In some follow-up research I messaged the creator of these cards, Steffen From. He kindly explained the history of these cards to me. These cards were made by TCG players at a local copy shop by printing and gluing face card designs on top of real cards. These introduction cards were made to be exchanged between competitors as a kind of greeting card.
Authentication Process
My contact who owns these cards sent them into CGC for grading, however CGC needed some kind of provenance before they could slab them as authentic fan made cards. From there I introduced Steffen to a CGC rep and Steffen shared the story of these cards with CGC via email. The cards are now authenticated and set to auction at goldin in the coming weeks.
I do not own these cards and do not benefit from publicising their story in this article.
Images (coming soon)
Will update with images once the HD CGC scans become available.
These are neat from the perspective of just capturing a quaint moment in time for the TCG. But to grade and sell them just seems disconnected from that. The harsh market reality is that neither the players nor the tournament hold any significance at all. I don’t know who the audience is for something like this. It’d be like grading and selling all the e4 signature event cards. I wonder if they would even break even on grading fees
It’s cool to see these cards, but I don’t know what CGC is doing “authenticating” them. It seems very strange to ask for “provenance” when these are effectively bootlegs using Pokemon IP. I think these will sell for something, likely because CGC’s grading practices won’t effectively communicate to people what these cards are.
I didn’t think my opinion of CGC could drop much further. But here we are I guess. If I were one of the people pictured on these cards I would be absolutely livid.
That is not a custom card though. That was produced for a documented event and sold by the organizers. Whether the event should reach the threshold of being noteworthy enough to have a label is an open question. I’m sure it being an autographed item helps a lot though.
Ya know what would be really cool? Not immediately selling the unique thing you get recognised. These are neat in their own way. It’s cool hearing about the process they did go through for authentication. And that quickly it’s a cashgrab since they’re slabbed rather than educating the hobby. Repeat of the Playtests.
Also, if we’re now slabbing community created custom cards from events, how soon till they start slabbing the Hartford Collector Zards? Would have thought those would get slabbed first.
thanks!
