[Pricing] Any value in backdoor cards?

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    • Seen Jun 9, 2021
    How do I put this without getting into too much trouble?

    First, what is a backdoor card?
    A backdoor card is a card that left the printer through the back door, if you get the drift.
    It's also, in this case, a card that shouldn't exist. It doesn't officially exist.
    Imagine that the printer, who was printing cards, did something "special" to a few sheets, for a friend. Imagine these "special" cards were never authorized and the printer would have been fired if anyone found out what he did.
    Now, imagine that these cards have survived for 20+ years without anyone ever seeing them.

    Questions:
    Yes, these are actual Pokemon cards.
    Yes, they will hold up to any scrutiny that anyone would need to verify them as "genuine".
    No, there's not a lot of them.
    No, there are no foils.
    No, nobody remains that can verify that the printer made backdoor cards. There were, literally, three people who knew about them. I'm the only one still around.
     
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    I plan on taking them to a well-reputed card shop next week.
    Otherwise, how to prove authenticity?
     
    So I should just toss them in the garbage?

    You could still post them up somewhere but I wouldn't count on anyone knowledgeable to bite. The primary issue is if they're unique and unlike any of the cards released and also unlike any acknowledged as having unofficial printings by either Wizards of the Coast or The Pokemon Company, they'll be assumed to be counterfeit by the majority, as those two are the only authorities that can be universally confirmed for non-Japanese, non-Korean, non-Chinese, and non-Thai releases (the Japanese printer, Media Factory, handled the releases in these 4 languages instead of either of TPCI or WOTC). If they're identical to some of the cards that were released, they'll be assumed to be worth whatever those are worth on the secondhand market.
     
    It's my understanding that identifying counterfeit cards is easy. WOTC had special paper made for the cards that included an opaque core to not allow light to pass through the cards. As I said, I know these are genuine.
    FWIW, I was in the printing industry in the Northwest at the time which was how I ended up connecting to these cards.
     
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