To collect or not? Recent disappointment

[StarlightSerenity]

If you collect the cards, why do you?

Due to a change in circumstances I now have a bit of spare cash each month to spend on myself and I wanted to start collecting again as I loved Pokemon as a kid. It's something I'd wanted to do for ages and went a bit crazy on eBay. Five or so auctions later I've ended up with a small number of cards. I was pleased as punch, have been sorting through them, putting them in folders, putting the duplicates to one side etc.

Then I find out (via this forum), that at least three of the duplicates are fakes and I know it's highly likely that a lot of the cards (at least rares) that I got are fakes. As you can imagine, this has been incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I now need to some how figure out if the rest of the cards I have are fake and decide what to do with them.

I'm now not sure if I want to collect at all. Have you ever had fakes? Did it put you off collecting at all? I guess it'd be different if I'd been collecting for years but I've only just started collecting again.

 

[AkameTheBulbasaur]

I've had about five fakes so far in my life. I got all of them through trades years ago, so I have no idea where they originated. Usually I don't buy them of of eBay because I've heard eBay can have questionable legitimacy when it comes to cards, as I'm sure you found out the hard way. I've bought most of my cards either from stores like Target or Toys R' Us (those are almost certain to be legitimate) or from Pokemon themselves on Amazon.

I think any sort of online buying has an inherent risk of having fakes, but some places are more reliable than others. Stores like Collector's Cache I've heard are reliable.

As for being put off collecting, I've never been put off by fakes before, but I've only had five out of about ten billion of my cards be fakes anyway. I just put the fakes a separate pile so that I knew what to look out for. The biggest telltale sign was the "bloated" energy symbols. They just look so off! But the cards from Heart Gold and Soul Silver onward have bigger energy symbols than before, so you have to be careful with newer cards.

Sucks you spent all that money and they ended up being fake. I know I'd be really upset if that happened to me. Hopefully now you learned something about finding fakes so that doesn't happen again.

 

[donavannj]

If you collect the cards, why do you?

Due to a change in circumstances I now have a bit of spare cash each month to spend on myself and I wanted to start collecting again as I loved Pokemon as a kid. It's something I'd wanted to do for ages and went a bit crazy on eBay. Five or so auctions later I've ended up with a small number of cards. I was pleased as punch, have been sorting through them, putting them in folders, putting the duplicates to one side etc.

Then I find out (via this forum), that at least three of the duplicates are fakes and I know it's highly likely that a lot of the cards (at least rares) that I got are fakes. As you can imagine, this has been incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I now need to some how figure out if the rest of the cards I have are fake and decide what to do with them.

I'm now not sure if I want to collect at all. Have you ever had fakes? Did it put you off collecting at all? I guess it'd be different if I'd been collecting for years but I've only just started collecting again.

eBay's kinda risky if you don't know what you're looking for in cards and are in general not very familiar with eBay. Top-rated sellers are the only sellers that I recommend buying from, all others you should use caution. Even some top-rated sellers don't always know their stuff, though. eBay's also the only place to reliably find cards from 2004 and earlier. There are several tell-tale signs of an auction item being a fake, but I'm not really sure how to explain most of them since I've just innately known things to be suspicious since doing my initial research on eBay buying 4 years ago. One way is to reverse image search the picture used, though, and if the exact picture shows up on other sites, I'd be wary of the auction. Also watch for "GOTCHA!" words in auction names that are just there to get attention to the auction and may not actually properly describe the card, though I can't think of any examples off the top of my head (they really only come to mind when I'm actually browsing auctions).

Buying from specialized shops like TrollandToad (the most preferred shop for TCGers in the USA and Canada) is probably the safer route to go for you early on. Since you're in the UK, you'd be better off buying from one of the shops there. A few regulars here are collectors based in the UK, so I've seen a shop they've mentioned a few times, but the name escapes me. I'd think that shop they use would probably be a safe bet for you. EDIT: The shop's name is Chaos Cards. I'd check with Scotash! or Spike6958 for other shops they recommend, though.

Also, here's a brief guide to spotting fakes: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=316697#spotfakes

Not the most comprehensive guide, but it covers the basics.

But the cards from Heart Gold and Soul Silver onward have bigger energy symbols than before, so you have to be careful with newer cards

If my memory serves, I'm pretty sure that issue was more specific to the HGSS era cards. For whatever reason some of them have energy symbols that look oddly close to fakes, particularly in their Retreat Costs.

 

[AkameTheBulbasaur]

I remember thinking they were fake when I first got a whole set of them off of Amazon. I'd stopped collecting around the Diamond and Pearl era so I wasn't aware of what the newer cards looked like. I found some scans of real cards and noticed it was supposed to be like that. The Black and White era cards have the bigger energy symbols too, I checked. Not sue about X and Y though.

 

[ads_2006]

I understand the hesitation. I've been buying a bunch of sealed products with no intention of opening them. So hopefully all real lol.

But when bidding on something, I always research it online. Just type in the card name and number from the bottom right corner. You'll figure out which cards are real and which aren't

 

[Leonhart54]

If you collect the cards, why do you?

Due to a change in circumstances I now have a bit of spare cash each month to spend on myself and I wanted to start collecting again as I loved Pokemon as a kid. It's something I'd wanted to do for ages and went a bit crazy on eBay. Five or so auctions later I've ended up with a small number of cards. I was pleased as punch, have been sorting through them, putting them in folders, putting the duplicates to one side etc.

Then I find out (via this forum), that at least three of the duplicates are fakes and I know it's highly likely that a lot of the cards (at least rares) that I got are fakes. As you can imagine, this has been incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I now need to some how figure out if the rest of the cards I have are fake and decide what to do with them.

I'm now not sure if I want to collect at all. Have you ever had fakes? Did it put you off collecting at all? I guess it'd be different if I'd been collecting for years but I've only just started collecting again.

I collect and I collect because it's amazing to pull a great card from a booster or trade cards with a friend. I've collected since base set. You should stick with it! Rarely encounter fakes!!!

 

[RyuError]

Collect. Always collect, and just stop when there's nothing more to collect.

Btw, as collector, I'm working on complete the old series (Base, Fossil, Jungle, Team Rocket, and the 4 Neos), but the dollar are hitting hard for me (Brazil, I hate it), and I can't buy the rares that I need for now :p

And I got only one fake card. A Darkness Energy foil from Neo Genesis. It's sad, that card is very rare to find.