I have separated out the content from this thread → IG account "banet_1965" is NOT Takumi Akabane into a more general place. For comments specific to that instagram account, feel free to post there. Everything else can go here.
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I know that CGC has thrown themselves under a bus time and time again, but I can’t imagine that they would authenticate prototype cards without direct communication with Takumi Akabane or associated ex-employees.
That would be a massive oversight and would lead to the largest scandal in Pokemon TCG collecting. CGC needs to write a more comprehensive article about the authentication process for these prototypes.
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Yep, everything about these prototypes seem shady. When your authentication source is “trust me bro”, I will take it with a grain of salt.
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Does he have any idea of who else would have had the test print cards or was he able to verify that any of the ones aside from his own were legit?
Curious if TCA knows whatever the provenance is?
Why not though?
It’s just as hard to prove something (of this nature) isn’t real as opposed to real.
Call me cynical but I would fully expect CGC to take risks on provenance, seems completely in line with what I’ve heard of them
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They threw themselves under a bus when they authenticated all those fake Magic&Wizards Yugioh cards and acted like it never happened.
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GCG stole PSA’s market share of the junk slab market during the pandemic but also sneakily stole Beckett’s ability to grade anything.
The beginning of the end was authenticating and grading prerealease raichu. They don’t care
Japanese people put others and even things above themselves. It doesn’t make sense to me that someone high up would have sold out Pokemon history for it to be sloppily graded and put on a secondary market, especially after years of growing and protecting the brand. The fact that the provenance is hidden and CGC won’t release an article is insanity. Something is off
If you buy one of these test prints and get burned, then you deserve it. Same people as usual behind this stuff
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I heard that Pokemon has dismissed the cards as forgeries. I have no skin in the game and dont care one way or the other. Ive heard theyre real and Akabane confirmed and heard theyre fake bc Pokemon doesnt recognize them. Either way is hard to say.
One thing is certain. The MW YGO cards cgc graded are predominantly forgeries.
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What are the MW YGO cards?
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Magic and Wizards Yugioh cards were made for a brief period some time between May and October 1998. The only legit copies known are from Volume 1. At this time, only common cards have surfaced with the correct qualitative characteristics. That doesnt preclude rares, which have been seen, but its doubtful that supers and ultras were released. If they were, I expect them to exhibit a foil layer.
There are some serious issues with the magic and wizards cards cgc graded and the claim that they were prototypes hasnt been substantiated in any meaningful way. Saying they were isnt enough. At least with the pokemon cards, there are examples of them in print in the form that they appear in hand. The same isnt true for the MW cards. There are all sorts of cards that appear that were never printed and others that are similar but dont match what cgc graded.
The versions that do match are always commons from volume 1. This isnt a random coincidence.
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Welcome Ghezzi! I know you from the ygo ig community
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So apparently Akabane has made videos fully explaining these cards in detail but only CGC & prominent members of the community have seen them. I don’t understand why these videos wouldn’t be made public unless there’s a risk in doing so. Maybe these cards were never supposed to be sold?
I find it weird how so many of these 1995 prototypes have already been graded in such short time. I checked the pop more than a week ago & it was only 33 now there’s 85. If these are just proof of concept then why so many copies of each pokemon & only 26 of the original 151? How did these leave Ishihara’s possession & why if he made them personally? Pokemon is one of the most lucrative & safe guarded franchises out there. So items of this historical significance to it being sold in such a manner is bizarre.
I don’t know Akabane personally & I’m sure his intentions are good. However, him fire selling so many of these prototypes at once then seemingly gatekeeping very important info about them from the public is a little concerning to say the least.
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I’m sorry bro, but in no way shape or form are the Pokémon Prototypes more real than the Magic & Wizards ones. Either both are real or both are fake - pick your poison
“They’re fake” - source: trust me bro
As with all things, youre allowed to buy what you want. Forgeries included.
Also, theres no reason to conflate Pokemon and Yugioh at all. There is nothing that ties these two topics together… except maybe fallacious arguments.
FWIW, I wrote a paper on this for psa. I suspect the recommendations that came from it will be implemented.
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care to share the link to that paper, or was it internal?
Do you have any evidence that the ygo ones are fake? Or even any evidence the Pokémon ones are real/fake? Other than source: trust me bro
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Ghezzi can finish the reply but after that if you want to talk about yugioh prototypes and the reasons for believing or not believing their authenticity, maybe it’s better in a different thread @triple
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Yep i do.
First things first, cards must be proven to be authentic. Not the other way around. So your question is flawed to begin with. You ought to be asking, what evidence exists to suggest they are authentic. The truth is that there isnt any. Regardless, ill still answer your question…
There is a confluence of issues and these combined problems suggest that the cards are forgeries. Its very likely. So much so that it is surprising that a grading company authenticate them. My only thought is that CGC didnt know the details and didnt do their homework. They’ve had some issues with this in the past, so it isnt uncharacteristic of them.
The most glaring issue is that some of the cards are impossible from a timeline standpoint. The Asian English Blue Eyes and Dark Magician cards cannot be authentic simply based on timeline alone. These cards were released in 2001. Looking back from today its easy to conjecture that they could have been made, but putting yourself in Jul 1998 (when MW cards were made) it is statistically impossible for them to have been made exactly as they were three years later. Things are never this neat and orderly. Added to that is the language issue. Never before had English cards been printed in this style. There is no evidence in print to suggest that English MW cards were made or even designed. All of the cards in any image (including English Blue Eyes designs) are in the manga design. Claiming that this is proof of production of English cards, and that those cards were made into MW prototypes, and that those copies are indeed the ones present on the market is so logically bereft its reprehensible. There is simply no evidence to support this line of thinking. I combed through 95% of all the Weekly Jumps from Sep 96 through May 99 to look for proof of this design in print and didnt find anything. The BLS from this is also problematic. At the time Black Luster Soldier was a normal monster. It wasnt until much later that it was introduced as a blue ritual monster. It is extremely unlikely that BLS was being printed on a metal sheet in Nov 98 as a normal monster for the T1 tournament while a blue ritual monster in was being tested out on this alleged prototype in Jul 98. This theory creates paradoxes in our timeline that are unexplained by any data.
The second major issue is the anonymous source. The sellers have admitted that the source is anonymous. Their claim (Drew and Vernon) is that because some of his cards were real, all of his cards must therefore be real. This is a logical fallacy on two parts. One you cant have an annonymous source ever. Its a logical tenet. Second, it is entirely possible to mix real and fake cards. It happens all the time.
Three, and another important point, is that every collectible piece in 1998 and through Volume 1 in 1999 and really through about 2009 have a very specific rosette pattern size. The designs differ slightly depending on the collectible (Amada, Breed and Battle, Meiji, Toei Animation etc…) but the size is the same. I compared cards from over 50 sets and from every major and minor release in 1998 (the period of production for MW cards) and found this to be absolute - true 100% of the time. This is statistically significant. Even the real MW cards exhibited this same size. The forgeries did not. They exhibited a very specific size - the size from 2009 through 2014 (i stopped scanning after 2014 since more information here wouldnt impact anything). This means the cards in question have a dot matrix consistent with modern yugioh cards. This indicates that a modern card was used as a template for the forgeries.
Fourth, the design of the cards is incorrect. There are a number of MW cards pictured in a few issues of the Weekly Jump. All of these designs have a very specific copyright line. They all say 1998 KONAMI. All of the forgeries say 1998/KONAMI. While this might seem pedantic, consider also that the cards that exhibit the space rather than the slash are always commons from Volume 1 - which is what OCG collectors have said hitherto - That the only real MW cards are commons, meaning there are only 30 authentic MW cards you can collect. I also found this to be absolute.
At this point you need to know that all the cards with the slash are a single batch. They all match each other and they all dont match MW cards with the space. They are a distinct forgery. As a result, if one is fake, they are all fake.
Five, the cut is not correct. Ive seen wide cut cards (what you lot call NFC). They get cut from a sheet and have the excess borders and square cut as a result. We have this in yugioh too. What we dont ever have is a NFC card that is properly sized. For example, these cards are square cut but are still the size of a yugioh card. Ive never ever seen this. The means that after they were cut from a sheet, they were cut again to be the same size as a yugioh card. Not sure why this would be necessary unless you wanted the cards to appear authentic.
Additionally, in any prototype id expect to see at least a foil layer for the cards being prototyped. This is a tertiary problem but an amplifying factor. It is difficult to get hot stamping and foiling right. Forgers consistently avoid these two things as a result. Seeing cards missing foil layers and hot stamped names should ellicit a strong suspicion among collectors and authenticators. This isnt a negative thing but certain should raise some eyebrows.
Moreso, the color is clearly wrong. I always say color is a poor indicator of anything, so again, not a big deal but amplifying. E.g. were the color correct, the chance the cards are real would improve slightly. It isnt so cant argue in favor of them here either.
More… theres no scripting layer. Again, a tertiary issue since prototypes sometimes dont have this.
Some things to consider is that theres no evidence any prototypes were released and no prototype images exist.
Also, images in weekly jump and other magazines have so much variation and so many designs were made that the images in print arent proof of intent to produce. I cant, in good faith, claim cards were made just based on a picture in a magazine. I need physical cards that match those images. The MW forgeries dont match those images but the real ones (with the space between 1998 KONAMI) do. This ought to be enough.
Theres a bit more but i figure this might be enough.
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Hi there random on the internet, just wanted to say thanks for the plausible details and thorough response. I dont know anything about YGO cards or your background but I appreciate that you were willing to do a breakdown of your analysis and present it so nicely. Thanks for what looks like a great argument to the authenticity of suspiciously produced cards!
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Of course. Id love for them to be real, as CGC suggests, but they arent. The same for these Pokemon prototypes… would love for them to be real but idk pokemon stuff
I consider myself an expert on yugioh and consequently its my job to be honest about authenticity and a trusted source. Im hoping that a lot of the community leaders are doing the same with these cards. Ive heard that Ishihara called these cards forgeries. Idk how true that is but it would make them problematic at best.
Theres always the possibility hes just mad that they escaped Pokemom HQ and are floating around.
Im also somewhat bothered by how secretive authenticity is being handled for these cards. Its protected with good intent but this doesnt always guarantee a good outcome. It requires a lot of balance and prudence. The secretive nature also makes bad news difficult to message, which makes trust an issue. When trust is an issue, it makes everything more difficult - which is why this post is even here.
Pokemon leaders ought to find a more productive way to communicate authenticity. May not be possible given the constraints though…
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