Comment by tivert
2 months ago
So, knowing nothing about Pokemon, it was lost on me if 2024 was legitimate or not (I suspected not, but it seems the article kind of assumes you know when the cards should have been made).
This article seems to give a clearer picture:
https://www.pokebeach.com/2025/01/millions-of-dollars-of-pro...
> Millions of Dollars of Prototype Pokemon Cards May Be Forgeries, Retired Creatures Employee Involved
> The authenticity of the Pokemon TCG’s famous “prototype cards” are now being called into question.
> Last year, hundreds of prototype Pokemon cards began to sell in collecting circles from the personal collection of Takumi Akabane, one of the original creators of the Pokemon TCG. He worked at Creatures until 2008. He recently attended events to sign some of the cards. Grading company CGC worked closely with Akabane to verify the cards’ authenticity.
> The prototype cards represent the earliest days of the TCG, produced in 1996 before Base Set released in Japan. They show the progression of Pokemon cards from their “proof of concept” stage where they used their Red & Green sprites to their beta designs that used their final artwork from Mitsuhiro Arita and Ken Sugimori.
I've asked chatgpt to explain to me the pokemon card craze, and it gives a long answer, but I still don't understand the videos of people shoving shopping carts full of big boxes of Pokemon cards...
The answer is they are gambling they can sell them for more later
It's the offshoot of the "everything bubble" during the pandemic, lots of people buying up things that in hindsight were collectible / scarce / worth a lot of money; Pokemon cards and boosters ended up being worth hundreds of thousands, same with sneakers, lego sets, etc.
The market has of course adjusted, lego's bread and butter seems to be high cost items marketed as collector's items. I mean at the same time I'm confident all of these companies are themselves filling up warehouses with the intent of drip-feeding these into the market for low volume, high revenue sales, whilst keeping the actual production run volume of these a closely guarded secret.
It's interesting, I remember comic collecting got really hot in the 90s (after 50s - 70s kids grew up in the silver age of comics). Wonder if every generation's favorite childhood nerd collectibles just hits a point where the generation has real purchasing power, decides to buy that Charizard card they always wanted as a kid, and a bubble develops.
Oh this is a long game? I thought there was an immediate trade/return/game involved. I didn't realize Pokemon had legs like these... so out of the (game) loop.
3 replies →
In 2020 during COVID influencers like Logan Paul got into it and made it a fad again.
This may sound stupid but can you actually ask ChatGPT to comment on stuff that’s happening in realtime, now? I haven’t been using AI much these days.
Yes, it has the capabilities to search on Google and provide up to date results.
I get -3 points on the downvote, and yet.. thread below among others.