Another day, another counterfeit product!
This time around we have a fake Pokemon Fusion Strike booster box straight out of China. We’re going to have a look at it so hopefully nobody will get scammed.
Now if you were wondering if people in the United States really do buy fake booster boxes the answer is yes. Fake booster boxes cost ten times less than the real thing and are perfect for scammers. For example, a scammer can pay $10 for a fake booster box (the price for a real booster box is generally $100), list it on Facebook for a fire sale price of $50, and make a $40 profit when it sells. So that’s one way these boxes enter into circulation. Another is parents giving their kids packs… inevitably kids take those cards to school and trade. Bam, even more fake product circulating.
The fake Pokemon products are out there and there’s a definite chance that you can get scammed.
So anyway let’s take a look at the fake booster box…
The fake booster box arrived beat up, this is because sellers in China don’t use cardboard boxes to ship product to the united States, they use plastic bags! The packs inside were perfectly okay though. So right off the bat we have a telltale sign that something is up with the booster box you’re looking to buy… a damaged box can mean it’s out of China.
Next up, the artwork on the front of the box is wrong, the cutout is wrong, and the positioning of logos is wrong.
Finally, where’s the barcode?
Now we have the actual booster packs from the box. They’re very shiny, which is fun, and otherwise they look okay-ish. The actual print quality is low when you compare it to a real Pokemon booster pack.
Look at the back though… the dead give away. No text and no barcode.
And finally the simplest way to tell a booster pack is fake. It has “tear here” tops and bottoms and not the smooth crimp that real Pokemon booster packs use. If the booster pack someone is trying to sell you has those “tear here” scalloped edges they’re trying to scam you.
Here we have an example of the holo cards you’ll find inside of a fake booster pack. Not exactly bad! Until you flip the card over… then you’ll find a faded back with serious centering issues.
So to sum things up… A card or booster pack is fake / counterfeit when…
- The booster pack is very shiny. Real booster packs are generally more muted.
- The cardstock used to make the cards is thinner.
- The cards have washed out yellow borders.
- Holo cards have faded backs.
- The booster pack has scalloped edges on top and bottom. Real booster packs are crimped.
- The booster packs only contain 9 cards. Real booster packs contain 10. I have no idea why they don’t print energy cards.
- The booster pack weighs in the 12 to 13 gram region instead of the real booster packs weight of around 21 grams.
- The cards smell wrong when a booster pack is opened. Not joking.
- The cards have a pure white interior. The Pokemon Company uses 280 gsm paper with a blue core.
- The card weighs about 1.2 grams instead of a real cards weight of about 1.7 grams
- If the price is too good to be true, it’s a fake… or stolen…
So if it meets any of that criteria you probably have a fake on your hands. Be careful out there people, scammers are everywhere!