I’ve got some questions concerning a Base Set pack I purchased through eBay. I feel I understand and can sniff out a decent amount of the “easy” fakes and repacks but this one has me completely stumped. I heard about this wonderful community and that there are some pretty knowledgeable people here that might be able to help me learn more on what to look out for.
For starters, the top crimp of this Venusaur Pack is set quite high compared to a verified authentic Charizard pack that I have also included for comparison. The style of crimp, however, is the same as the authentic pack. It’s the placement of the crimp that seemed suspicious. There appears to be no shoddy glue jobs as far as I can tell by poking around without opening it.
The Venusaur Pack also feels tightly sealed compared to the snug but slight wiggle room of the authentic pack. I’ve included pictures detailing how the Venusaur pack has boxed edges due to how tight the cards were sealed in. The authentic Charizard pack has a slight rounding to the side edges, with the cards being snug but not tight. I weighed both packs to see if any other cards may be inside the new one, and both are approximately 20-21g.
Lastly, I know that these packs can come in a variety of different shades depending on the factory and date produced; but I’m wondering if the coloring seems off to anyone. In most pictures, I’ve seen the “TM*” mark be colored white. This one is colored black. To the best of my knowledge, only the 1999-2000 Unlimited print run had this color style but I wanted to verify with others as well.
I have eBay’s money back guarantee for receiving fake products, but what I’m really hoping to achieve here is to learn any advanced tips and indicators for sniffing out repacks/fakes. I’m 31 and would like to eventually have a “box” of 36 loose packs to open the day after I retire in the future
I know, it’s a gamble. But hopefully the more I learn, the closer I can be to achieving that.
Thank you in advance and kind regards to this community.
The short crimps did come on some 1999-2000 Unlimited packs from the USA, at least according to the archived guide/pictures I’ve been referencing on this forum; the pack printing matches “PSA’s Variation Guide” as well. I know there was some variance in production, but if this is a fake/repack then it’s incredibly well done. The main thing throwing me off is how boxed the sides of the pack are, as if the cards were sealed tighter than the known authentic one.
In my non-expert opinion they look fine. But any collector worth their weight on E4 will tell you the source of where your getting the pack is the most important thing, but even then you’ll never know with 100% certainty.
Are you talking about between OP’s 1999-2000 Venusaur pack and the 1999 Charizard pack?
If so, honestly I really don’t know why. WOTC had multiple iterations of the base set theme pack design. There are even different variations between 1999 packs (dark vs light packs).
Yep, definitely check out the guide linked above. There are wayyy more variants than one would expect.
What you have is the USA 1999-2000 and what I call the 1999 USA thin font. The USA 1999-2000 packs are the only ones with a black TM symbol. The 1999-2000 UK and Australia packs have long crimps so it is confusing.
