It was always off-putting how these supposedly historically significant pieces were immediately aggressively marketed and monetized. Stuff like concept art is interesting because of what it represents (what it became, what it could've been, and why) and the lack of context around the "playtest" cards made them both uninteresting and suspect.
The most obvious sign that these 'cards' were fake was that they were almost always in pristine condition. After 30+ years there wasn't even a hint of yellowing or weathering on the paper
No. If the card stock paper is decent quality and acid free, it can take many decades before it starts to discolor, which process is slowed even further if kept in ideal storage conditions (no light, low humidity, constant room temperature). What started this run on alpha/playtest cards was because Takumi Akabane, one of the developers of the TCG, started selling his personal collection. Cards obtained from him directly and not through resellers are so far all confirmed legitimate, because the same method demonstrated to identify the fakes shown here has confirmed those cards were printed in the mid 90's.
@ lol three decades is 'many decades' and is enough time. The starter trio that has been validated as genuine all show signs of yellowing that's why they also graded very low, nowhere near perfect or pristine.
Anyone who has been in the hobby for more than a couple of years knew these were fake. Remember all the controversy around the pre-release raichu and all the detective work put in to finding early error cards, shadowless variants, no-rarity japanese cards, various trophy cards etc… this hobby has been studied and investigated extremely thoroughly for 2.5 decades and people expect us to believe all of these mint-pristine “Alpha” cards just popped up out of nowhere during a time when Pokemon is booming and worth the most money?
yep, 100%. there's a good reason why many hardcore japanese collectors didn't really speak about this or give them major airtime when they were spreading online and selling for $1000s; so glad to see some partial truth come out
Good video, it's funny how whenever this happens it's ALWAYS CGC grading the fake cards. The same thing happened with Yu-gi-oh last year, they've "authenticated" a bunch of pristine test copies for Magic & Wizards Yu-gi-oh cards that suddenly popped up out of nowhere (and were non existent till this point) and have spun their own narrative on how their cards are real. Even big name Japanese collectors tell them and the resellers that have them that the cards are fake but scammers gonna scam. CGC must love tanking their credibility.
@PrismaticRevolutionbgs is going broke, graded fake carddass cards despite being the only ones with production records, and psa is inconsistent as hell
Because Pokemon Company *not* confirming the authenticity of these "play test / alpha / beta" cards should have been the glaring red flag that these are high risk and not guaranteed to be authentic.
The guy who discovered this and wrote the post highlighted in this video bought one of them that had been authenticated by cgc. He is neither rich nor an idiot. And he could have sold his card before revealing this but he has integrity. Some people have just been collecting for long enough they can sell cards to save up to spend thousands of dollars to afford cards like these. CGC is the idiot here not necessarily the people who bought them, and they will be held liable.
@@romanopenscards8457 wild concept but what if an actual collector wanted a piece of history and got bamboozled, what now ? You’re calling them idiots cause they have money and wanted a piece of what they thought was history ? Take a look at yourself and think before calling others idiots , idiot
@Icethebb its ok man were all idiots on this planet. I stand by .my comment though only the rich idiots were affected hence shouldn't be called the biggest scam in pkmn hustory
Hopefully this is the death nail for CGC. Bros business model is literally based on grading marginally higher to get more people to grade with them. They need to go. The mere existence of them is intrinsically toxic because vendors can't leave them on the table from a business perspective since they have market share, albeit undeserved.
This situation reminds me of a similar situation with Linkin Park collecting. Back on 2008, a white CDR popped up on eBay and at auctioned ended up fetching around $1000, it contained demos from 1999 along with a song that was unreleased at the time. Many more popped up and you know the deal. But to the point, some years later, a collector dug deep and figured the CDRs were from 2003, which is a couple of years off to when the demos were claimed to be from (1998). So at the end, it is believed there was an original CD which the tracks were burned from, but just the sellee capitalizing and making bootlegs in the process.
Leonhart showed his true colors with that BS retro card shop stunt (which had its OWN associated grading drama. Someone likely brought a resealed pack wtih a charizard and was able to get it graded with a Leonhart special collection denominator on the slab)
Gold rush of Pokemon era, so many with get rich fast schemes. CGC just can't take a break.. always trying to grade everything snd anything to be relevant (€€€) and catch PSA (€€€). Shame though, slabs look nice.
Kept cards in a binder, a plastic case, a magnetic case, the wear on cardboard cards is inevitable.. 30 year old cardboard cards no damage yeah right. Seen these pop up and up and up lately
My first impression pf these when they went for sale is that CGC had better have done a lot of research and verified employment history of whoever asked to get them graded. CGC said they did this! Then more and more continued to appear and I didn't understand how that was possible. I guess now we know. This crishes CGCs credibility because they personally voiched for the cards.
Had so much opportunity to grab these but something was so off for me that I held off. God am I grinning hard now, shame for all the people that bought these
This is The Original Godfather Pokemon Harry K . Due to multiple reasons for example; fake cards and pump and dumps in the Pokemon TCG community , I have stopped collecting and jumping towards items that are being pushed by other influencers and have solely stuck to collecting what I like to collect and trade . This is funny that these cards turned out to be fake because of the hype they were getting but at the same time I am sad about the news because a lot of hard working people lost money on these .
Honestly with this being the case, why not test out base set cards too? People have been constantly opening base set and it’s alarming because how much is there? If people can print cards like this who’s to say they won’t print other older sets and sell them off as authentic?
As it has a unique code and serial number, it means they can find the exact printer that produced them! It also means they should find out who owns the printers!
Oh this is going to be a good one! 👀 “This is proof that you don’t have to work hard to make money” scammers will never quit man glad their antics are bought to light though every now and then!
I hadn't seen anything about these cards until today. Whether I saw them when they were first listed, or today, I still wouldn't have bought any. There's no way anyone in their right mind can trust something like this, with all the other fake copies of modern cards going around nowadays
I've collected the Pokémon cards since 1999. I have my original late 90s/early 2000s WotC cards, and I'm focusing solely on SwSh right now. That's all I need. I'm not one for having FOMO over hyped up stuff, especially expensive stuff. Those prototype cards weren't even part of my own childhood, so I have zero interest in them.
People who revealed those scams think they're so smart but in reality they just beta tested those and next time the scammers will be prepared for it more. You show them exactly what they should improve upon. It's a race that's impossible to win. Fakes are everywhere and their quality will surpass the original.
Thats already the problem with the topps series cards. The production records went to bgs who ended up grading fakes. They failed to even produce the records. Just stopped grading the cards. All of the carddass topps series can't be properly authenticated unless pulled from an original pack. So most of that market is likely just fake cards
Of course you don't need money to make money to be rich. Just need to exploit stupid people like for example. What insurance companies have been doing for how long now 😂
Yoo love all the info on your channel, I was just thinking about who in the Pokémon RUclips space actually likes Pokémon ha because I had some questions or an idea about the history of Pokémon and their art, like I wanna know little things like when did they give Mr. Mime 5 fingers? When did they give Dragonite his little horn? The Pokémon and art have changed over the years and I’m just curious why and also if anyone notices things like this haha maybe you can point me in the right direction ✌️
Not sure if I can say I care at all. To begin with these things are not something I could afford at all so I couldnt begin to bother about questioning its authenticity. I’m also not sure I’m in any position to pity anyone who can throw that kind of money for a cardboard printed in 2024 as I’m sure they have it better than me and you at least in terms of card collecting. So eh… Some cards I never had or could have turns out to be fake. That’s the information I could use from this vids.
@@okJLUV I’m only glad they didnt print these to sell at $1000-10000 dollar range because a lot more people could get scammed out of this. At the price of a Graded 10 Gold Star Rayquaza, only very few could get involved.
Makes me wonder now bout the chansey prototype that popped up with the vendor trading it for a bunch of ponchos too. He got a BGS 9.5 I think vid originated from Clovr Cards but if I saw someone with that I'd say hell nah cool card though
Thing is, the originals, when authenticated will be worth 10x what they are now. Shit like this causes storms man. Stupidly rich people out there will want the real ones and will stop at nothing to have a prototype zard authenticated now.
In General TCGs are the biggest Scam ever! I mean, Cardstock/Paper & a Picture or Paint😂then you see Astronomical Prices like its a Brick of Gold or a Phat Rolex or a House or a Super Sports Car 😂😂😂😂😂 let me laugh at those who are stpd enough to even Pay those Prices, & let me Curse at those who do this Scammings! Wtf is wrong with you People if you want to Invest 30/40/50k why in Cardstock & Paper.....😂😂😂😂😂Huuge WTF
It was always off-putting how these supposedly historically significant pieces were immediately aggressively marketed and monetized. Stuff like concept art is interesting because of what it represents (what it became, what it could've been, and why) and the lack of context around the "playtest" cards made them both uninteresting and suspect.
EXACTLY, man, so glad to see people feeling the same way about these.
The most obvious sign that these 'cards' were fake was that they were almost always in pristine condition. After 30+ years there wasn't even a hint of yellowing or weathering on the paper
haha legit, would've thought we'd have seen some truly worn/damaged cards amongst the lot
No.
If the card stock paper is decent quality and acid free, it can take many decades before it starts to discolor, which process is slowed even further if kept in ideal storage conditions (no light, low humidity, constant room temperature).
What started this run on alpha/playtest cards was because Takumi Akabane, one of the developers of the TCG, started selling his personal collection. Cards obtained from him directly and not through resellers are so far all confirmed legitimate, because the same method demonstrated to identify the fakes shown here has confirmed those cards were printed in the mid 90's.
@ lol three decades is 'many decades' and is enough time. The starter trio that has been validated as genuine all show signs of yellowing that's why they also graded very low, nowhere near perfect or pristine.
Anyone who has been in the hobby for more than a couple of years knew these were fake. Remember all the controversy around the pre-release raichu and all the detective work put in to finding early error cards, shadowless variants, no-rarity japanese cards, various trophy cards etc… this hobby has been studied and investigated extremely thoroughly for 2.5 decades and people expect us to believe all of these mint-pristine “Alpha” cards just popped up out of nowhere during a time when Pokemon is booming and worth the most money?
yep, 100%. there's a good reason why many hardcore japanese collectors didn't really speak about this or give them major airtime when they were spreading online and selling for $1000s; so glad to see some partial truth come out
Printer dots have been used to solve murder cases in the past. So interesting that they became useful here.
Printer dots are anti counterfeiting protocol
The fact that soooo many of these popped up didn't raise red flags? I'm ngl I never even knew about these auctions.
bro was living under a ROCK
Good video, it's funny how whenever this happens it's ALWAYS CGC grading the fake cards. The same thing happened with Yu-gi-oh last year, they've "authenticated" a bunch of pristine test copies for Magic & Wizards Yu-gi-oh cards that suddenly popped up out of nowhere (and were non existent till this point) and have spun their own narrative on how their cards are real. Even big name Japanese collectors tell them and the resellers that have them that the cards are fake but scammers gonna scam. CGC must love tanking their credibility.
Yikes, bad look for CGC...
@PrismaticRevolution cgc is an american grading company....
Everyone thinks cgc is going to over take psa it's hilarious PSA king and is the top grading slab period
@PrismaticRevolution psa is also American? What are you saying
@PrismaticRevolutionbgs is going broke, graded fake carddass cards despite being the only ones with production records, and psa is inconsistent as hell
This is 2008 😂 all over again
If this scam is that big of a deal, why can't the pokemon company just say it ouright that they never printed these types of cards?
They probably did but they have no knowledge of everything in the market right now to denounce that or else they might be liable
Because Pokemon Company *not* confirming the authenticity of these "play test / alpha / beta" cards should have been the glaring red flag that these are high risk and not guaranteed to be authentic.
@@leons9935 It's not their problem.
2head logic
After 29 years of being released its kinda hard to track them?
CGC brought down by a pubic hair... LMFAO wild
This is the first time hearing about these cards.
Now all these cards now have to be treated as the most expensive proxy cards ever.
Personally this is only a scam for the rich idiots that bought this.
The guy who discovered this and wrote the post highlighted in this video bought one of them that had been authenticated by cgc. He is neither rich nor an idiot. And he could have sold his card before revealing this but he has integrity. Some people have just been collecting for long enough they can sell cards to save up to spend thousands of dollars to afford cards like these. CGC is the idiot here not necessarily the people who bought them, and they will be held liable.
@J2DAQWST not gonna argue but i stand by my comment.
@@romanopenscards8457 wild concept but what if an actual collector wanted a piece of history and got bamboozled, what now ? You’re calling them idiots cause they have money and wanted a piece of what they thought was history ? Take a look at yourself and think before calling others idiots , idiot
@Icethebb its ok man were all idiots on this planet. I stand by .my comment though only the rich idiots were affected hence shouldn't be called the biggest scam in pkmn hustory
Guess I won't be using CGC for grading... 😅
Could always go with tag or ars
Send them to me. I've never graded anything in my life but I'll do a better job than CGC.
@@DTTCReviews PSA is always the way to go. They've graded cards for the longest time, and are known as the #1 company.
@@R-Blazer at being inconsistent sure
Akabane commits massive fraud. Didn't have this on my 2025 Bingo Card.
if he really was behind it all, it's diabolical. need to wait a few more days to see the full extent of his involvement
@@okJLUVthe Pokemon investors got hosed 😂
I love to see it 😂
Hopefully this is the death nail for CGC. Bros business model is literally based on grading marginally higher to get more people to grade with them. They need to go. The mere existence of them is intrinsically toxic because vendors can't leave them on the table from a business perspective since they have market share, albeit undeserved.
This situation reminds me of a similar situation with Linkin Park collecting. Back on 2008, a white CDR popped up on eBay and at auctioned ended up fetching around $1000, it contained demos from 1999 along with a song that was unreleased at the time. Many more popped up and you know the deal. But to the point, some years later, a collector dug deep and figured the CDRs were from 2003, which is a couple of years off to when the demos were claimed to be from (1998). So at the end, it is believed there was an original CD which the tracks were burned from, but just the sellee capitalizing and making bootlegs in the process.
"So at the end" bro, you missed a great opportunity there to say "in the end"
dude i was waiting for that "in the end" and it never came :(
@@okJLUV i guess in the end, it didn't really matter 😔
2008 is funny 🤣 because of Lehman Brothers and bear Stearns
Rare Candy had an auction of these recently. Oh gees Leonhart...
Leonhart showed his true colors with that BS retro card shop stunt (which had its OWN associated grading drama. Someone likely brought a resealed pack wtih a charizard and was able to get it graded with a Leonhart special collection denominator on the slab)
The prices for those things always seemed suspiciously low for what they supposedly are.
and the sheer amount of em too
@ yeah super shady
This is so crazy! Hopefully more comes to light and I would love to hear from cgc about this matter
GG's CGC
Gold rush of Pokemon era, so many with get rich fast schemes.
CGC just can't take a break.. always trying to grade everything snd anything to be relevant (€€€) and catch PSA (€€€).
Shame though, slabs look nice.
Its funny because CGC doesn't recognize holobleed like PSA does, yet they'll grade fakes printed in 2024??
Damn, i saw a streamer on whatnot that sold about 30 of these live for thousands. I wonder if he’s related to the scam. That was wild.
jesus christ man, unreal
Kept cards in a binder, a plastic case, a magnetic case, the wear on cardboard cards is inevitable.. 30 year old cardboard cards no damage yeah right. Seen these pop up and up and up lately
This video is gonna go nuclear
Apparently the man behind the scam is the creator of the TCG
R.I.P. cgc slabs, because this will probably kill thier reputation.
It definetly will
Can someone who bought a CGC graded card not sue CGC for this?
I mean they'd definitely want to.
My first impression pf these when they went for sale is that CGC had better have done a lot of research and verified employment history of whoever asked to get them graded.
CGC said they did this!
Then more and more continued to appear and I didn't understand how that was possible. I guess now we know.
This crishes CGCs credibility because they personally voiched for the cards.
Pokemon wall street got scammed by CGC 😂
Me: who plays Pokemon cards with my friend: 😈 good
As a tattooer who gets paid by my work… how are these people making a living
Had so much opportunity to grab these but something was so off for me that I held off. God am I grinning hard now, shame for all the people that bought these
I live in Japan but this is a nice indicator to decide which card shops to actually trust lol
W - Lotus were the main store selling these on the shelves
Talk about going down the deep rabbit hole
This is so unacceptable. Wow.
CGC was always sus to me. I find them a tryhard grading company
This is The Original Godfather Pokemon Harry K . Due to multiple reasons for example; fake cards and pump and dumps in the Pokemon TCG community , I have stopped collecting and jumping towards items that are being pushed by other influencers and have solely stuck to collecting what I like to collect and trade . This is funny that these cards turned out to be fake because of the hype they were getting but at the same time I am sad about the news because a lot of hard working people lost money on these .
It's called "painting the tape" which is a form of financial Fraud
Honestly with this being the case, why not test out base set cards too? People have been constantly opening base set and it’s alarming because how much is there? If people can print cards like this who’s to say they won’t print other older sets and sell them off as authentic?
As it has a unique code and serial number, it means they can find the exact printer that produced them! It also means they should find out who owns the printers!
Unless you can get a record of who it was sold to, good luck
Someone should scan modern cards too and see if the serial matches
Oh this is going to be a good one! 👀 “This is proof that you don’t have to work hard to make money” scammers will never quit man glad their antics are bought to light though every now and then!
Whoever ends up with the real ones is gonna be sitting on a gold mine. Price just went up
Over hyping the pokemon card game has probably led to this.
How did nobody check this sooner? Money.
I would definitely pick some of these up just to have in my collection for like 10-40 in price range
Are we truly suprised 😢 something like this can happen
I recently went back to getting Pokémon card collecting info, now I remember why I just dropped it all and started playing the game.
CGC to the bin as well
“Limited at ten.” Yeah, right; more like 10 million.
I hadn't seen anything about these cards until today.
Whether I saw them when they were first listed, or today, I still wouldn't have bought any. There's no way anyone in their right mind can trust something like this, with all the other fake copies of modern cards going around nowadays
Chances are, this drama will raise the price of the “real ones” once people figure it out.
There are no real ones. There are zero production records that exist for them. These all popped up at the same time in mint condition
i had a dream just last night that i was sold fake cards offf ebay 😂
I am so fucking glad I stopped grading and buying CGC
Insightful stuff as always! Had no clue these were going for mad prices!
A guy named pfm found out from the e4 forum, not qwa
yeah Qwachansey just yoinked it cause they’re a clout goblin, no integrity
Ok so what will CGC do now? Do you think they’ll buy back the fakes from the market?
Use insurance to pay out the effected parties. Thats all. Will fuck their reputation tho
alpha test card more than 25 yo but still in pristine condition lol definitely a fake, not even damaged or yellowing or dent or whitening
I've collected the Pokémon cards since 1999. I have my original late 90s/early 2000s WotC cards, and I'm focusing solely on SwSh right now. That's all I need. I'm not one for having FOMO over hyped up stuff, especially expensive stuff. Those prototype cards weren't even part of my own childhood, so I have zero interest in them.
Goes to show getting into Pokemon as an investment is a losing game. The only way to make money in it is to break laws or screw people over.
Coffeezilla vid soon I imagine, ridiculous scam
People who revealed those scams think they're so smart but in reality they just beta tested those and next time the scammers will be prepared for it more. You show them exactly what they should improve upon. It's a race that's impossible to win. Fakes are everywhere and their quality will surpass the original.
Bingo brotha! Which is exactly why I dont call em out. Obfuscation of detailed information like this is my specialty. Especially in my line of work. 😏
Thats already the problem with the topps series cards. The production records went to bgs who ended up grading fakes. They failed to even produce the records. Just stopped grading the cards. All of the carddass topps series can't be properly authenticated unless pulled from an original pack. So most of that market is likely just fake cards
Great video thanks for the info
anytime legend thank u for watching
It's the "investors" that ruined everything. I hope they find their place in gell
Not to judge on appearance, but I love how much JP scammers look just like our scammers LOL. It's a whole look.
I actually don’t care. I’m still collecting CGC. It’s not like other grading companies haven’t graded fake cards as well.
Great video! I always had some suspicous feeling with those cards. Wasn't interested in them anyway but this discovery doesn't suprise me at all.
I'm pretty sure I recently seen Rev open a mystery box and get one of these
Of course you don't need money to make money to be rich. Just need to exploit stupid people like for example. What insurance companies have been doing for how long now 😂
Xiao scamming people and now getting scammed is a beautiful way to go full circle
Yoo love all the info on your channel, I was just thinking about who in the Pokémon RUclips space actually likes Pokémon ha because I had some questions or an idea about the history of Pokémon and their art, like I wanna know little things like when did they give Mr. Mime 5 fingers? When did they give Dragonite his little horn? The Pokémon and art have changed over the years and I’m just curious why and also if anyone notices things like this haha maybe you can point me in the right direction ✌️
Some could be real but Team Rocket decided to strike again!
Were these cards seen in the wild before 2024?
@@Moue666 briefly in 2022 but before that, no
Not sure if I can say I care at all. To begin with these things are not something I could afford at all so I couldnt begin to bother about questioning its authenticity. I’m also not sure I’m in any position to pity anyone who can throw that kind of money for a cardboard printed in 2024 as I’m sure they have it better than me and you at least in terms of card collecting.
So eh… Some cards I never had or could have turns out to be fake. That’s the information I could use from this vids.
goes to show how hype drives people to make irrational decisions ey?
@@okJLUV I’m only glad they didnt print these to sell at $1000-10000 dollar range because a lot more people could get scammed out of this. At the price of a Graded 10 Gold Star Rayquaza, only very few could get involved.
xiao xiao --> Mr Ding is a pretty notorious scammer in China XD
Silver lining. U can print out copies yourself and pretend u have legitimate playtest cards. 🤷♂️ use them like proxies if you wanted to
dear god clear your discord notifications (crazy video 10/10)
never (love you)
Paper mounted on card LOL. Regardless of whether they are real, the buyers are idiots.
I loved this. If true, it's hilarious. Even if they were real, I wouldn't pay £10 for one.
Cgc10 mewtwo sold today for 30k. If he had looked it up on RUclips yesterday he would have known smh
This is nuts
CGC is soooooo cooked
Jluv dropping truth bombs
Why does the charizard say “Ken Sugimorori”
This should have been obvious from the beginning.
Makes sense they came out of nowhere and it was sus
Will they still be valuable because they are errors on the part of the grading companies?
considering many of these were likely printed in 2024, i would say no, they'd be worthless
yo bro how can u read chinese, im impressed gang
i speak japanese, read and write too, i just made a guess on the chinese based on the kanji meaning haha
Makes me wonder now bout the chansey prototype that popped up with the vendor trading it for a bunch of ponchos too. He got a BGS 9.5 I think vid originated from Clovr Cards but if I saw someone with that I'd say hell nah cool card though
this pokemon card shit gets serious, im out
Thank you 😂
Wow down to the minutes.
Imagine someone printing this on a Saturday morning, fantasizing what they will do with the money if this really works.
@@pymrhap so funny how it was undone by something so seemingly simple
Thing is, the originals, when authenticated will be worth 10x what they are now.
Shit like this causes storms man. Stupidly rich people out there will want the real ones and will stop at nothing to have a prototype zard authenticated now.
There are no real ones. There are zero production records. They can't be this mint if they're that old. Its impossible
In General TCGs are the biggest Scam ever! I mean, Cardstock/Paper & a Picture or Paint😂then you see Astronomical Prices like its a Brick of Gold or a Phat Rolex or a House or a Super Sports Car 😂😂😂😂😂 let me laugh at those who are stpd enough to even Pay those Prices, & let me Curse at those who do this Scammings! Wtf is wrong with you People if you want to Invest 30/40/50k why in Cardstock & Paper.....😂😂😂😂😂Huuge WTF
Wie kann man sowas nicht wissen. Jeder Drucker macht das. Auch deiner zuhause. Frag dich warum?
crazy shit bro
Now, cgc cards are trash
You're welcome chat, I will Print more and scammaz you see ya chumps
infinite money glitch
Naaaauuuurrr!
Unreal scam.
Spicy
amazing
Erster
Lol they took the pics from the tcg/red and blue games, slapped them on some paper, then called them beta cards 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
You guys fall for anything