I think Callum's answer is correct, but I also want to highlight another way scams happened: factory theft. Printers (especially in the early 2000s) had practically zero security. If you've never been inside a print shop, the vast majority used were bare-bones shacks. You could literally be at the packing station and walk away with all the supplies needed to make a genuine box, take it home, and fill it with garbo. Mayfair Games notably got fked by theft back in the day.
that to me makes sense considering that it was filled by other, sealed (but less valuable and a different brand entirely) trading cards; maybe the were even being printed and packed at the same factory and someone higher up decided to take some packing materials and use cards no one wanted to recoup the cost of those less popular cards through these stupid, dodgy collector deals? It's not like anyone was actually going to open the box to check until way later down the line, where it'd be harder to check who was responsible.
12:59 "Why doesn't this one say first edition on it?" This is interesting and suggests the boxes are real. Otherwise I would think you'd just print out 6 identical ones rather than 5 first edition and one later one. You can see this box in the thumbnail (middle row nearest Logan Paul)
I never even considered that. I work in a snack food factory and we joke how bare bones are security is. In fact our turn over is so high in some areas that if a guy I didn’t recognize with no uniform walked in I wouldn’t think it be very suspicious on its own. And even if it did seem suspicious I’m not paid enough to do more then tell him to leave. If he walks off with material I not stopping him.
It always comes back to the same vice : the feeling of owning something without ever using it, enjoying it, or even without it needing to be real. He could have kept the box unsealed for years and proudly displayed it to his friends without people pointing out it was fake, and the only reason he opened it was to prove that he was right to own it at all. The only joy comes from owning, and the bragging rights associated to it. It's not that different of your NFT videos, in a way...
Also note: The reason they put actual cards in, is to fool anybody who tries to xray the box. If you xray it... it looks like a case with boxes of cards in it, because that's what it is. X-rays can't read color, so it doesn't matter what the cards are as long as they're the right shape and size.
I didn't really think about x-rays, I was thinking more about the weight, movement and possible sound that boosters might make. I would be interested in knowing if they weighed the case and checked the weight based on the amount of booster boxes and a cardboard outer.
@@benwillis5840 Getting a solid "weight" on Pokemon TCG packs has always been a pain. Pokemon has a much higher density of foil cards than most other TCGs, to appeal more to children. The foil layer (or layers, up to 3 for some cards) add a significant amount of weight per card. Given that an individual pack can have between 1 and 3 holofoils, it's why you'll see greedy tryhards weighing packs in Target before buying.
This is the sad truth about the world. Most intelligent people won't obtain exorbitant amount of money because you can't predict or begin to understand what idiots throw their money at. Having intelligence and common sense works against you. Just like how NFTs makes zero sense but people still made a crap ton of money with it. Maybe that's what's wrong with the world, we just have crap ton of stupid people with more money than they have any rights to.
This is not proving anything. You can be intelligent in one things, but not in other things. Like Einstein said that he has brain for physics and these type of things but never would be good at politics.
I mean...how so? It's not like he bought a random box from some stranger off facebook marketplace; it was authenticated by one of the larger sealed vintage 'experts'. So that's not exactly exceptionally stupid. Once the validity of the box was questioned; sure, he could have just kept it, or tried to resell it, but 3.5 mil is literally nothing to him (he apparently made around 15-20m from just one of his fights). So why not instead cause controversy by opening up the suspect box with the CEO of BBCE. If the box is real, he still owns a pretty expensive collection of pokemon collectibles and has a video to boot. If it isn't, he can cause controversy, get media attention, and possibly get some money back from the people that were meant to verify the legitimacy of his purchase. He's hardly the best actor in the world. You can tell when it's confirmed to be fake, he doesn't break character and continues to act. It's not enough of a concern to even show real emotion. To be brutally honest, I don't think you're very intelligent. Logan Paul has repeatedly shown that he cares more about controversy and attention than money or material objects. I mean, why buy a brown box for 3.5m (when I doubt he's a big fan of the game) except for attention and bragging rights? Not to mention, unboxing it in front of the CEO for BBCE was a genius way to exploit the situation and drive views. Judging someone's intelligence without taking into consideration...the person, and what they actually value, is pretty stupid. The honest truth is this was a complete win for him. Well, unless he actually is a massive fan of the game.
Sorry to burst the narrative, but he already has his money back. Not to mention publicity out the ass. He is making out like a bandit. Richer and richer.
Honestly, I already dislike the idea of buying something solely because you think you can sell it for more with no interest in the product itself. But this goes doubly so for *games*. These are items designed to be played and enjoyed. The idea that a sealed cardboard box of a game could have more value than what's inside makes me rage. So yeah, I'm firmly siding with the scammers on this one. Bravo, guys!
I understand what you mean but most shops work on buying something and selling it for more without necessarily any real interest in the product. As for a sealed box being worth more than an unsealed one, isn't that the case with most things? I will generally pay more for a sealed product than an unsealed one, whatever it is. With Pokémon cards specifically, there's a premium in a sealed item as you believe it hasn't been tampered with - weighed, resealed or whatever - and with sealed booster boxes you know that the best boosters haven't been removed.
@@benwillis5840 Problem with this is that it can result in exactly what you see in the video above. There's no proof the contents inside are real. And the more layers you add on top, the less proof there is. A single blister pack? Moderately risk free. A sealed box containing twenty packs? Riskier. A cardboard box with a label on it claiming there's a bunch of boxes for packs with cards in them? Nearly impossible to verify. It's a cardboard box and has no art on it indicating some effort in labeling it. There's no way to see if the art is faded or 'off' somehow. Yet, people place a ton of value on, basically, Schrodinger's box. It becomes a pure investment high risk item for people who like living on the edge with their money and is zero indication of actual commitment to the actual real value of said product, namely what it offers for the game. It's basically showing someone a picture of a beautiful house on a remote island that you'll never ever be allowed to visit or move into, because the act of moving there actually lowers the value of the house. The house could be totally fake, so you're investing on the *faith* that it's real. It's verging on the religious and is beyond silly. This is why dedicated gamers don't do this. They want to play the game. Not speculate on the market. So instead, they figure out what cards they need to create the perfect deck for their playstyle, and they go to a shop and individually purchase the cards they need.
@@KaybeCA " This is why dedicated gamers don't do this." I think you are making the distinction between people who collect/trade and play too binary when the overlap is not 0. Some card game champions also collect the items, not just to create decks but for the sake of collecting; they do the whole shabang, sending them to one of the authentication groups, putting on display and never playing with them. You wrote that you extra dislike the trading fo something intended for play but they aren't just play cards, they are CCG or TCG: collectible/trading card games. These are items designed to be played AND traded/collected. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of these CCG because of the whole trading aspect of it but I also found silly someone getting mad at people collecting/trading something that literally has collectible/trading in the name. At least your flavor of silly doesn't cost 3.5m tho.
@@benwillis5840 At least shops have a clear purpose: bringing the goods closer (for physical shops at least) and keep stocks of the product. Those are valuable services. Scalpers offer nothing of value.
"This would've fooled them all." No, it wouldn't have, not for one second. Most of the major authenticators use forensic techniques and have former WotC production advisors. That's why there was so much suspicion in the run up, because people more knowledgable about this noticed numerous errors, such as the product code including the "1E" which wasn't something actually printed on the label of the very first edition, and wasn't included on the label until Fossil's first edition. And, even worse, the typeset on the sealing tape isn't the same as what WotC used, and the S in "Seal" is not capitalized on the fake box. Any authenticator with even a passable knowledge of early Pokemon cards would have caught these, so really, there's not enough "bruh" you can levy against BBCE
Oh, and lastly, it also wasn't the "only" one supposed to exist: "Note that in the video they mention this is the only Base Set case to exist. This isn’t true, Gary Haase (King Pokemon) owns one. Some have also gone up for auction over the years. It doesn’t seem like the sports collectors in the video knew what they were talking about."
@@HoxhaE would they? I’m legitimately curious how much crossover there is. I’d assume they must do some business in things like Magic the Gathering or similar but I wonder if it’s enough to give them real familiarity with how to authentic this.
I remember some cryptobro trying to rope me into a scam saying one of the Paul brothers bought into it, and I just stared blankly at the screen for several minutes. Like... why would anyone think that's a compelling argument?
They've really taken the experience of getting a foil Charizard and bragging about it on the schoolyard playground and twisted it into something so much worse.
9:45 I have to disagree. I dont feel bad for him and he has not done his job at all. He (and his company) are supposed to be experts in this. As the guy said, they have 20 years of "experience". The whole premise of authenticating a 1. edition base set case is already flawed from the very start. How can you authenticate something if you have no experience with it and no way to compare it to another case? Its the only sealed one. There just is no way to authenticate it. Rattle Pokemon, the guy who found out that this was likely a fake case (who is also shown briefly in the logan video) has no experience with varifying products and he basically only used google to find out, that nearly everything on this box is faked. I know its easy to say that "you just have to varify that a box is a box" but its not that easy. The label itself was wrong (printed normally, not thermal printed), the barcode on the case was wrong (put together from other products probably), the writing had a wrong font and size and even the stop tape itself was wrong. Not only speaking about all the red flags about the sellers of the case. If the guy from BCCE even spent an hour or two on researching this case, he wouldve easily seen the problems with it. But he didnt so he deserves whats coming for him and his company. If they cant even put some work into authenticating a 3.5 million dollar case, how can you trust them with any other products? Again, someone without any experience in the field found out that its fake. BCCE are a total joke.
They really had it coming. I imagine that Logan and friends have no clue about card collecting or verification and just thought: 'hey, know those crazy persons who spent a lot of money on sports cards? Let's get a pro for those.' Instead of looking for experts in fantasy tcgs like mtg, Yu-Gi-Oh or, I don't know, Pokémon maybe?
Heck a scam somewhat like this is happening with Magic as well. Scammers are buying box sets of Magic cards off Amazon, cutting the packs open carefully at the end, pulling out all the cards thar are worth anhtying than setting the packs back in the box and using shrink wrap with wizerd of the cost logos on it to re-seal the box and than do a return and refund. Thus Amazon think's they are getting an unopened box and then that box goes to some unexpected buyer. Thus the scammer can walk away with cards, some singles worth more than the whole box set, along with the refund for the box set. This is why I keep saying value for the 'unknown' should not be a thing. Because hey, some of these box's could just be weighted down somehow with stacks of paper or something, it's so easy to fake this stuff the value of an item should come from the actual ITEM, and not the pack/box it came in. Even if this was real, the cards inside could have very well been worth jack all for all we knew. The unknown should not be worth such a steep price.
My brother once did some market testing for selling themed sets of cards where you know exactly what you're getting, but there wasn't a market for it. Such a better model than randomized boosters though.
I bought a few Pokemon boxes on Amazon with this issue. With mine they didn't even need to shrink-wrap them: they just opened cardboard boxes carefully, took the boosters out, removed cards and put the empty boosters back in (so that you could see them through the perspex) and glued the box down. They looked perfect...until my son opened the box on his birthday. Annoyingly, because Pokemon products were so hard to find last year, I'd bought them months before and kept them so Amazon wouldn't accept my return.
I find it hard to sympathise with someone who can see $3.5 million go down the drain right in front of their eyes and show less emotion than a sports fan watching their team throw a lead.
People buy booster boxes, because in every box there are a guaranteed number of common/uc/rare/etc cards, so you have a higher chance to get rare and valuable cards, and there is a lower chance of manipulation by a 3rd party. But as you can see, nothing is guaranteed. Sadly, this scam is also going around in MTG circles. The Wizards seals used to be a sure thing, but sadly, the scammers learned to copy that too.
I was wondering if anybody would mention this. Idk if it applies to older TCG print runs, but nowadays a lot of cards come in packs, which come in boxes, which come in cases, and some of the most valuable cards only show up once in a case. If that's true for older sets, then certain cards printed on smaller/more-limited print runs will have incredibly high value
To be honest, he is likely the one hurt the least in this case since he got a refund. BBCE and the guy who sold the box to Logan Paul are the big losers here. Either way, it is probably a good thing overall that the practice of "verifying" unopened boxes/cases is coming into question from this.
I asked myself "Who would buy that?" And then I remembered that we live in a world where a fucking Cheese Sandwich with a burnt section said to look like Jesus Christ, sold on EBay for 25 thousand dollars.
@@goddimmus and where people buy nfts... or create the most confusing crossroad ever with only 37 traffic lights(in Germany)... or people who buy booster for ubisoft games!
Excellent video I have to say, the aging boxes trick was a particularly excellent reveal :) I would love to see the faces of people all over the world looking suspiciously at their Shroedingers boxes. I bet there will be some who won`t be able to resist opening them, potentially making videos of it for our ammusement :D
part of this is on the fault of the graders. just trying to see if it was old and not trying to find a paper trail/chain of custody is neglectful If it hit my desk and i couldnt find a paper trail (not a grader BTW) I would have just sent it back with "analysis inconclusive"
Yeah, I heard the company just looked at the box, saw the WotC logo on the tape, and just went "Yup, all good!!!" without ever doing research to verify any of it. They didn't even check the barcode against the claimed ID, which was a big part of WHY people were suspicious of it! I heard they don't even deal in Pokemon cards, only baseball cards. Why would they be picked to verify in that case???
They where asked to confirm the box hadn't been tampered with without any invasive methods. Not to follow a portential trail. That would've been Paul's and Shiny's job. The graders did exactly what they where supposed to do.
Yeah, that surface level of basing it solely on wear of something like cardboard is a joke. Fake wear and tear is incredibly easy to duplicate, especially on a material like that. Also not a grader, but I deal in a particular area of jewelry with a massive amount of forgery and reproduction, because it has one surface level indication that it is real means absolutely nothing. I realistically do not see any way you could undoubtedly verify the outside of a cardboard box without absolute provenance from the time it was printed to the time of them purchasing it, it is something far too easy to replicate. I spend more time and effort on a $25 piece to maintain my own reputation, than they did on something purportedly in the millions.
Considering how the series of issues Pokemon TCC players and collectors are suffering all started because of him, I think that this has finally come full circle.
Not just Pokemon but MTG as well. Yugioh not so much because Konami reprints cards that are going for alot or are seeing alot of play practically every set.
@@Necroxion He bought a sealed Pokemon box from the 90s for like 300k and did a livestream opening and pulled a foiled Charizard. It got alot of views so other content creators started to copy it. Then average people who didn't have interest started buying EVERY pack and box from retail stores (to where there were fights in the parking lots and stalking the venders that stocked the stuff) and online to either flip or open in hopes to pull an expensive card to sell online as they where out of work and needed a way to make some cash because of covid. We're not talking about one or two but cases to where they'd max out credit cards. Then people saw the individual cards start going up in value and started buying those as an investment. It has gone down but card shops are still having supply issues.
If the target of the scam is 2.7 - 3.5 million dollars, how hard is it to fake a cardboard box with the right kind of markings, stamps, stickers and making it look aged? Even if it took you $500k to make the box look absolutely perfect, you still get back up to $3 million!
The target of the scam could have been well below the 2.7-3.5m range though, we don't really know how many buyers-sellers it went through before it got to Logan Paul. But yeah the point still stands, whoever made the scam likely made big profit regardless of whatever effort they had to go through to make it seem real.
The problem is there was no "target" amount as the target amount is dictated by market trends which change constantly. Investing a lot of money in a scam means you're speculating the object of the scam will be worth more than the amount you invested in it to even make a profit, which defeats the whole point of scamming speculators. The beauty of these scams is that they're very cheap to do, and when done well can fool so called "experts" as all these collectors markets(including art btw) and their so called experts are pure scam markets to begin with. The house always wins, it's not just for casinos but also for speculative markets, be it art, NFTs or anything in between. The people with the product have the incentive to artificially increase its value and the experts are payed based on transaction fees thus they too have an incentive to appoint high values to various objects. Thus a layman entering these markets who is completely reliant on the established players and their reputations is bound to be scammed. If he's lucky he can unknowingly roll the scam over to whoever he sells the product to(if s/he does), otherwise he's stuck with a worthless product s/he payed way too much for.
On the one hand it's hard to fault BBCE because I couldn't verify an unopened box contains X, but on the other hand I'm not running a business on that exact premise.
Buying a sealed booster box reminds me of the "factory sealed" retro game collectors out there. To me, it never made much sense to keep a sealed box that could still be fake and you wouldnt know until you open it, destroying the value you paid for it. Not to mention it being valued as something you can't even use. The counterfeit markets for collector goods is already just so high, the risk of fakes on "trust me, don't open it" is more than I'd ever personally want to risk. More money than sense, imo.
At this point even game cartidges themselves are suspect and "sealed games"! :( It's hard to tell from a listing of, say, Paper Mario 64 that the game is actually the original being sold at $100 (WAY OVERPRICED) rather than a repro board put in a legitimate-looking case being sold as if it was genuine... That's sad.
yeah the old you know who's behind the recent pushing of the kosher video games bubble. same assholes did it to other niche collector markets in past. speculation and greed 101, same thing they done for thousands of years
Ya that's the thing, counterfeits were already super high quality before this most recent bubble. All it takes is a budget and insider knowledge. You find the right dude who got burnt by the right company and you have the keys to the kingdom. You'll know what suppliers to order what materials from, and what processes you need to run in what order. MTG "proxies" are so good that it's somewhat speculated that someone from one of their printers are behind some of these shops. And retro videogame stuff is just basic reverse engineering work outside of finding out where they originally got what blend of plastic.
Y'all don't remember or don't know - Back in 2000/2001, there was a CCG crash and NO ONE wanted cards. I picked up theme decks for cheap. Base Set 2 Packs for 50 cents each. No one wanted Pokemon. People didn't think it would be around for 20+ years. So, I bought a box to open with my kids one day. Too bad my kids are not really into Pokemon and they don't take care of their cards. So, the box is just hanging out. Anyway. I got a Pokemon Base Set Unlimited booster box for sale. Had it for 20 years.
As someone who has several boxes of MtG, I can’t see why ANYONE would place value on the box like that. If I can’t see the actual product, or at least the sealed box, I think it’s more than reasonable to assume I have a box of GI Joe…
Not feeling much empathy for either one of the Paul's. Selling out for any scam they can profit from at the cost of their fans, stealing from riots, recording sensitive stuff for money.
I think it's fine to laugh at a dude who spent millions of dollars on a cardboard box. Especially because you know the dude is just going to make that money back anyway. Hell even the videos he'll make on this and the sponsors he can put on those videos will help him recover the cost.
They did and there where 3000 Millions of Red Flags There where more Red Flags there than there are in Cryptoland and Earth2 combined First they purchased the Box They made it being opened up in a Video by a Pokemon Cards' Expert He noticed that the Box had an anomaly and all the Cards Packs where Open (they didn't even bothered to reclose them) And some Cards where clearly Fake (I remember there where even some Cards that could not be in the Box because they didn't exist at the time the Box was made) At this point the Dude selling the Cards picked his Phone and faked (in a very bad way) a fake call with his ''Advocate'' Then he said that there must have been an Error and they would have given another Box And this time they (the scammers) would have opened it up to check if it was original (Without Logan or the Expert being presents, not even in a Video Call) and to prove that they did it then they would have send a Video Hahaha Guess that the Second Box was Fake too Eh who would have guessed that the Guy that tried to sell you Fake Merch under the perfect circumstances still sell you Fake Merch (Again) XD
He has way too much money. He is also constantly scamming his community with NFTs. Too much money can make you stupid. And he probably was already stupid before that.
"these people have very valid opinions, because they are experts on cardboard boxes" not a sentence I thought I'd hear today also, hasn't he already sold NFTs? or was that the other one?
As someone who is big into collecting, from action figures to other toys, to plenty of CCG/TCGs (though never Pokemon, oddly), and plushie, I've never seen the value, personally, of leaving things inboxes. I used to buy sealed boosters, and at one point would buy sealed and sell those cards I didn't need/want but never sold the sealed packages. I want to know what's in them. Those sealed versions of comics, how do you know the comic is really in there? Those people who seal away rare video games to preserve them but never play them, I don't see the point. And yes, I know, that's a big market, but I want the thing, the toy, the game, not the title of having a box that's sealed with something that might be the toy or the game. I also don't trust a lot of sealed boxes anymore. It's easy to re-shrink wrap something. The amount of bootlegs we've gotten through "Amazon" (the private seller's stuff...) has shown us that. Even if I had trillions of dollars, I'd not buy a box of booster boxes sealed that magically survived this long never being sent to a store and opened.
Well, that's bound to happen when you're dealing with a product composed solely of speculative value. The cards, wrappings and boxes are pretty much worthless. Anyone could assemble the materials and make identical - and even better, brand new cards. The value is pretty much a speculative bubble based on its uniqueness and history, and they failed to analyze the very basic nature of their trade. If the value is derived almost entirely from the box' history, then what is it? Where did the box come from? Who first bought it? Where did he keep it stored and for how long he kept it? If their only analysis is looking at a seemingly old box and state 'oh yea it looks old' then they're only amateurs faking being experts.
I feel bad for him personally but that's also their job and they failed at it. However I don't feel bad for Logan or his friends, buying this stuff is the equivalent of wealthy businessmen buying overpriced art just because it's expensive. There's no passion behind it, it's just a big flex.
Some people with too much free time could figure out major red flags with just a few hours of googling though. This guy was paid to look over and verify the box and couldn't even notice things like typos on the sealing tape...
I'm not, they made a profit of telling others "trust me bro trust my process" and its clear its all bullshit, and their word never had any value, now you can argue this was a fluke, fine, but it still puts into question their methods and process if its real at all, they made a job out of thin air about something they thought was quantifiable, turns out its not, time to get some real jobs.
He built a whole business on verifying boxes and didn't seem to have foresight to know about box aging techniques, or validate simple details, not sure I can feel too sorry for him, but then again my jaw is wide open at the infinite chain of dumb going on at every levels.
Here's a major problem with all these appraisal companies and auction houses, they were NEVER trust worthy to begin with, they collided to drive up prices of rare collectable and profit on giving out "authentication" and grading, and the auction gains from every transactions made thru them, they first did it with art, baseball at first but also every other cards they can hype up, they started doing it with old video game, the market for old game were a healthy, reasonable market back by true enthusiasts, now they've gone and drove up everything for profit and only investors are buying them, authenticity of the collectables were never their priority, speculative profit is.
"He's being asked to verify that a box is a box" Callum, boxes are serious business. Very serious. And so are scams. If you want to make sure your stuff is your stuff, I bet you'll want this guy on the case. Box inspectors are heroes to society, do not denigrate or demean them. Not only because they are expert boxes, but they know how to hide their own fraud. Lets hope your future packages are secure and untampered, because you have just upset the box community.
So opening it was a lose/lose scenario. If it was real, he lost half of it's value and the "honor" of having the only box of this kind; if it was fake, he lost all of the box's value. He did say that the other guy would refund him the 3.5m if it was fake, but then the other guy still lost the original 2.7m.
When he said 100% three times in one sentence, alarm bells started ringing in my head. It's like when scam emails repeat "completely legal and risk-free" constantly.
its one thing to verify sealed boxes where the original manufacturing processes is visible, but to verify the case those boxes ship in should require at least verifiable prominence.
For everyone cheering Logan getting screwed, he already has the fully payment back. And he got more publicity from this than anything he could do on his own. Dude is laughing all the way to the bank.
Well...I'm not a profiler or something like that but reading body language, facial and tonal expression of this guy I am almost a hundred percent sure this was fake from beginning to end.
My favorite part of this is that definitive proof that their rating system is crap is going to cause massive loss of confidence in the market, If were get very lucky, this could be what kills the speculation bubble. Just like Beanie Babies and Tulips, they'll be harmless without the lie of future value being saddled on them.
As a 10-year-old kid, I could take one look and tell you that box was BS. Then again, I was actually around when Pokémon cards first came out and saw more fakes than LA. That professional boxer (couldn't help it) probably got caught in a lie when it comes to his "expertise"...
6:17 But of course I would trust the first stranger who wants to sell something and says he will refund me if things go wrong! I mean who wouldn't?? Right! Right? 🤣
As someone that is an history enthusiast I understand the historical value of keeping some boxes like this unopened, but I seriously do not understanding the monetary value people put in this. I think it would be incredibly valuable if you put some boxes like this a safe place where they'll stay for decades, maybe centuries, so that it can be a valuable source of information to future generations about our culture from the time those were made (we do have some similar cases of things like that being found over a century later and it is incredibly insightful to see something that would be very common around the time they were made but this specific ones are brand new and without the marks of use, so you can compare them to some that were used and get a lot of information about the people that used them and how they were used) Historically speaking, it is invaluable, but putting high monetary value in those only incentivizes people to buy it which causes it to jump from hand to hand and increases the chance of it not making it too far in the future (it could be opened, lost, destroyed, thrown in the trash when it loses value, etc).
I just feel disgusted how a man can spend 3.5 million on a box of cardboard when I'm sitting here barely able to afford food to feed myself, let alone anyone else, from week to week.
Callum you were way too nice to BBCE in this case. It's not just verifying that a box is a box, it's verifying all the details, especially the most minor ones. Like looking at the tape to verify all the writing is correct, both in terms of the words, font, size, etc. Similarly verifying that the code on the box matches a legitimate first edition(since it was claimed as such) code, and all other small to tiny details about it. Oh and of course the provenance, which is perhaps the most important aspect in the authentication of these collectors products. BBCE did none of that, they were supposedly experts but were proven to be complete amateurs in grading this specific box. If you don't know something there's no shame in saying "I don't know". However when you do claim to know when in fact you don't than you're nothing more than a scam artist. BBCE, at least in this specific case, were proven to be scammers. I don't know anything else about the company but it doesn't really bode well for them when they drop the ball so badly on such a high priced authentication.
Dude he was trying to say the wear was proper for the tape and the sticker. If he was real thorough we would get box forensics no doubt. But he was not just saying a box is a box ROFLOL!
well remember 1st edition pokemon was 1999 of course tape can change labels are usually unchanging so yeah but to me the biggest part was the box itself was to vibrant and bright, a 20 year old box would of started to dim and get a lot darker unless it was locked in a pressurized thing without any air
So I got a collectible Anniversary Box from a game and I kept the cardboard packaging it arrived in- simply to protect the item until I have a place to properly display it. The only value a cardboard box (that a collectible was shipped in) has is to protect the thing that actually had value
I really liked how the card "pro" was trying to get them to agree they were all duped so when the lawsuit happens he can say "Well they agreed we all were at fault." lol
What ? I can sell random boxes for millions ? Guys ! You are in luck! Just now 50% off on all my inventory... 500 000$ for empty sealed box, it can be empty or have Belle Delphine farts in it.. who knows...
This method is the same method used to rig “new” boxes and cards for magic shows. I’m sure there are probably other ways of doing it, but this is the easiest and most convincing to pull off.
Sealed video games (mostly vintage) have been skyrocketing lately, like 125k for Mario 1, but I wonder how many of those are going to be opened one day to the same little surprise.
It is in the nature of these things that the boxes lose value once opened and are determined not to contain enough rares to justify the price tag. They have evaluated the authenticity of tens of thousands of things that were never going to be proven wrong unless their owners wanted to destroy the value. That sounds like the single best business model ever. "You can totally trust us. Our track record is impeccable. As long as you never actually check." To be fair, I feel the same way about 100-year-old wines. There are some Bourdeaux that are so old that they'll turn to vinegar once they're opened. They'll taste fantastic for about 30 minutes and then turn awful. It could be water with a melted red crayola crayon in it and it would have just as much intrinsic value. And I'm sorry, but we all know the truth. That it was GI Joe is the *best* part not the worst. Even Dora the Explorer would have been less funny.
A lot off ppl struggling to make ends meat, and now seeing someone lose 3.5 M on a cardboard box filled with cardboard boxing filled with the wrong print of a card just makes it even worse
This sheer f***ing insanity that people are incentivized to never even open the box that holds the box that holds the packs of sealed cards are why I sold out of every trading card game years ago and will never buy any again.
I am not a collector nor am I proficient in vintage items, however I did come across an interest in vintage wine fraud. I'm really not surprised that BBCE got this wrong or any validity service, if you look back at some of the fraudulent wines that were sold by people who mastered the art of replication, it isn't impossible or farfetched. People spend millions of dollars collecting wine vintage wine, or cards or whatever. If you have the ability to replicate something and it looks legit, then you've done a good job. After all, you are simply casting human eyes onto a item. It's bound to happen.
It's basically a loot box, what could be inside may be worth something, but a majority of the time it's garbage, worthless items. Also I had an idea of how it was done, which is technically the same as you described, just less professional/efficient.
This is probably the equivalent of buying a top-tier account in a gacha game but then getting banned 6 months after because the seller refunded the money spent on the account. Except this real life, and you can actually touch the useless cardboard.
I think Callum's answer is correct, but I also want to highlight another way scams happened: factory theft.
Printers (especially in the early 2000s) had practically zero security. If you've never been inside a print shop, the vast majority used were bare-bones shacks. You could literally be at the packing station and walk away with all the supplies needed to make a genuine box, take it home, and fill it with garbo. Mayfair Games notably got fked by theft back in the day.
that to me makes sense considering that it was filled by other, sealed (but less valuable and a different brand entirely) trading cards; maybe the were even being printed and packed at the same factory and someone higher up decided to take some packing materials and use cards no one wanted to recoup the cost of those less popular cards through these stupid, dodgy collector deals? It's not like anyone was actually going to open the box to check until way later down the line, where it'd be harder to check who was responsible.
12:59 "Why doesn't this one say first edition on it?"
This is interesting and suggests the boxes are real. Otherwise I would think you'd just print out 6 identical ones rather than 5 first edition and one later one. You can see this box in the thumbnail (middle row nearest Logan Paul)
oof, that's what happens when an industry blows up, professional thieves get crafty.
I never even considered that. I work in a snack food factory and we joke how bare bones are security is. In fact our turn over is so high in some areas that if a guy I didn’t recognize with no uniform walked in I wouldn’t think it be very suspicious on its own.
And even if it did seem suspicious I’m not paid enough to do more then tell him to leave. If he walks off with material I not stopping him.
@@jamiekamihachi3135 Exactly. Always remember: If you see someone stealing food, no you didn't.
It always comes back to the same vice : the feeling of owning something without ever using it, enjoying it, or even without it needing to be real. He could have kept the box unsealed for years and proudly displayed it to his friends without people pointing out it was fake, and the only reason he opened it was to prove that he was right to own it at all. The only joy comes from owning, and the bragging rights associated to it. It's not that different of your NFT videos, in a way...
Best comment I've seen in a while
Nah nah nah this comment is a little too good to just be a comment.
Feels like the end of an essay. I love it.
thats a very astute observation
Also note:
The reason they put actual cards in, is to fool anybody who tries to xray the box. If you xray it... it looks like a case with boxes of cards in it, because that's what it is. X-rays can't read color, so it doesn't matter what the cards are as long as they're the right shape and size.
I think we all gussed that to be honest
I didn't really think about x-rays, I was thinking more about the weight, movement and possible sound that boosters might make. I would be interested in knowing if they weighed the case and checked the weight based on the amount of booster boxes and a cardboard outer.
@@benwillis5840 you know... I really should have thought of the weight and movement haha. "what if they shake the box?"
This is some Futurama stuff...
@@benwillis5840 Getting a solid "weight" on Pokemon TCG packs has always been a pain. Pokemon has a much higher density of foil cards than most other TCGs, to appeal more to children. The foil layer (or layers, up to 3 for some cards) add a significant amount of weight per card. Given that an individual pack can have between 1 and 3 holofoils, it's why you'll see greedy tryhards weighing packs in Target before buying.
Thanks Logan for once again proving you don’t need a shred of intelligence or common sense to have exorbitant amounts of money. Truly an inspiration
This is the sad truth about the world. Most intelligent people won't obtain exorbitant amount of money because you can't predict or begin to understand what idiots throw their money at. Having intelligence and common sense works against you. Just like how NFTs makes zero sense but people still made a crap ton of money with it. Maybe that's what's wrong with the world, we just have crap ton of stupid people with more money than they have any rights to.
He has to be more intelligent than his fans though.
Not a high bar.
This is not proving anything. You can be intelligent in one things, but not in other things. Like Einstein said that he has brain for physics and these type of things but never would be good at politics.
@@kaidestinyz NFTs can be good in some ways. (Not in many, but i can imagine some...) But its really bad how people using it right now.
I mean...how so?
It's not like he bought a random box from some stranger off facebook marketplace; it was authenticated by one of the larger sealed vintage 'experts'. So that's not exactly exceptionally stupid. Once the validity of the box was questioned; sure, he could have just kept it, or tried to resell it, but 3.5 mil is literally nothing to him (he apparently made around 15-20m from just one of his fights). So why not instead cause controversy by opening up the suspect box with the CEO of BBCE. If the box is real, he still owns a pretty expensive collection of pokemon collectibles and has a video to boot. If it isn't, he can cause controversy, get media attention, and possibly get some money back from the people that were meant to verify the legitimacy of his purchase. He's hardly the best actor in the world. You can tell when it's confirmed to be fake, he doesn't break character and continues to act. It's not enough of a concern to even show real emotion.
To be brutally honest, I don't think you're very intelligent. Logan Paul has repeatedly shown that he cares more about controversy and attention than money or material objects. I mean, why buy a brown box for 3.5m (when I doubt he's a big fan of the game) except for attention and bragging rights? Not to mention, unboxing it in front of the CEO for BBCE was a genius way to exploit the situation and drive views. Judging someone's intelligence without taking into consideration...the person, and what they actually value, is pretty stupid. The honest truth is this was a complete win for him. Well, unless he actually is a massive fan of the game.
Warms my heart to see a crypto scammer getting scammed.
Can you explain please? :)
don't forget about NFT's as well.
@@simonw.1223 Logan Paul has been promoting crypto shit coins alot on twitter. CoffeeZilla has a few videos about it.
@@GrumpyIan thank you~
Now he knows how the people feel that he is scamming... Couldn't care less.
Sometimes, there is justice.
This guy has been injecting vitriol and negativity into the world for years, it's time he got some back.
I want justice all of the time though T__T
This is what he gets for tying to pass off shutterstock stock images as his own nft collection.
Look up the cryptozoo scam.
100% deserved this shit.
Sorry to burst the narrative, but he already has his money back. Not to mention publicity out the ass. He is making out like a bandit. Richer and richer.
@@NOLA-vv3sz oh dear, I was having a good time until that.
@@NOLA-vv3sz he might have the money back but his reputation? Looks bad man, Logan looks dumb as fuck, and he’s discredited his friend as well.
"We were all duped. Agreed?"
Only one person appraised that box and set its base value.
Honestly, I already dislike the idea of buying something solely because you think you can sell it for more with no interest in the product itself. But this goes doubly so for *games*. These are items designed to be played and enjoyed. The idea that a sealed cardboard box of a game could have more value than what's inside makes me rage. So yeah, I'm firmly siding with the scammers on this one. Bravo, guys!
I understand what you mean but most shops work on buying something and selling it for more without necessarily any real interest in the product.
As for a sealed box being worth more than an unsealed one, isn't that the case with most things? I will generally pay more for a sealed product than an unsealed one, whatever it is.
With Pokémon cards specifically, there's a premium in a sealed item as you believe it hasn't been tampered with - weighed, resealed or whatever - and with sealed booster boxes you know that the best boosters haven't been removed.
@@benwillis5840 Problem with this is that it can result in exactly what you see in the video above. There's no proof the contents inside are real. And the more layers you add on top, the less proof there is. A single blister pack? Moderately risk free. A sealed box containing twenty packs? Riskier. A cardboard box with a label on it claiming there's a bunch of boxes for packs with cards in them? Nearly impossible to verify. It's a cardboard box and has no art on it indicating some effort in labeling it. There's no way to see if the art is faded or 'off' somehow. Yet, people place a ton of value on, basically, Schrodinger's box. It becomes a pure investment high risk item for people who like living on the edge with their money and is zero indication of actual commitment to the actual real value of said product, namely what it offers for the game. It's basically showing someone a picture of a beautiful house on a remote island that you'll never ever be allowed to visit or move into, because the act of moving there actually lowers the value of the house. The house could be totally fake, so you're investing on the *faith* that it's real. It's verging on the religious and is beyond silly. This is why dedicated gamers don't do this. They want to play the game. Not speculate on the market. So instead, they figure out what cards they need to create the perfect deck for their playstyle, and they go to a shop and individually purchase the cards they need.
@@KaybeCA " This is why dedicated gamers don't do this." I think you are making the distinction between people who collect/trade and play too binary when the overlap is not 0. Some card game champions also collect the items, not just to create decks but for the sake of collecting; they do the whole shabang, sending them to one of the authentication groups, putting on display and never playing with them. You wrote that you extra dislike the trading fo something intended for play but they aren't just play cards, they are CCG or TCG: collectible/trading card games. These are items designed to be played AND traded/collected. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of these CCG because of the whole trading aspect of it but I also found silly someone getting mad at people collecting/trading something that literally has collectible/trading in the name. At least your flavor of silly doesn't cost 3.5m tho.
Isn't that the lesson they tried to teach in Toy Story 2?
@@benwillis5840 At least shops have a clear purpose: bringing the goods closer (for physical shops at least) and keep stocks of the product. Those are valuable services.
Scalpers offer nothing of value.
"This would've fooled them all." No, it wouldn't have, not for one second. Most of the major authenticators use forensic techniques and have former WotC production advisors. That's why there was so much suspicion in the run up, because people more knowledgable about this noticed numerous errors, such as the product code including the "1E" which wasn't something actually printed on the label of the very first edition, and wasn't included on the label until Fossil's first edition. And, even worse, the typeset on the sealing tape isn't the same as what WotC used, and the S in "Seal" is not capitalized on the fake box. Any authenticator with even a passable knowledge of early Pokemon cards would have caught these, so really, there's not enough "bruh" you can levy against BBCE
Oh, and lastly, it also wasn't the "only" one supposed to exist: "Note that in the video they mention this is the only Base Set case to exist. This isn’t true, Gary Haase (King Pokemon) owns one. Some have also gone up for auction over the years. It doesn’t seem like the sports collectors in the video knew what they were talking about."
@@HoxhaE would they? I’m legitimately curious how much crossover there is. I’d assume they must do some business in things like Magic the Gathering or similar but I wonder if it’s enough to give them real familiarity with how to authentic this.
I remember some cryptobro trying to rope me into a scam saying one of the Paul brothers bought into it, and I just stared blankly at the screen for several minutes. Like... why would anyone think that's a compelling argument?
was it dink-doink by any chance lmao
They've really taken the experience of getting a foil Charizard and bragging about it on the schoolyard playground and twisted it into something so much worse.
This is what happens when you try to make a children's card game into a financial investment lol
9:45 I have to disagree. I dont feel bad for him and he has not done his job at all. He (and his company) are supposed to be experts in this. As the guy said, they have 20 years of "experience". The whole premise of authenticating a 1. edition base set case is already flawed from the very start. How can you authenticate something if you have no experience with it and no way to compare it to another case? Its the only sealed one. There just is no way to authenticate it.
Rattle Pokemon, the guy who found out that this was likely a fake case (who is also shown briefly in the logan video) has no experience with varifying products and he basically only used google to find out, that nearly everything on this box is faked. I know its easy to say that "you just have to varify that a box is a box" but its not that easy. The label itself was wrong (printed normally, not thermal printed), the barcode on the case was wrong (put together from other products probably), the writing had a wrong font and size and even the stop tape itself was wrong. Not only speaking about all the red flags about the sellers of the case.
If the guy from BCCE even spent an hour or two on researching this case, he wouldve easily seen the problems with it. But he didnt so he deserves whats coming for him and his company. If they cant even put some work into authenticating a 3.5 million dollar case, how can you trust them with any other products? Again, someone without any experience in the field found out that its fake. BCCE are a total joke.
Yeah, didn't feel sorry for anyone in that vid either.
They really had it coming. I imagine that Logan and friends have no clue about card collecting or verification and just thought: 'hey, know those crazy persons who spent a lot of money on sports cards? Let's get a pro for those.'
Instead of looking for experts in fantasy tcgs like mtg, Yu-Gi-Oh or, I don't know, Pokémon maybe?
"Knowing is half the battle"
Heck a scam somewhat like this is happening with Magic as well. Scammers are buying box sets of Magic cards off Amazon, cutting the packs open carefully at the end, pulling out all the cards thar are worth anhtying than setting the packs back in the box and using shrink wrap with wizerd of the cost logos on it to re-seal the box and than do a return and refund. Thus Amazon think's they are getting an unopened box and then that box goes to some unexpected buyer. Thus the scammer can walk away with cards, some singles worth more than the whole box set, along with the refund for the box set.
This is why I keep saying value for the 'unknown' should not be a thing. Because hey, some of these box's could just be weighted down somehow with stacks of paper or something, it's so easy to fake this stuff the value of an item should come from the actual ITEM, and not the pack/box it came in. Even if this was real, the cards inside could have very well been worth jack all for all we knew. The unknown should not be worth such a steep price.
My brother once did some market testing for selling themed sets of cards where you know exactly what you're getting, but there wasn't a market for it. Such a better model than randomized boosters though.
I bought a few Pokemon boxes on Amazon with this issue. With mine they didn't even need to shrink-wrap them: they just opened cardboard boxes carefully, took the boosters out, removed cards and put the empty boosters back in (so that you could see them through the perspex) and glued the box down. They looked perfect...until my son opened the box on his birthday. Annoyingly, because Pokemon products were so hard to find last year, I'd bought them months before and kept them so Amazon wouldn't accept my return.
I find it hard to sympathise with someone who can see $3.5 million go down the drain right in front of their eyes and show less emotion than a sports fan watching their team throw a lead.
People buy booster boxes, because in every box there are a guaranteed number of common/uc/rare/etc cards, so you have a higher chance to get rare and valuable cards, and there is a lower chance of manipulation by a 3rd party.
But as you can see, nothing is guaranteed.
Sadly, this scam is also going around in MTG circles. The Wizards seals used to be a sure thing, but sadly, the scammers learned to copy that too.
I was wondering if anybody would mention this. Idk if it applies to older TCG print runs, but nowadays a lot of cards come in packs, which come in boxes, which come in cases, and some of the most valuable cards only show up once in a case. If that's true for older sets, then certain cards printed on smaller/more-limited print runs will have incredibly high value
One of the scammiest pokemon trades in history, second only to the everstone haunter in snowpoint city.
Don't forget about that one box from that So called Guru guy who sold a fake box. Leonhart was there too and saw right away it looked fake.
Omg, I got so mad when I first played Diamond. I thought my game had glitched cause I KNEW haunter evolved via trade
@@thenamelessnpc1000
I would've joined the enemy organizati9n if it meant being able to humiliate that *woman*
Scamming Logan Paul is always morally correct
Scamming the Scammer always feels so good
Yesssss
Agreed.
Especially when the scammers blow themselves up in the whole mess.
To be honest, he is likely the one hurt the least in this case since he got a refund.
BBCE and the guy who sold the box to Logan Paul are the big losers here.
Either way, it is probably a good thing overall that the practice of "verifying" unopened boxes/cases is coming into question from this.
As heartwarming as this is, he can probably re-sell these as 'the cards that lost Logan Paul 3.5M' because of the publicity he's getting for it
I asked myself "Who would buy that?" And then I remembered that we live in a world where a fucking Cheese Sandwich with a burnt section said to look like Jesus Christ, sold on EBay for 25 thousand dollars.
@@goddimmus and where people buy nfts... or create the most confusing crossroad ever with only 37 traffic lights(in Germany)... or people who buy booster for ubisoft games!
he can once again scam his community with NFTs of fake pokemon cards
This was exactly my thought.
Well, he got refunded anyway, so he is profiting just from getting content out of the whole thing.
Excellent video I have to say, the aging boxes trick was a particularly excellent reveal :) I would love to see the faces of people all over the world looking suspiciously at their Shroedingers boxes. I bet there will be some who won`t be able to resist opening them, potentially making videos of it for our ammusement :D
part of this is on the fault of the graders. just trying to see if it was old and not trying to find a paper trail/chain of custody is neglectful If it hit my desk and i couldnt find a paper trail (not a grader BTW) I would have just sent it back with "analysis inconclusive"
PSA grading is not only wildly inconsistent but also get tricked alot with fake cards.
Yeah, I heard the company just looked at the box, saw the WotC logo on the tape, and just went "Yup, all good!!!" without ever doing research to verify any of it. They didn't even check the barcode against the claimed ID, which was a big part of WHY people were suspicious of it! I heard they don't even deal in Pokemon cards, only baseball cards. Why would they be picked to verify in that case???
Alternatively, they're in with the scammers
They where asked to confirm the box hadn't been tampered with without any invasive methods. Not to follow a portential trail. That would've been Paul's and Shiny's job.
The graders did exactly what they where supposed to do.
Yeah, that surface level of basing it solely on wear of something like cardboard is a joke. Fake wear and tear is incredibly easy to duplicate, especially on a material like that. Also not a grader, but I deal in a particular area of jewelry with a massive amount of forgery and reproduction, because it has one surface level indication that it is real means absolutely nothing. I realistically do not see any way you could undoubtedly verify the outside of a cardboard box without absolute provenance from the time it was printed to the time of them purchasing it, it is something far too easy to replicate. I spend more time and effort on a $25 piece to maintain my own reputation, than they did on something purportedly in the millions.
3.5 million for a sealed box because it is sealed. we live in such a perverted world, it deeply disgusts me.
I mean, look at NFTs .. Ppl are just plain stupid.
Lucky that Logan Paul bought it, now maybe other idiots will learn from his mistake…
@@zafool4997 oh yea true, the enxt time I have some spare 3.5 mill somewhere lying around I'll rememeber this ...
Considering how the series of issues Pokemon TCC players and collectors are suffering all started because of him, I think that this has finally come full circle.
I complerely agree.
Yo what happened
EDIT: as in the "it all started because of him" part
Not just Pokemon but MTG as well. Yugioh not so much because Konami reprints cards that are going for alot or are seeing alot of play practically every set.
@@Necroxion He bought a sealed Pokemon box from the 90s for like 300k and did a livestream opening and pulled a foiled Charizard. It got alot of views so other content creators started to copy it. Then average people who didn't have interest started buying EVERY pack and box from retail stores (to where there were fights in the parking lots and stalking the venders that stocked the stuff) and online to either flip or open in hopes to pull an expensive card to sell online as they where out of work and needed a way to make some cash because of covid. We're not talking about one or two but cases to where they'd max out credit cards. Then people saw the individual cards start going up in value and started buying those as an investment. It has gone down but card shops are still having supply issues.
@@GrumpyIan thanks
Let me check if I care or feel sorry.
Nope.
I actually laughed.
If the target of the scam is 2.7 - 3.5 million dollars, how hard is it to fake a cardboard box with the right kind of markings, stamps, stickers and making it look aged? Even if it took you $500k to make the box look absolutely perfect, you still get back up to $3 million!
I was thinking the same and came to the conclusion: what if you spent a load of money and then the scam failed?
And possibly even time spent in a place with free food and lots of guards!
The target of the scam could have been well below the 2.7-3.5m range though, we don't really know how many buyers-sellers it went through before it got to Logan Paul.
But yeah the point still stands, whoever made the scam likely made big profit regardless of whatever effort they had to go through to make it seem real.
The problem is there was no "target" amount as the target amount is dictated by market trends which change constantly. Investing a lot of money in a scam means you're speculating the object of the scam will be worth more than the amount you invested in it to even make a profit, which defeats the whole point of scamming speculators. The beauty of these scams is that they're very cheap to do, and when done well can fool so called "experts" as all these collectors markets(including art btw) and their so called experts are pure scam markets to begin with. The house always wins, it's not just for casinos but also for speculative markets, be it art, NFTs or anything in between. The people with the product have the incentive to artificially increase its value and the experts are payed based on transaction fees thus they too have an incentive to appoint high values to various objects. Thus a layman entering these markets who is completely reliant on the established players and their reputations is bound to be scammed. If he's lucky he can unknowingly roll the scam over to whoever he sells the product to(if s/he does), otherwise he's stuck with a worthless product s/he payed way too much for.
"Man buys box full of cardboard, opens it, is sad to discover it's full of cardboard"
I like how the BBCE owner is like "WE got duped, yeah?" like no bro, YOU got duped and everyone else did shit based on your judgement
People online manage to question the validity of the box beforehand, why didn’t the “expert” who’s only job it is to verify this thing.
This makes me feel bad for the one who previously owned it, though, since he also didn't know it was fake.
.-.
Probably did well for themselves through?
On the one hand it's hard to fault BBCE because I couldn't verify an unopened box contains X, but on the other hand I'm not running a business on that exact premise.
They were all in on it, together.
Buying a sealed booster box reminds me of the "factory sealed" retro game collectors out there. To me, it never made much sense to keep a sealed box that could still be fake and you wouldnt know until you open it, destroying the value you paid for it. Not to mention it being valued as something you can't even use. The counterfeit markets for collector goods is already just so high, the risk of fakes on "trust me, don't open it" is more than I'd ever personally want to risk.
More money than sense, imo.
At this point even game cartidges themselves are suspect and "sealed games"! :( It's hard to tell from a listing of, say, Paper Mario 64 that the game is actually the original being sold at $100 (WAY OVERPRICED) rather than a repro board put in a legitimate-looking case being sold as if it was genuine...
That's sad.
yeah the old you know who's behind the recent pushing of the kosher video games bubble. same assholes did it to other niche collector markets in past. speculation and greed 101, same thing they done for thousands of years
Ya that's the thing, counterfeits were already super high quality before this most recent bubble. All it takes is a budget and insider knowledge. You find the right dude who got burnt by the right company and you have the keys to the kingdom. You'll know what suppliers to order what materials from, and what processes you need to run in what order.
MTG "proxies" are so good that it's somewhat speculated that someone from one of their printers are behind some of these shops. And retro videogame stuff is just basic reverse engineering work outside of finding out where they originally got what blend of plastic.
Oh no! And he seemed like such a cautious, centered individual!
Y'all don't remember or don't know - Back in 2000/2001, there was a CCG crash and NO ONE wanted cards. I picked up theme decks for cheap. Base Set 2 Packs for 50 cents each. No one wanted Pokemon. People didn't think it would be around for 20+ years. So, I bought a box to open with my kids one day.
Too bad my kids are not really into Pokemon and they don't take care of their cards. So, the box is just hanging out.
Anyway. I got a Pokemon Base Set Unlimited booster box for sale. Had it for 20 years.
How much would you let it go for?
@@BlackAxon Probably the cost of a cardboard box, some GI joe cards and a dehydrator :'D :'D :'D
As someone who has several boxes of MtG, I can’t see why ANYONE would place value on the box like that. If I can’t see the actual product, or at least the sealed box, I think it’s more than reasonable to assume I have a box of GI Joe…
Not feeling much empathy for either one of the Paul's. Selling out for any scam they can profit from at the cost of their fans, stealing from riots, recording sensitive stuff for money.
Logan Paul is living proof that wealth doesn’t come from hard work or intelligence.
I think it's fine to laugh at a dude who spent millions of dollars on a cardboard box. Especially because you know the dude is just going to make that money back anyway. Hell even the videos he'll make on this and the sponsors he can put on those videos will help him recover the cost.
Imagine spending 3.5 Millions dollars on one thing and don't even bother checking anything. That is just dumb.
Part of me thinks it's a gamblers high. A lot of financial investments are just gambling, and this is pretty much just a lootbox.
They did and there where 3000 Millions of Red Flags
There where more Red Flags there than there are in Cryptoland and Earth2 combined
First they purchased the Box
They made it being opened up in a Video by a Pokemon Cards' Expert
He noticed that the Box had an anomaly and all the Cards Packs where Open (they didn't even bothered to reclose them)
And some Cards where clearly Fake (I remember there where even some Cards that could not be in the Box because they didn't exist at the time the Box was made)
At this point the Dude selling the Cards picked his Phone and faked (in a very bad way) a fake call with his ''Advocate''
Then he said that there must have been an Error and they would have given another Box
And this time they (the scammers) would have opened it up to check if it was original (Without Logan or the Expert being presents, not even in a Video Call) and to prove that they did it then they would have send a Video
Hahaha
Guess that the Second Box was Fake too
Eh who would have guessed that the Guy that tried to sell you Fake Merch under the perfect circumstances still sell you Fake Merch (Again)
XD
He has way too much money. He is also constantly scamming his community with NFTs. Too much money can make you stupid. And he probably was already stupid before that.
@@aleanddragonITA Wait this was the second time from what I understand?
@@HeavyMetalGamingHD Yeah, Karma finds it ways too, those two really need a wake up call
"these people have very valid opinions, because they are experts on cardboard boxes" not a sentence I thought I'd hear today
also, hasn't he already sold NFTs? or was that the other one?
As someone who is big into collecting, from action figures to other toys, to plenty of CCG/TCGs (though never Pokemon, oddly), and plushie, I've never seen the value, personally, of leaving things inboxes. I used to buy sealed boosters, and at one point would buy sealed and sell those cards I didn't need/want but never sold the sealed packages. I want to know what's in them. Those sealed versions of comics, how do you know the comic is really in there? Those people who seal away rare video games to preserve them but never play them, I don't see the point. And yes, I know, that's a big market, but I want the thing, the toy, the game, not the title of having a box that's sealed with something that might be the toy or the game. I also don't trust a lot of sealed boxes anymore. It's easy to re-shrink wrap something. The amount of bootlegs we've gotten through "Amazon" (the private seller's stuff...) has shown us that. Even if I had trillions of dollars, I'd not buy a box of booster boxes sealed that magically survived this long never being sent to a store and opened.
I'm also laughing at this, my hatred for the Paul brothers goes deep and I admit that.
Well, that's bound to happen when you're dealing with a product composed solely of speculative value.
The cards, wrappings and boxes are pretty much worthless. Anyone could assemble the materials and make identical - and even better, brand new cards. The value is pretty much a speculative bubble based on its uniqueness and history, and they failed to analyze the very basic nature of their trade. If the value is derived almost entirely from the box' history, then what is it? Where did the box come from? Who first bought it? Where did he keep it stored and for how long he kept it?
If their only analysis is looking at a seemingly old box and state 'oh yea it looks old' then they're only amateurs faking being experts.
GI Joe Cards? You know what? This kind of fits into the whole theme: Knowing is half the battle!⭐
i feel bad for the baseball card guy. like how much can you check if its real without opening it? its not his fault at all imo.
I feel bad for him personally but that's also their job and they failed at it. However I don't feel bad for Logan or his friends, buying this stuff is the equivalent of wealthy businessmen buying overpriced art just because it's expensive. There's no passion behind it, it's just a big flex.
Some people with too much free time could figure out major red flags with just a few hours of googling though. This guy was paid to look over and verify the box and couldn't even notice things like typos on the sealing tape...
I'm not, they made a profit of telling others "trust me bro trust my process" and its clear its all bullshit, and their word never had any value, now you can argue this was a fluke, fine, but it still puts into question their methods and process if its real at all, they made a job out of thin air about something they thought was quantifiable, turns out its not, time to get some real jobs.
Thanks for all the insight guys. My Knowledge of this whole thing is only based on this video so forgive me my uneducated opinion. :)
He built a whole business on verifying boxes and didn't seem to have foresight to know about box aging techniques, or validate simple details, not sure I can feel too sorry for him, but then again my jaw is wide open at the infinite chain of dumb going on at every levels.
Here's a major problem with all these appraisal companies and auction houses, they were NEVER trust worthy to begin with, they collided to drive up prices of rare collectable and profit on giving out "authentication" and grading, and the auction gains from every transactions made thru them, they first did it with art, baseball at first but also every other cards they can hype up, they started doing it with old video game, the market for old game were a healthy, reasonable market back by true enthusiasts, now they've gone and drove up everything for profit and only investors are buying them, authenticity of the collectables were never their priority, speculative profit is.
I just have 1 thing to say: 'if it's too good to be true it probably is'.
"He's being asked to verify that a box is a box"
Callum, boxes are serious business. Very serious. And so are scams. If you want to make sure your stuff is your stuff, I bet you'll want this guy on the case. Box inspectors are heroes to society, do not denigrate or demean them. Not only because they are expert boxes, but they know how to hide their own fraud. Lets hope your future packages are secure and untampered, because you have just upset the box community.
So opening it was a lose/lose scenario. If it was real, he lost half of it's value and the "honor" of having the only box of this kind; if it was fake, he lost all of the box's value.
He did say that the other guy would refund him the 3.5m if it was fake, but then the other guy still lost the original 2.7m.
When he said 100% three times in one sentence, alarm bells started ringing in my head. It's like when scam emails repeat "completely legal and risk-free" constantly.
This is like reverse NFT. Schrodinger cat's physical collectable or real unique digital token with imaginary value and usefulness.
All value is perception
This couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.
its one thing to verify sealed boxes where the original manufacturing processes is visible, but to verify the case those boxes ship in should require at least verifiable prominence.
I'm pretty sure you mean "provenance" and yes, I agree. Verifying that a box looks old means nothing; too easy to fake.
The irony is that if he never opened it, it would still be worth $3.5 million.
nope. Because of all the red flags
For everyone cheering Logan getting screwed, he already has the fully payment back. And he got more publicity from this than anything he could do on his own. Dude is laughing all the way to the bank.
It's Logan Paul he's honestly most likely the guy that scammed Logan Paul.
Well...I'm not a profiler or something like that but reading body language, facial and tonal expression of this guy I am almost a hundred percent sure this was fake from beginning to end.
Just going to say he did completely make his friend’s reputation tank.
@@AleksandarBell Anyone who's friends with Logan Paul probably didn't have much of a reputation to begin with
@@FntX-Video body language analysis is just a little bit more accurate than phrenology.
this has made my day and i just woke up
this feels like the scene in leverage when the team pulls off a successful job and the rich doofs realize theyve been had
I genuinely hope this marks the end of this speculative market bullcrud.
My favorite part of this is that definitive proof that their rating system is crap is going to cause massive loss of confidence in the market, If were get very lucky, this could be what kills the speculation bubble. Just like Beanie Babies and Tulips, they'll be harmless without the lie of future value being saddled on them.
As a 10-year-old kid, I could take one look and tell you that box was BS. Then again, I was actually around when Pokémon cards first came out and saw more fakes than LA. That professional boxer (couldn't help it) probably got caught in a lie when it comes to his "expertise"...
imagine even spending a thousanth of what he spent on a cardboard box with some cards in it
6:17 But of course I would trust the first stranger who wants to sell something and says he will refund me if things go wrong! I mean who wouldn't?? Right! Right? 🤣
As someone that is an history enthusiast I understand the historical value of keeping some boxes like this unopened, but I seriously do not understanding the monetary value people put in this. I think it would be incredibly valuable if you put some boxes like this a safe place where they'll stay for decades, maybe centuries, so that it can be a valuable source of information to future generations about our culture from the time those were made (we do have some similar cases of things like that being found over a century later and it is incredibly insightful to see something that would be very common around the time they were made but this specific ones are brand new and without the marks of use, so you can compare them to some that were used and get a lot of information about the people that used them and how they were used) Historically speaking, it is invaluable, but putting high monetary value in those only incentivizes people to buy it which causes it to jump from hand to hand and increases the chance of it not making it too far in the future (it could be opened, lost, destroyed, thrown in the trash when it loses value, etc).
I just feel disgusted how a man can spend 3.5 million on a box of cardboard when I'm sitting here barely able to afford food to feed myself, let alone anyone else, from week to week.
Callum you were way too nice to BBCE in this case. It's not just verifying that a box is a box, it's verifying all the details, especially the most minor ones. Like looking at the tape to verify all the writing is correct, both in terms of the words, font, size, etc. Similarly verifying that the code on the box matches a legitimate first edition(since it was claimed as such) code, and all other small to tiny details about it. Oh and of course the provenance, which is perhaps the most important aspect in the authentication of these collectors products. BBCE did none of that, they were supposedly experts but were proven to be complete amateurs in grading this specific box. If you don't know something there's no shame in saying "I don't know". However when you do claim to know when in fact you don't than you're nothing more than a scam artist. BBCE, at least in this specific case, were proven to be scammers. I don't know anything else about the company but it doesn't really bode well for them when they drop the ball so badly on such a high priced authentication.
Dude he was trying to say the wear was proper for the tape and the sticker. If he was real thorough we would get box forensics no doubt. But he was not just saying a box is a box ROFLOL!
They're gonna open those sealed boxes when the GI Joe prices go up.
I am sure someone has a wall of first edition cases. Serious collectors do not post what they have.
The label on the box was completely wrong, also the stop tape was different from what other boxes used. The guy just had no idea what he was doing.
well remember 1st edition pokemon was 1999 of course tape can change
labels are usually unchanging so yeah
but to me the biggest part was the box itself was to vibrant and bright, a 20 year old box would of started to dim and get a lot darker unless it was locked in a pressurized thing without any air
So I got a collectible Anniversary Box from
a game and I kept the cardboard packaging it arrived in- simply to protect the item until I have a place to properly display it.
The only value a cardboard box (that a collectible was shipped in) has is to protect the thing that actually had value
I really liked how the card "pro" was trying to get them to agree they were all duped so when the lawsuit happens he can say "Well they agreed we all were at fault." lol
What ? I can sell random boxes for millions ? Guys ! You are in luck! Just now 50% off on all my inventory... 500 000$ for empty sealed box, it can be empty or have Belle Delphine farts in it.. who knows...
It's always great IMO to see someone who bought something for it's price and not it's value, being screwed over.
Why?
This method is the same method used to rig “new” boxes and cards for magic shows. I’m sure there are probably other ways of doing it, but this is the easiest and most convincing to pull off.
Im sure with a printer and my Photoshop skills i can make a copy of this box, will be even better than the original.
Experts on cardboard boxes.
18:08 You might need to use some UV to weather it as well
Sealed video games (mostly vintage) have been skyrocketing lately, like 125k for Mario 1, but I wonder how many of those are going to be opened one day to the same little surprise.
"This is the biggest scam in pokemon history."
I wonder if anyone in that room even got an inkling of how ridiculous that sounds.
"We got dupped.... Agreed"🤣👏
Couldn't have have happened to a better guy
"he might be selling NFT at the moment"... 🤣 this aged well
It is in the nature of these things that the boxes lose value once opened and are determined not to contain enough rares to justify the price tag.
They have evaluated the authenticity of tens of thousands of things that were never going to be proven wrong unless their owners wanted to destroy the value.
That sounds like the single best business model ever. "You can totally trust us. Our track record is impeccable. As long as you never actually check."
To be fair, I feel the same way about 100-year-old wines. There are some Bourdeaux that are so old that they'll turn to vinegar once they're opened. They'll taste fantastic for about 30 minutes and then turn awful. It could be water with a melted red crayola crayon in it and it would have just as much intrinsic value.
And I'm sorry, but we all know the truth. That it was GI Joe is the *best* part not the worst. Even Dora the Explorer would have been less funny.
in this society you can have a job to ensure that a fracking box is a box you will spend your life doing this work and be paid handsomely for it.
A lot off ppl struggling to make ends meat, and now seeing someone lose 3.5 M on a cardboard box filled with cardboard boxing filled with the wrong print of a card just makes it even worse
Fact: Anyone who collects unopened boxes that lose value if they’re opened is just asking to be scammed.
I really don't understand why he wanted to open the box even though it would be a guaranteed loss of money
This sheer f***ing insanity that people are incentivized to never even open the box that holds the box that holds the packs of sealed cards are why I sold out of every trading card game years ago and will never buy any again.
Brown Cardboard Box Cases like this are definitely the biggest risk of being scams.
9:30 - I mean it's their choice to verify it. They can just say "we won't verify a box" and that would be it.
Has anyone found out if this happened before or after he joined Earth 2?
I am not a collector nor am I proficient in vintage items, however I did come across an interest in vintage wine fraud.
I'm really not surprised that BBCE got this wrong or any validity service, if you look back at some of the fraudulent wines that were sold by people who mastered the art of replication, it isn't impossible or farfetched.
People spend millions of dollars collecting wine vintage wine, or cards or whatever. If you have the ability to replicate something and it looks legit, then you've done a good job. After all, you are simply casting human eyes onto a item. It's bound to happen.
It's basically a loot box, what could be inside may be worth something, but a majority of the time it's garbage, worthless items.
Also I had an idea of how it was done, which is technically the same as you described, just less professional/efficient.
That guys said "We all got duped" like he's playing in a movie
Can't say he didn't deserve it.
This is probably the equivalent of buying a top-tier account in a gacha game but then getting banned 6 months after because the seller refunded the money spent on the account. Except this real life, and you can actually touch the useless cardboard.
If scamming is inevitable I'd rather it happen to people like this.
and yet now he supposedly he sold a $2.5 million pikachu card
13:50 The people just casually watching the news in the background LOL
hard to feel bad for someone who has enough money to drop 3.5 mil on what is essentially a cardboard box