Hundreds of cards were sold on the Internet as early prototypes of the Pokémon TCG for expensive money. Now, however, these have turned out to be counterfeits – even though the maps were checked by professionals and even signed by the original designer.
What kind of cards were these? The Pokémon cards were sold as prototypes that were printed for game test purposes. The cards are similar in their design to today’s cards, but are more primitive-a “work in progress” version from the time before the game appeared. The cards are said to have been created in 1995 and 1996.
But the supposedly oldest Pokémon cards have now turned out to be counterfeiting. This was found out by a user of the Efour forum. In a detailed thread, he describes how he could dating the supposedly ancient cards over the age of 6 months via metadata and thus exposed as fakes.
Instead of 1995, the cards from 2024 are said to be.
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Neither professionals nor designers have noticed fake
Were the cards not checked? Yes, and even from the proven company CGC. And not only that: during the exam, the experts even worked closely with the original designer of the maps, Takumi Akabane, it said in an article by the company on CGCCARDS.com.
Takumi Akabane used to be creative director at Creatures Inc., one of the three companies that share the rights to Pokémon. At least it was said, the prototype cards came from Akaban’s personal collection. They were even signed by him.
How much money was lost? The maps were sold via online marketplaces such as Ebay, estimates came together around $ 10 million (around 9.6 million euros).
In a statement, CGC assures that these accusations are on track. However, the research should still take a while.
In the mobile version of the collection card game, Pokémon TCG Pocket, a new meta deck recently emerged during a tournament. You can find out more in this article: At a tournament in Pokémon TCG Pocket, a new deck made it into the top 8 7 times