This topic is shocking but unfortunately not surprising. I ran into a @okjluv video this morning where Julian discussed a company by the name of Industrial now offering to CT scan a 3D render of a booster pack/box that you could use to identify whether or not it had a holo or not. This has now been officially confirmed and they are ready to render services.
What’s it going to take? $75 USD and you don’t even have to open it.
This is pretty controversial and quite frankly horrible in my opinion. You will always now second guess whether or not a pack has been tampered with in 3D. Thoughts?
This will have a drastic effect on the light vs heavy pack price on vintage packs. Basically the only value of loose packs will be for the artwork sealed. The potential of what’s inside the pack will not add value anymore.
If it becomes that easy to do (and eventually a bit cheaper too) then yeah that’s pretty much it.
Pack values will drop because no one is going to take a gamble on a 1st edition heavy pack anymore to get a non holo or a less expensive holo. Why would you buy single packs from anywhere except direct from Pokemon or from your local shop where you will find out if the staff are doing this sort of thing.
From my point of view I wouldn’t pay more for a card in the pack to open. I know what’s in there so I’d pay for that card. So eventually if it truly is that common place and affordable to do then you’re essentially selling packs for the value of their contents.
“ A NOTE TO READERS:
We’ve been reading the commentary surrounding our reveal of the ability to CT scan and image unopened Pokemon cards and collector packs. Reasonably, there is controversy around if this is a good or bad thing; we have not taken a position on this. However, now that the method is public, is it fair that it is limited to a small subset of people? We have taken a position that making this technology available to the general public evens the playing field against wealthy investors and bad actors working in secret. Forum and comment sections seem unified that it’s not a question of if scanning services will be available, but when. If this is true, wouldn’t it be better to offer this service immediately to prevent a small number of people from taking advantage of this by themselves?
FACTS & CONDITIONS:
Holographic or valuable cards are not guaranteed, and we cannot guarantee a CT scan will reveal any useful or interpretable information. There are many products we have not scanned; best effort will be used for unfamiliar products.”
So its not fair people with means and ability profit from this and to remedy that, you too can profit from this for a price.
It seems that older single packs are best to image, they guarantee nothing with their imaging, and anything more than a single pack can have a lot of issues. They show a lot with their site composite images but also say that results are very difficult to discern and that they still need a lot more testing to get things figured out.
For me its still sad that this is able to happen but it was indeed an eventuality because of people like this. Good news is that it seems to be difficult to do with modern packs and probably most difficult with SV era due to multiple foils per pack. Also the buy in price seems to be significant enough to weed out most of the fanbase who would be effected.
I think the initial reaction of fear, uncertainty and doubt (to borrow a crypto phrase) is not unexpected. But I don’t think people have fully processed this new ability we collectively unlocked.
This is not a pocket CT scanner tool that lets you see hits in the packs at Walmart. There will always be a price barrier to this procedure that will basically limit it exclusively to vintage packs. These packs already have a huge variability in price because of the uncertainty about what’s inside. Weighing was universally considered scummy but now it’s a necessary tool of decreasing that uncertainty. This is just the next logical step.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with packs not being random. If you know what’s inside you can make a more informed choice on whether to keep it sealed or open it. It also is a highly valuable service to determine if a box is legitimate without opening it - because right now our tools for doing that are limited.
The problem with tools like this is always an information imbalance. Like if you scanned your heavy ex series pack and confirmed it’s a regular holo and you don’t disclose that when you sell it. But that’s on each individual to be honest.
Overall I think the initial reactions to this service are overly negative. Even the thread being tagged as scam - what’s the scam? I think this service is a huge net benefit. We will have to rethink a couple things when buying sealed products now but ultimately it empowers you to make better choices about the sealed product you own, if it is worth the cost to you. For example, my friend gifted me a Ex Unseen Forces booster he kept sealed, and a service like this can reveal whether or not its worth opening or to keep it the way it is.
I doubt this would be the case and I have no knowledge on this but it would feel pretty karmic if the act of scanning and exposing old holographics somehow deteriorated the card quicker. I wonder if there’s any chance of long term effects?
It would be a good PSA service with scans on the cert page.
Karmic implies the action of scanning a pack is somehow immoral, can you elaborate on why you feel that way? But I sincerely doubt there is going to be any effect on the cards at all. The scan is just measuring the physical characteristics, its not causing a chemical or physical reaction
If they aren’t providing front and back scans of the pack then it’s honestly a pointless service. Even with scans it’s still tough because packs aren’t as unique. Basically with weighing you have an iron clad way of verifying your purchases. Where I don’t see that yet with a scanned pack.
I don’t think this is the end of the world for most vintage packs (and definitely not for any modern packs) because of the current price point.
Take unlimited base set for example:
As a buyer: Heavy packs already cost $450-600+ on the open market. At that price point, your ROI potential is already super low considering most pack fresh holo’s are not PSA 10 candidates, so basically the only card that is guaranteed to make you a profit is Charizard that grades at least a PSA 9 (which is worth about $1000). Say you buy 5 packs on the market to scan, giving you a 5/16 chance at hitting a single Charizard holo. You can send these 5 packs in at $75 a pack (plus however much shipping costs) to determine what holo’s are present, decreasing your ROI by ~$375. Even if you are fortunate enough to have one of the packages hit a charizard, that $375 has near fully wiped out expected ROI since the value of the card ($1000) - cost of the pack ($500) - cost of scanning packs ($375) - cost of grading ($40-100) leaves you at best a 10ish % profit on this one pack, but the other 4 packs have now been confirmed duds and either need to be sold to recoup value (most likely breaking even at best), or put away to be sold in the future. This seems like a hell of a lot of hassle for very little payoff.
As a seller: Lets say you crack open a base unlimited box, and send all 16 packs to be scanned. Say 1 pack hits the charizard, you can keep that pack for yourself or sell it for some level of premium, but will the amount spent on scanning all 16 packs ($1200) really increase your profits? I don’t think so because your obviously not able to sell any of the other 15 packs at any sort of premium, and I have my doubts that someone will pay $2000+ for a base set pack guaranteed to have a Charizard, when a PSA 9 only goes for $1000.
NOW, IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS ON ROI CHANGE FOR HIGHER END VINTAGE PACKS, SUCH AS 1ST EDITION BASE SET. BASICALLY AS THE RATIO OF THE COST OF SCANNING A PACK TO OVERALL PACK PRICE GOES DOWN, IT DECREASES NEGATIVE IMPACT ON ROI.
Pointless is a strong word. You are only looking from the perspective of the buyer here. Yeah of course you cant trust that the scan from charizardballer69 hasn’t been swapped. But I would trust a scan from rusty or smpratte.
Either way the real value is to the owner of the item. You can verify the contents of booster boxes and determine whether your loose packs are worth opening without irrevocably damaging them
If there isn’t a way to 100% verify the pack being sold was the one scanned, then its the same as being able to open a graded card case. It really doesn’t matter if the seller is saintly or not, its just inherent reasonable doubt because the process is flawed. At least with a weighed pack you can re-weigh it to verify, which also is why these two processes are fundamentally different.
While pack weighing was/is annoying, you still have to open the pack to see what’s inside. Where the ct scan is opening the pack. One increases the odds of a better outcome, the other is just the outcome. I don’t think this becoming a market reality changes the fact that its extremely sweaty and defeats the entire purpose of what a pack is supposed to be. The main use case for this is seeing inside of a box to verify its authenticity, but you still need a way to guarantee the box scanned is the box being sold.
Silver lining for me here is that sealed dud packs will probably plummet in price, so you can go buy sealed vintage packs you werent planning on opening anyway for closer to the price of the non-holos inside.
Also obviously the possibility of verifying vintage boxes without having to cut them open and destroy them is huge
