What are your unpopular opinions in pokemon?

[c0ll3ct0r]

@pichufan

@c0ll3ct0r

People are way too quick to condemn worn vintage boxes and boosters as resealed. These things were mass produced of worse than toilet paper 22 years ago to be rough-handed as globetrotting pallet fodder for comic book guys greasy hands to throw into piles at the storage room. Not exactly something out of Bentley Crewe.

Mass printed or not they’re still things people are paying 5 figures for. I think people are wise to be cautious

I agree, but what is happening now is that this also turns into a witch-hunt where every non gem mint box and booster is over scrutinized because some collectors see damaged boxes as an opportunity to flex their knowledge by pointing out every teensy-weensy imperfection and deeming them suspect. Old school collectors roll their eyes, intermediate and new collectors have their fears amplified and follow it blindly. The result? Gem mint/royal provenance or bust, which was bullshit even in 1999. Vigilance, yes, but we should not encourage Stalin-esque paranoia.

especially when “imitation” boxes, booster packs and shrink wrap are readily available on websites like Etsy
What’s worse is that people are actually buying these items - this particular seller has sold at least a dozen of those shrink wrap packs and over 40 of those unlimited Base Set boxes for a total of over $30k.

That’s different.

Ultimately the more money sealed product sells for, the more money scammers will be willing to put in to producing replicas and in turn the more accurate they’ll become. We’ve already seen this on an industrial scale with MTG and it’s starting to happen with Pokémon.

Here’s my thread attempt on the matter: www.elitefourum.com/t/the-legitimacy-of-sealed-booster-boxes-going-forward/30222/1
This thread didn’t really produce much. Some decent responses here and there. I probably formulated myself somewhat poorly in the OP, and I had a low post count at the time so I got the usual “new guy”-treatment despite trying to explain the issue at hand. This is how serious this matter is taken by the community (or maybe it’s just mentally avoided out of fear?). Like-fishing, condescension, derailing, one decent mini-conversation killed in the crib and a lot of fear being projected onto me. I gave up pretty quick. No-one has a clue how to deal with it, not the collectors, not the authenticators, not the grading companies, no-one has a clue (and if they do they keep it to themselves until they’ve trademarked it).