Not sure if you guys noticed this; but during last few weeks the market has been getting flooded with Fake/Proxy pokemon cards.
It pretty much started with Charizard (Base Set 1st. Ed) but now its spreading to most high-mid tier cards, including Gold Stars, Shinings and 1st Edition holos.
While some of them include the word ‘‘proxy’’ on the listing, some of them dont and end up selling.
What are your thoughs on this situation?
Unfortunately it sucks because those kind of listings prey on people who do not know about Pokemon, ie. Parents/Grandparents who just want to buy them cards for a cheap price. I do like the look of some Proxy cards as long as its stated so and if im just putting it as a display in my collection but NEVER advertise it as a real Pokemon card. I know a guy in a group that turns every Pokemon into an “ancient” type card like the mew, which is cool. The 3D cards are cool as well.
Be 100%, without a shadow of a doubt clear about these cards being fake, proxy, whatever-you-want-to-call-them-instead-of-real and I won’t report your listing. And otherwise, I will. It’s the only thing that works as far as I’m aware.
Opinion:
Selling light packs can be bad because you don’t know if the buyer resells as unweighed, but you can just assume every “unweighed” old pack you buy is weighed. When you sell fakes, the buyer can also resell without clarification. If those cards are not “custom” but trying to be as close to an original as possible, you can’t just assume every card you buy is fake, so there’s a problem.
Modern fakes are WAY worse because they target kids through parents who want to save some money, especially if sold second-hand, not from China.
Also regarding scams:
I don’t know about Amazon.com / foreign ip, but German Amazon is 50% fancy repacks from a single company and chinese GX fakes. Every time I sell modern singles on Ebay’s Craigslist equivalent here locally, it’s to parents who don’t want to spend 30€ for a box. I always warn them about fakes and most of them have already bought some because they’re cheaper.
I did also notice a few more WotC fakes in “don’t know if they’re real, they look real to me, still selling on SALE 50% BUY NOW!!” listings.
Mostly on the rise are “I’ve found this leather old trunk full of hundreds of old cards and Charozerds in Toploaders from my son’s childhood. Now he left for Uni (he’s such a sweet boi) and I’d like to surprise him with the money. I have NO idea what a Charizord is worth, but a friend told me to make extra photos. Believe me, I have NO idea what these are. Maybe Yugiohs. No Paypal btw.”
Usually sell for hundreds of € on auction, never recieve feedback and I guess the money is gone.
Live a little. The fakes back in the day were part of the experience too. Buy from reputable sellers if you’re worried. Let the kids figure it out on their own. Idk any kid that walked around with a 10000 hp Rattata and were distraught to learn it’s not real. I even traded for some fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards way back in the day knowing they were fake. Kids are different.
Yup, as a seller you’re getting questions like: “Why are you selling packs for so much money, while other people are selling booster boxes for roughly the same amount?”. Nobody wins but the scumbags that sell them.
We saw the same happening with bootleg copies of Pokémon cartridges 15 years ago. A tidal wave of cheap knockoffs hit the internet and every parent thought they were getting a great deal. Flash forward to 2019 and now I’m the one disappointing roughly 50% of the customers bringing in Pokémon games, because their copy is worth nothing (instead of the price for the real one they looked up on the internet). Again, nobody wins but the scumbags that sold them.
Found the seller. 
Except I don’t sell. I’m just not stupid enough to where I’d get taken by someone selling fake cards.
My comment was directed towards the comment about parents unknowingly buying their kids fake cards. If you’re 20-30 years old mad and scared about being took by fake pokemon cards then you probably shouldn’t being spending a whole lot of money on the hobby
I don’t know what to say to this. Let’s just agree to disagree and move on.
Except this is not what’s happening.
No one is making proxies out of 10,000 HP Rattatas. They are making proxies out of 1st Edition Base Set Charizards that unknowing parents and kids would not be able to identify as fake.
These aren’t $1 cards we are talking about here. These cards are being sold for hundreds of dollars.
If you don’t think this is wrong, you are part of the problem.
But yeah. Let’s “live a little” by being perfectly fine with scams!
Except some people genuinely don’t know what fake cards are, which is where the problem arises.
Ok so like y’all can take what I said and create straw men if you want. I never said they’re making 10000 hp rattata proxies lol. I wasn’t specific about what comment I was referring to but it was towards the fake gx and full art cards that a parent might unknowingly buy their kid. I did not mention proxies I repeat I did not mention anything about it being ok to sell a 1st edition charizard proxy as real. And again if you spend hundreds of dollars on a proxy card unknowingly maybe spend your money more wisely somewhere else. Or not at all. Maybe you’re not old enough yet to make choices with money yet. I don’t sell and I’m not part of the problem I know what I’m buying and I don’t get douped and get on the internet all mad with paranoia like a child. For 90% of serious collectors accidentally buying proxies and getting totally screwed is not a problem. So no I’m not part of the problem.
The pokemon community is full of argumentative manchildren. The majority of your argument didn’t even cohere with anything I said.
Fake cards are illegal. It’s not an opinion. The only reason they exist is because the people selling them are completely irrelevant to Pokemon. You turn that fraud into 100k+ and the treatment is entirely different. Its 100% a value issue, and currently fake pokemon cards are shit tier so no one does anything.
I personally never understand why anyone purchases a fake card. There is so much affordable legitimate product.
I don’t mind. Fake things make real things real. If you’re not cautious you get burned. As it is with everything in life.
Considering fake things are copies of real things, and a copy, by definition, can’t exist without its original idea, this is just flat out backwards and incorrect.
Getting really sick of the word ‘proxy’. It’s called ‘counterfeit’. The people selling these are not selling art. They’re not being creative. They’re non-contributing zeroes with no originality who need to rip off other peoples’ ideas and designs to thrive.
That’s why they need to make up fake names for the garbage they peddle, so they can deceive themselves and the wider community about what they’re actually doing.
Maintaining a favorable or neutral position towards counterfeiting lends legitimacy to the idea that it’s ok to buy/sell counterfeits as long as you let people know what’s going on. This point of view essentially condones a side market where demand for counterfeits will inevitably increase over time. An increased demand for counterfeits encourages production of better counterfeits. And at some point they won’t be sold as ‘proxies’ or ‘art’, but counterfeiters will attempt to pass of their developed copies as legitimate cards. Then everybody is screwed.
Any point of view aside from outright condemnation of proxy counterfeit cards is in favor of the eventual demise of Pokemon collecting altogether.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, just understand what you’re supporting.
What I mean is that counterfeit adds value to authentic. Without the copy, the original is not perceived as an authentic object, but just an object. At least that’s how I feel about it.
I don’t support it, but acknowledge the positive side-effect. Considering this, I don’t mind.
wHAT ?