Summary
- Collectors who bought prototype Pokemon cards at auction last year appear to have discovered evidence the cards are fake.
- A closer look at usually imperceivable dots on the cards implies they were printed in 2024, not 1995.
- This is despite the cards being graded after supposedly being pulled from Takumi Akabane’s personal collection.
Pokemon TCG collectors were afforded the chance to buy pieces of the game’s history last year when prototype cards from the personal collection of a Creatures Inc. employee went up for auction. However, some of the collectors who paid a lot of money for those cards are claiming that they might be forgeries.
Reported by PokeBeach on Tuesday morning, the initial claims that some of the prototype cards, of which hundreds were sold last year, may be forgeries came from a collector who goes by PFM. They shared their discovery on the Elite Fourum, pointing to hidden watermarks on a prototype Nidoqueen card they bought last year.
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The watermarks are a series of dots printers that are used to include serial numbers and dates without affecting the card’s design. Upon closer inspection of the dots on PFM’s Nidoqueen card, they appear to have discovered that the card was printed in 2024 and not in 1995 as was implied. To make matters worse, others have checked their prototype cards in the wake of PFM’s discovery only to find their cards might be forgeries too.
Hundreds Of Pokemon Prototype Cards Sold Last Year Might Be Fakes
Despite Them Being Graded And Previously Owned By One Of The TCG’s Creators
Pokemon’s prototype cards are exactly what they sound like. Cards created by Creatures Inc. in 1995 and 1996 before the Pokemon TCG got a full release in Japan in October ’96. Many of the designs feature sprites that were used for Pokemon Red & Green as placeholders. Takumi Akabane played a key role in creating the Pokemon TCG and some of its prototypes, and it’s his collection that was sold from last year, the authenticity of which is now being called into question.
Akabane didn’t just sell these cards, he partnered with card grading service CGC so those interested in adding the incredibly rare cards to their collection could rest assured they were the real deal. An article on the CGC website revealing its work with Akabane and the prototype cards is still live, although it is yet to issue a statement in response to claims the cards it assured collectors were real might be one year old instead of 30.
It’s unclear exactly how deep this runs at present, but if the cards are fake, then thousands of dollars will have been spent on them since last year. Likely a lot more than that since a prototype Pikachu alone sold for $20,000 at auction last year. If the prototypes are confirmed to be forgeries, the next step will be finding out who made them, and how they managed to make it through the grading system without being flagged.
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