Comment by hombre_fatal
2 months ago
The article doesn't explain what playtest cards are nor what is being caught by their detective work.
It doesn't even mention the word counterfeit.
I can guess what's happening here, but I'd like to know more concrete info about the scale and impact of this, how much people were paying for these cards, etc.
Upwards of $24k USD when you factor in buyer's premium for a recent one. (Not confirmed to be fake but an example of another prototype card)
This is probably near the high watermark of cost because it's one of the earliest versions but a signed one might bump it up even higher.
https://goldin.co/item/1995-pokemon-alpha-prototype-25-pikac...
https://goldin.co/buy/?search=pokemon%20prototype&sort=Highe...
As for the article, it's posted to a niche specific community site, they're naturally going to explain less because the readers already have the context. These cards are expensive and sought after and there's a plausibly massive number of fakes out there.
Yeah this is sorely lacking in context, even the title seems to expect the audience to already be familiar with whatever this is.
It seems to be a really niche Pokemon forum, so I'm not surprised that the post isn't written for a general audience.
This comment feels like a criticism that the audience was not considered, instead of you just not being part of the intended audience.