People have often asked about scanning packs as a method to not only determine “heaviness” but also determine exact contents. The theory has always intreagued me but I’ve never personally gone into it too deep. I can say there are methods of “weighing” packs that exist that I have theorized/tested or have been proposed to me over the years that are different from what we usually see. There are methods that I have never seen discussed anywhere, methods I’d love to discuss with you all here but choose not to because I am aware of the impact such methods may have on the market.
The following video appears to be from someone who is casually invested in the Pokemon market and they approach this with a very scientific procedure. The tech is amazing, no questions there but the impact could prove to be the opposite. Please do not spread ANY HATE to the video creator, he approached this with scientific curiosity, not to scam for money. I believe his intentions are pure, but I am not sure if he is aware of the current state of the market (overflowing with fraud)
This video seems to be the first step someone has taken to prove this theory’s validity.
There are a number of issues presented in the video with this problem but it looks like there is some merit to this method. Coupling with the metal detecting methods we have seen and we are just now starting to realize what an uptick in money/popularity/media attention can do to a hobby.
To be completely honest, my opinion is not fully formed on this yet. It seems to take away from the idea of opening packs. Weighing can also be argued to be the same thing, but there is a difference between opening a pack for a Holo and opening a pack for a charizard imo.
There are possibilities of this tech being used for good as well. The first thing that comes to mind is peeking into sealed boxes to verify authenticity. However scammers often put legit cards from the set in fake boxes so it’s unlikely that this tech could be that precise as seen in the video.
Anyway I am posting this here because it’s only a matter of time before people start talking about it.
I didn’t like when pack weighing stopped being frowned upon, and I can feel my jimmies being rustled by this too. If this becomes accessible and reliable, I can’t imagine it doesn’t become the norm.
Like you mentioned, as long as the money is there, people will follow it.
What’s difficult about it is that absolutely knowing if there’s a holo or not, and apparently possibly even knowing what holo, is that the excitement is taken away. It’s why opening packs was fun in the first place, and makes pack buying and opening more of a financial exercise than something nostalgic and fun.
Just to add to this topic, here is a video Neo put out in the past week about sports card collectors using a CT scanner to scan higher end boxes for hits
I feel like finding a functional ct scanner is harder/more expensive than just getting a holo hit. Also I couldn’t tell if this is only for holo cards. Nonetheless this was an interest watch.
Yeah it’s important to note that this guy in the video has formal education on how to operate these things. Its not like you just read the instruction manual
Sure I’m more focused on the cross section of someone who can correctly buy or operate the machine. Plus the cost and process of sourcing a heavy pack, which most of the time won’t have the big hit, is a lot of work for an optimization. But no doubt there are people who would still do it. It would be wild to have a future where vintage packs just say what’s in the pack.
I fully agree with this post, but I think when you enter an era of extreme optimization, skyrocketing value, and rampant scumbaggery, idealism is unachievable.
Pack weighing enables scamming and there’s no way outside of provenance and trust to verify a pack has never been placed on a scale. In an era where people can weigh anything, the safest and most reputable thing to do when selling a loose pack has become to state the weight.
I expect that if the price of cards keep going up and this becomes a cost-effective and popular method, we’ll move beyond stating the weight to stating the cards the packs contain.
In the interest of science and knowledge, especially while considering the cost bridge to get this information, I approve of the methods and I do think that modern packs have solved this with reverse foils. Perhaps they could have shown less of the methodology, but cant fault them for being passionate. I do think that the only way to make sure you get tamperproof packs is to be careful about their source and eventually it will be about the intrinsic value of a sealed pack, not necessarily the card inside unless it is a big hit like charizard. Boxes will be difficult since multiple layers of foils havent been tested yet but there is a possibility it will render the result more vague.
I agree, when I first saw this I thought of the good it could do with fake boxes. However any decent faked box will have contents from that actual set. So unless this thing can detect glue on packs or if the holos are unplayed (it can’t), it’s useless for box authentication.
Loose pack purchasing/collecting/ripping was always the riskiest form of sealed buying. I think the collectors who this hurts the most are blister pack owners since they likely purchase blisters with the intent to keep them sealed as an alternative to the more expensive complete box
You mean “as-is” with no warranties or expectations and a clear paragraph long report about how they dont know whats in it or if it was checked beforehand, “buy at your own risk”.
