CGC "Authenticated" Pokemon Playtest Cards Found to Be Printed in 2024

[Giroux]

Haven't been into Pokemon cards since childhood but this story is very interesting. Someone on a Pokemon forum was able to read dots left by the printers as metadata and determined many of the Playtest cards were frauds that were printed in 2024. All "authenticated" by CGC. Would recommend reading through the below post:

https://www.elitefourum.com/t/many-o...-in-2024/52421

I had previously seen that these go for big money. CGC even said they had the help of one of the original creators of Pokemon cards to authenticate these.

https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13563/

What a crazy hobby this is.

[KhalDrogo]

This was always obvious to some of us. Glad someone was able to prove it. CGC cannot be trusted.

[Giroux]

CGC recalls more than 1,500 Pokémon cards amid forgery investigation

https://www.cllct.com/sports-collect...-investigation

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

This was always obvious to some of us. Glad someone was able to prove it. CGC cannot be trusted.

While it’s not a good luck if it’s true (has yet to be confirmed, seeing wording like ‘probably fake’, ‘possibly fake’, etc), particularly seeing some of these money amounts and the number of them….lets not pretend other grading companies don’t have the same issues.

All one needs to do is a cursory search on this forum or Reddit for terms like “fake psa card” or “fake bgs card” and you’ll see a slew of results. How many PSA card certs have been deactivated over the years for umtold reasons? How about the BGS Jordan red PMG that was an altered base designated as a PMG altered. To questionable Griffey Traded Tiffany’s in SGC slabs that were probably fake to countless trimmed or non-authentic in PSA slabs, to signed cards submitted to PSA/DNA coming back can’t confirm, to ‘authentic’ after a resubmission, to..and this is my favorite…multiple examples of 1993 Marvel Masterpieces cards with actual white spotted paper loss down the center from bricking getting PSA Gem Mint 10s (cards when opening a box I would designate to the trash pile due to brick damage).

Grading companies gonna grading company I suppose. So yea this is bad if true, but whether it’s a $10 card or $50k card (shouldn’t matter what the card itself is) being misauthenticated or graded, all these companies are far from perfect.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

While it’s not a good luck if it’s true (has yet to be confirmed, seeing wording like ‘probably fake’, ‘possibly fake’, etc), particularly seeing some of these money amounts and the number of them….lets not pretend other grading companies don’t have the same issues.

All one needs to do is a cursory search on this forum or Reddit for terms like “fake psa card” or “fake bgs card” and you’ll see a slew of results. How many PSA card certs have been deactivated over the years for umtold reasons? How about the BGS Jordan red PMG that was an altered base designated as a PMG altered. To questionable Griffey Traded Tiffany’s in SGC slabs that were probably fake to countless trimmed or non-authentic in PSA slabs, to signed cards submitted to PSA/DNA coming back can’t confirm, to ‘authentic’ after a resubmission, to..and this is my favorite…multiple examples of 1993 Marvel Masterpieces cards with actual white spotted paper loss down the center from bricking getting PSA Gem Mint 10s (cards when opening a box I would designate to the trash pile due to brick damage).

Grading companies gonna grading company I suppose. So yea this is bad if true, but whether it’s a $10 card or $50k card (shouldn’t matter what the card itself is) being misauthenticated or graded, all these companies are far from perfect.

I don’t think you understand this situation. These are cards that CGC never possessed enough information to credibly authenticate them. And the proof is in the pudding. Some of the cards that CGC authenticated as directly from Akabane himself have 2024 watermarks. And the only reason they authenticated these was thanks to Akabane.

There are a plethora of weird “prototypes” that have shown up in CGC slabs over the last couple of years.

[JeremyNick]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

While it’s not a good luck if it’s true (has yet to be confirmed, seeing wording like ‘probably fake’, ‘possibly fake’, etc), particularly seeing some of these money amounts and the number of them….lets not pretend other grading companies don’t have the same issues.

All one needs to do is a cursory search on this forum or Reddit for terms like “fake psa card” or “fake bgs card” and you’ll see a slew of results. How many PSA card certs have been deactivated over the years for umtold reasons? How about the BGS Jordan red PMG that was an altered base designated as a PMG altered. To questionable Griffey Traded Tiffany’s in SGC slabs that were probably fake to countless trimmed or non-authentic in PSA slabs, to signed cards submitted to PSA/DNA coming back can’t confirm, to ‘authentic’ after a resubmission, to..and this is my favorite…multiple examples of 1993 Marvel Masterpieces cards with actual white spotted paper loss down the center from bricking getting PSA Gem Mint 10s (cards when opening a box I would designate to the trash pile due to brick damage).

Grading companies gonna grading company I suppose. So yea this is bad if true, but whether it’s a $10 card or $50k card (shouldn’t matter what the card itself is) being misauthenticated or graded, all these companies are far from perfect.

Huh?

So CGC shouldn’t get absolutely drilled because of this massive screw up? Mostly because…..PSA?

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by JeremyNick

Huh?

So CGC shouldn’t get absolutely drilled because of this massive screw up? Mostly because…..PSA?

They should...but the way that post was phrased..."CGC cant be trusted"...how about "CGC All grading companies can't be trusted". Numerous example after example of altered/fake/misgraded cards being slabbed from the various companies evident from a cursory search of a forum like this.

[JeremyNick]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

They should...but the way that post was phrased..."CGG cant be trusted"...how about "CGC All grading companies can't be trusted". Numerous example after example of altered/fake cards etc being slabbed from the various companies evident from a cursory search of forum like this.

I would argue besides the BBCE debacle, there hasn’t been a more significant and obvious fake card debacle than this. This is a thread about a massive and obvious screw up on CGC’s part. It has nothing to do with any other grader. Why do you think Akabane submitted to CGC?

It’s one thing to grade a fake. It’s another thing to grade cards you have no ability to even authenticate that are worth 6 figures.

If you are running CGC this is a sentinel event that is going to requires massive hard stops in process to review and fix.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

They should...but the way that post was phrased..."CGC cant be trusted"...how about "CGC All grading companies can't be trusted". Numerous example after example of altered/fake/misgraded cards being slabbed from the various companies evident from a cursory search of a forum like this.

There’s nothing that reaches this magnitude. This is as if PSA authenticated hundreds of 1986 Fleer proofs from the set designer and it turned out they were all printed yesterday.

[Giroux]

Originally Posted by JeremyNick

Why do you think Akabane submitted to CGC?

It’s one thing to grade a fake. It’s another thing to grade cards you have no ability to even authenticate that are worth 6 figures.

If you are running CGC this is a sentinel event that is going to requires massive hard stops in process to review and fix.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

There’s nothing that reaches this magnitude. This is as if PSA authenticated hundreds of 1986 Fleer proofs from the set designer and it turned out they were all printed yesterday.

It really shouldn’t matter if it’s a 5 dollar card or $50k card, in either case it’s a company mis-authenticating what they have in front of them. And to use your words…should not be trusted. Just this month we see thread titles in the baseball and football sections, of

“Found: 39 Backdoored 1999 Finest Gold Refractors Residing in PSA Holders”

“PSA Has Graded 23 Fake 2000 Finest Moments Autographs, BGS another 13+”

…and a BGS mislabeled Star Jordan reprint that will probably cost ebay $16k (or more aptly put, ebay sellers $16k).

And this is only this month, just imagine the sheer amount of ineptitude you could dig up from PSA or BGS going back all these years.
Since you “love PSA!”, how much should we trust PSA based on those examples just above…or are they not expensive enough? And that means it doesn’t matter?

This thread would be a terrible look for CGC no doubt. And I certainly am not defending CGC, their customer service alone has been atrocious for me lately and I’m continuing to have issues with even things like slab QC from them. I’m no CGC homer…I just find it amusing seeing “CGC can’t be trusted” with someone having “I love PSA!” in their sig, assuming that’s not in sarcasm, who knows maybe it is…but based on the zillions of examples of incompetence, both small and large scale from PSA, it is ironic. Wasn’t the card 0000001 Honus Wagner PSA thought to be trimmed? Is that large enough scale? So again: All grading companies cannot be trusted, in fact card grading in general is a borderline scam. One need only look at the near limitless examples of fake/trimmed cards in slabs out there.

[Giroux]

I mean...it definitely matters if it's a $5 or $50k card

[Crosby 87]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

It really shouldn’t matter if it’s a 5 dollar card or $50k card, in

It definitely does for insurance and law charging statutes

[gospeed3]

Untrustworthy or not, this seems like just another opportunity to make content and bash cgc. The same people bythe way, that "would never use cgc" and make that statement at every corner.

I also wonder if they were being misled on by one of the og creators taking his own word, since he seemed to be involved with the grading of some of the cards from what has been said, so than what?

[Giroux]

Originally Posted by gospeed3

Untrustworthy or not, this seems like just another opportunity to make content and bash cgc. The same people bythe way, that "would never use cgc" and make that statement at every corner.

I also wonder if they were being misled on by one of the og creators taking his own word, since he seemed to be involved with the grading of some of the cards from what has been said, so than what?

That uh, still falls on them

[gospeed3]

Well, yeah...

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Giroux

I mean...it definitely matters if it's a $5 or $50k card

I don’t think you’re seeing the point. Whether it’s a $5 or $50k card, the grading company has one job, to make sure it’s legit. So we should trust PSA since those other examples might only be hundreds of dollars a card they botched? Why does the price matter? Most people aren’t sending in $50k cards anyway. They are sending in cards worth a few hundred though. Just pointing out there is some major irony in “CGC should not be trusted”, with “I love PSA!” at the bottom. If you can’t see that, not sure what to tell you. How much is the PSA 8 Wagner going for, which many think is trimmed, is that high enough price?

[KhalDrogo]

Again, again, again, you are clearly not understanding what was at play here. That’s okay, but at least get off your soap box and stop lecturing us until you do.

And my sig has been this for years. Precisely for instances like this. But, but, but PSA!

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by gospeed3

Untrustworthy or not, this seems like just another opportunity to make content and bash cgc. The same people bythe way, that "would never use cgc" and make that statement at every corner.

I also wonder if they were being misled on by one of the og creators taking his own word, since he seemed to be involved with the grading of some of the cards from what has been said, so than what?

Well, yeah. That’s the entire point. All of these proofs are fake (posted in the other thread about it). CGC authenticated all of these never before seen proofs 30 years later on the word of one former employee. That’s the problem here. The cards are authentic because we trust this guy and he says they’re authentic. You can’t run an authentication business if that’s your requirement to authenticate millions of dollars worth of items.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Again, again, again, you are clearly not understanding what was at play here. That’s okay, but at least get off your soap box and stop lecturing us until you do.

And my sig has been this for years. Precisely for instances like this. But, but, but PSA!

Oh I understand it just fine..just pointing out the absolute irony of your post

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Oh I understand it just fine..just pointing out the absolute irony of your post

If you understood it, you wouldn’t deem it irony.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

If you understood it, you wouldn’t deem it irony.

This is irony

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

CGC cannot be trusted.

I love PSA!

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

“Found: 39 Backdoored 1999 Finest Gold Refractors Residing in PSA Holders”

“PSA Has Graded 23 Fake 2000 Finest Moments Autographs, BGS another 13+
(found just this month alone...)