Help 2 Mysteries, need help.

T

Thomas Covenant

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I acquired a ton of Pokemon cards at an estate sale. Most look to be GX holos. I really don't know much about these. But I have 2 mysteries and would really appreciate some help with solving them!

1. I have several cards that are GX cards. They are XXX/234 instead of XXX/214. I.E. Blastoise is 35/214 but mine says 35/234. It's odd because I have a lot of cards from this set that correctly say XXX/214, but just this few that say XXX/234.

2. I have a Slowpoke & Psyduck Tag Team #217/236. The oddity here is that the artwork is from card #35/236. The only difference I can see between a 35/236 and this card is the number is different, and the words above the number are Illus. Conceptlab which is correct for a 217 but wrong for a 35. It's as if a 35 card was mis-stamped with just the wrong number and the wrong words above the number and all the rest are the same.
Ah. I just noticed something else. The FONT on this card for both the Ditch and Splash as well as the Thrilling Times GX is larger on this card than on any 35 or 217 I see online.

Any help/light shed is very much appreciated in advance! I'm not stupid enough to think that I somehow stumbled onto a misprint so rare that nobody has seen one and therefore there are no references anywhere online that I can find. I'm more curious than anything else. If they're fakes, they're fakes. I got plenty enough real ones to more than triple my money from this haul!

Thanks in advance!

Thomas
 
I'm no expert, but from what I've heard, if the font sizing or the font itself differs from a real card, its probably a fake. Same goes with numbering variations from real cards. in case you didn't know, there aren't any sets with 234 cards in them, so the Blastoise is probably a fake as well. Hope this helps!
 
LightningSpence836 said:
I'm no expert, but from what I've heard, if the font sizing or the font itself differs from a real card, its probably a fake. Same goes with numbering variations from real cards. in case you didn't know, there aren't any sets with 234 cards in them, so the Blastoise is probably a fake as well. Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
That's my thinking as well. But I know nothing about Pokemon and want a more informed opinion than mine. Thanks!
 
OK. For the second issue, the card marked 217 with artwork from 35:
Here are 2 pics. The first shows both correct cards side-by-side. As you can see, outside of the pic and the XXX/236 they are 100% identical. This is why I brought this up. I don't know how cards are made, but I could see a scenario where one layer might be just the pic while another layer might be the rest of the card, which is common between them, and another layer might have just the number and the words above the number. So my initial thinking was that maybe the picture layer got switched somehow and applied to a card with the 217/236 layer instead of its correct card. But again, I have no idea how plausible this might be.
Then I noticed that the font is different on my card, which to me is worrisome. Again in the first pic you can see the words are 100% the same with the upper lines ending in "hand." and "discarded" and the lower lines ending in "this", "to", "more". Now looking at my card my upper lines end with "your" and "you", so there are fewer characters on each line. So a larger font or larger spacing. I could see this mistake easily being made by someone faking cards, which is why I came here to get opinions.
If this were a coin I'd be much more confident, as that's where my expertise lies.
Thanks again for any info/help/opinions.
Thomas
 

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OK. This just gets stranger and stranger. In going through the cards, looking for the ones that say 234 instead of 214 I came across another slowpoke & psyduck 217/236. It has the correct artwork but it also has the font to match the other card I have. So they both have a font that's different from the fonts in the pic I posted above. Does the oddness ever end? I did some looking at pics of the cards being sold on Ebay and none of them match what I have in hand. I'd still appreciate any opinions, but I know this: I am not going to try to sell these cards until I know for certain. I may have to find a nearby shop and ask for help. Or I might send them in for slabbing, as I can write off the cost of slabbing if they are fakes.
I'm not going to even post pics of the ones that say 234 instead of 214 at this point because every card I have is now suspect in my mind. :O
Thanks again, in advance, for any thoughts/ideas/info.
Thomas
 

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Thomas Covenant said:
OK. For the second issue, the card marked 217 with artwork from 35:
Here are 2 pics. The first shows both correct cards side-by-side. As you can see, outside of the pic and the XXX/236 they are 100% identical. This is why I brought this up. I don't know how cards are made, but I could see a scenario where one layer might be just the pic while another layer might be the rest of the card, which is common between them, and another layer might have just the number and the words above the number. So my initial thinking was that maybe the picture layer got switched somehow and applied to a card with the 217/236 layer instead of its correct card. But again, I have no idea how plausible this might be.
Then I noticed that the font is different on my card, which to me is worrisome. Again in the first pic you can see the words are 100% the same with the upper lines ending in "hand." and "discarded" and the lower lines ending in "this", "to", "more". Now looking at my card my upper lines end with "your" and "you", so there are fewer characters on each line. So a larger font or larger spacing. I could see this mistake easily being made by someone faking cards, which is why I came here to get opinions.
If this were a coin I'd be much more confident, as that's where my expertise lies.
Thanks again for any info/help/opinions.
Thomas
Click to expand...
Yeah, the 217/236 with the wrong art looks pretty fake. The font and spacing-like you mentioned-are pretty off.
 
Thanks to all! FYI: Almost all were fakes. Final score: 249 Rare/Ultra Rare/Secret Rare: FAKE, 1 Rare: REAL, 5 non-holo uncommons: REAL. The good news is my surfing pikachu and my Kingdra are for sure MINT and the guy at the card shop is going to send them in with a batch of others and get them slabbed for me. He thinks they'll both be PSA 9 or 10. So again, thanks to all! While the loss is painful, the silver lining is the 2 cards being sent out. Also, you guys helped me take 249 fake cards out of circulation, which helps everyone!
 
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