outer edge and the swirl design are clear on a real card, but on a fake they can blend together because the colors are too close, or the printing quality is low.

Low printing quality can also result in the back of the card looking washed-out, which will cause the blue parts of the swirl to run together.

Both real and fak🌠e cards can be printed off-center, but it tends to be more common and more extreme in fake cards.

The back tends to be a reliable way to check for authenticity, since counterfeiters are usually more concerned with the front of the card. This is especially true if they're selling the cards o﷽nline, where they c꧟an list cards without pictures of the backs.

Don't Be Fooled By Foil

Special-print Pokemon cards and basic rares are usually printed with a foil effect. This foil effect varies by type of card, but is the same for all cards of that type. For example, Scarlet & Violet era Ace Spec cards and Sword & Shield era Radiant Pokemon feature similar cross-hatch foil patterns. Meanwhile, GX Pokemon 🌼have a wavy, diagonal foil pattern, but only behind the Pokemon.

The best way to check the foil pattern is to compare the card to a genuine one of the same type. If the colors, direction, and patt💟ern are the same, that's a good indication that they're both real.

Touch And Feel

The feel of genuine Pokemon cards is difficult to replicate. Counterfeits are usually a little bit softer, lighter, and more flexible than genuine cards, which you can feel just by handling them.

Don't bend cards that you don't own to test them, as this could ಌdamage legitimate car🍬ds.

This test is only reliable when you have access to the card and permission to pick it up and examine it. It also requires you to have enough experience with Pokemon cards to be able t🃏o feel the difference. Often beginniᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚng collectors will start to recognize fake cards by feel without realizing it, only identifying that the cards feel wrong.

Research

There are plenty of sites that host card databases, including . While it's better to compare a suspected fake to a known real card in your hand, using a database ജto pull up the same card is a good suꦑbstitute.

Compare the text, fonts, illustration, and copyright information. If anything doesn't match, you've found a fake.

Pokemon Have Layers

Pokemon cards have three distinct layers when viewed from the side: two white layers with a gray or black layer in between, like a backwards Oreo. If you look very closely at the side of a real ca𓂃rd you can make out these layers.

If you've heard of the "tear test," this is the check being referenced. Tearing a card in half is a dramatic way to show that it's real or fake by revealing this inner layer. We don't recommend tearing cards to determine authenticity, since it will destroy real cards and y꧋ou can see the same e🦩vidence from the side without damaging your cards.

Trust Your Instincts

The more time you spend around Pokemon cards, the better your instincts will be at spotting fakes. Eventually, you'll start to recognize fakes before you consciously realize hoꦛw you kn♋ow they aren't authentic.

If something feels off about the cards or the seller, walk away. Try to be polite and don't make a scene, especially if it seems like the seller doesn't know that their product is fake. If you're concerned about the cards your opponent is playing at a tournament, share your concerns with a judge or tournament oಌrganizer so t🧸hat they can maintain the integrity of the event.