Grading Foreign Base Set Energy Cards

General
1

Hey peeps,

just opened some more 1st Edition Korean Base Set packs and there are some very mint energies that i pulled from the pack.

A while back, i sent two in to PSA but they came back as 1999 1st Edition Base Set Cards not 2000 1st Edition Korean.
I contacted PSA, they told me to send them in again for review and after i got a reply saying PSA could not prove that they belong/came out of Korean Base Set packs. cards got returned to me.

Now it looks odd in my collection as the labels clearly do not match and also i will always have an incomplete set of PSA 10 and on the set registry too.

Basically just wanted to know if anyone else has had similar experiences in grading foreign base set cards, particularly energies and where i should allow it and do a custom in encapsulation to at least get close matching labels.

2

I have no knowledge on grading them previously as it almost seems 2 people have ever done it successful, 1 water energy and 4 DCE’s.

Up top where it says energy, that writing should be in korean and while untrained in lingual practices are these graders i’d imagine, specifying them as korean should have alerted them that they are foreign and grading them as normal base set, is completely backwards. Sending them in I cannot imagine they wouldn’t change it if you circle the foreign writing, add descriptions or even translations showing they are legit, or even adding a empty pack if you send in multiple to show they come from a legit source, has to do the trick.

3

I have that water energy PSA 9 which is labelled correctly. I mentioned this to PSA but they would not change the label on my fire and fighting energies. I also told em that 1999 1st edition english base set does not have 1999-2000 copyright date and 1st Edition korean does.

The double colourless energy cards have korean text on em so they are fine to grade.

4

My first thought was “energy” up at the top of the card generally relates to the language the card is in, for instance french is énergie, and I was wondering if korean was in a specific language set. If it was adding a translation within the submission or open pack art I would figure may help graders to match them up that they are legit foreign cards. Having the only full psa 10 energy set in Korean would be a pretty sweet accomplishment.

5

I think Chinese and korean base set energy cards are the only foreign cards to have “energy” printed in english
Might send em another message to see what they say.

yup it would be pretty sweet to have em in PSA 10

6

Its almost barking up the UK line item delineation but then again this almost helps that case. Its another line item that needs to be there and since UK did not have the 1st edition on their unlimited runs, the only 1999-00 that is 1st edition should be foreign, then its just figuring out how to decide between korean or chinese I would imagine. Id keep pushing for sure, you actually might make some serious ground on developing more systems to grade base set subsets.

Keep me in mind, Id be happy to grab some of your unfortunate non 10’s if they grade not so hot, cool energies to own for sure.

7

Perhaps it’s indeed because there doesn’t seem to be a difference between the Korean and Chinese Base Energy cards? As far as I know these are the Energy names and copy-right dates for each 1st edition language:

  • English: Energy & ©1999
  • German: Energie & ©1999
  • Dutch: Energie & ©1999-2000
  • French: Énergie & ©1999 (note the É instead of E)
  • Italian: Energia & ©1999
  • Spanish: EnergĂ­a & ©1999 / ©1999-2000 (both exist: Latin American Spanish and European Spanish) (note the Ă­ instead of i)
  • Portuguese: Energia & ©1999-2000
  • Korean: Energy & ©1999-2000
  • Chinese: Energy & ©1999-2000

As you can see, German and Dutch are both “Energie”, but with different copy-right dates; Italian and Portuguese are both “Energia”, but with different copy-right dates; but Korean and Chinese are not only the same name, but also the same copy-right date. (And I think the same also applies for the unlimited edition English 4th print, Korean, and Chinese cards - which are all three “Energy” and ©1999-2000.)

Greetz,
Quuador

3 Likes
8

Hmmm…very interesting. Fun read:)

9

I’ll be sending in Chinese base set cards eventually. So thanks for bringing this to their attention!