TCGPlayer Scam EXPOSED?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2022
- Nobody wants to get stuck paying for counterfeit magic cards. Make sure you’re safe from fake cards!
I love Magic: the Gathering! I love playing the game, collecting cards, enjoying the art, and buying sealed boxes. Thanks for tuning in to learn about magic and personal finance!
Contact: MagicMetalMoney@gmail.com
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It's difficult to tell when Wizards quality is all over the place.
sad but true
Don't do the bend test. Cardstock feel/look, loupe, and light test are good enough and will never damage your cards. Also weighing the card is a good test that is harmless to the card.
One thing I've noticed is that the Japanese printers for Wizards are printing slightly different than the Belgium or USA printers, you can definitely see the matginal difference, a very slight variation in thickness, non-curling foils, and the back is slightly more glossy than a non-Japan print. This results in an about 10 - 15% better card quality, like certain sets will only be Japan printed. Easy to think they are counterfeit though.
This is a great point! Always good to compare true apples to apples!
DO NOT DO THE BEND TEST. Never never never. Bend test damage is common in highend old power, like Beta or Unlimited Moxen or Black Lotus or Duals. Bend test damage is unfixable and difficult to detect for the novice.
Bend test damage sometimes shows in a wear pattern where the card wears out more quickly in the middle section, sometimes not. Every time the card has lowered stiffness and is just more floppy, easier to bend, on purpose or by accident.
Sometimes the damage is catastrophic. Foils fail the bend test by irreparably forming crease lines, and i have heared about very old, very expensive cards just suddenly giving way and folding hard through the entire middle, and i see people trying to sell such totally destroyed cards for cheap.
I never caused bend test damage, never did it on a card that i did not intend to rip up and throw away afterwards, but i have a few duals with a bit of bend test damage, one is unlimited, i think one of my unlimited Mox Ruby has it, and an otherwise nice traditional chinese Time Spiral probarbly has it. And two of my Judge Reward foil Argothian Enchantress have the crease lines in the foil layer. Dumbasses. I got the cards cheaper because of it, because it lowers condition, desireability, and price. I would say maybe around 1000 USD lost in value across my collection due to bend test damage, and if the damage is not slight but more pronounced, i refuse to buy the card.
PSA^
@@MagicMetalMoney What do you mean? I have no graded cards, but i have a few that i know would grade BGS 9.5 or above or potentially 10. Does PSA do bend test?
I bend around 30 degrees in some cases to check stiffness and stability of a card, the actual bend test is above 180 degrees as the card has to come back on itself.
@@kurtilein3 lol not the grading company. Public Service Announcement 🙂 I didn’t even think about the grading company 😂
@@MagicMetalMoney Oh ok :)
Thank you, i do not mind sharing my knowledge. No secrets. There are issues with Alpha right now, and issues with uncut sheets, that few people are aware of.
The only real test with the new counterfeits is the jewellers loupe.
You must always assume you have that best counterfeits in your hands.
Light test, bend test, blue core? They all pass.
Definitely the best test! Pretty complex for your average player, but hard work gives better results!
Not sure when they started printing cards outside of Belgium, but the cards printed in other countries feel weird and sometimes smell horrible too!
Pretty sure that started printing outside Belgium around 20 years ago, but not positive. Ha I’m not sure I’ve gotten weird smelling cards, but I believe it!
This is also why I’m buying up “worthless foils” most people would never make fakes of those.
Lol true
@@MagicMetalMoney if it’s 15-23+ years old in foil and it’s still “worthless bulk” it’s more because of community perception than actual card power.
Fakes can pass the bend test and have blue cores. Real cards can fail the light test as well, wotc printing quality had gone down a lot
We’re all doomed lol 🙃
Funny thing to note... Most fake cards feel like they are made out of better quality cardboard lol.
Lol
WOTC doesn’t help the situation with the print qualities. Example, my foil wrenn and six’s all look different. It’s obnoxious.
Ugh their print quality over the last several years is just.... the worst.
I traded a friend for a proxy (counterfeit) Bitterblossom to add to my collection. I knew it was fake when I got it, but I wanted to see how it compared to the real Bitterblossom I already owned. Knowing what to look for, I was able to tell which one was real and which one was, but it was a close comparison. The biggest difference was the counterfeit was more red than blue when I did a light test and the transparency of the two cards was also different in the light test.
Glad you knew it was fake ahead of time! The light test is so useful
how was the gloss? all the proxies i've seen are extremely glossy and very obvious outside of a sleeve.
@@Fausto_4841 The gloss was pretty good and was passable in a sleeve. How clean cut the edges for how old the card was supposed to be was also a tip off; the card looked too fresh. The blue ink on the back was also a little off, the ink that lines the oval on the back of the card specifically; the line was thicker and darker than what it should have been
bought an official product n the past and even wotc makes it hard because some products have bad quality overall. the cards feel like bad paper but it was a sealed product from a official seller... i swear i would identify them as fake if i didnt know i got them official myself.
Geez. That's not good. There have been some quality issues over the years.
Do these tests (at least the light test) work with foil cards? I have a 20x magnification with a UV light as well. I've used the light test a lot but with foil cards being thicker the light doesn't shine through as much and I never really know if I have a real card or not since most of my collection is from buying singles. I do buy booster boxes where I can but I don't usually get the cards I want (hence why I purchase singles). I used to buy from Ebay a lot but rarely do now. I almost exclusively buy from TCGPlayer..or soon to be apart of Ebay..?
Great question. I’m not as experienced with foils, but using a loupe to compare against foils from the same set should be helpful. So if you open a common foil that you know is legit, that would be a great card to compare to.
One thing about the light test, due to the difference between American and Japanese printing it's hard to compare cards side to side. For example midnight hunts printing variance was pretty extreme especially (in terms of coloration differences as welly quality/consistency)
Practice with the jewelers loop. Once you figure it out it is a great way to figure it out.
A great skill! The average player probably won’t do it, but good to know it’s worth learning!
what kind of Jewelers loupe would you recommend? if you could link one that would be awesome! thank you either way
I honestly don't feel qualified to recommend one. But personally I'd go with one from Amazon that has a lot of good reviews. You don't need a super expensive one, since you don't need extreme magnification to see the printing dots on cards. Hope this helps!
Art Style Cards and normal Cards has also a different Light Test result.... i thought it was a counterfeit but i test the card after opened the booster.
Good to know!
I noticed that European Stock was slightly different than what we get in N.A. that threw me for a loop when living overseas.
That would be a trip! (Pun not intended lol). I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m exploring card shops in Europe.
I got sold a NM mind crank with polluted delta written on the back with sharpie, and a fake ashnod's altar ( the altar wasn't even close it had the oddest texture "super rough and slightly thicker, way different than the usual glossy Chinese counterfeit) I only buy from sellers with 10,000 + sales and good feedback. The shop owners had to know they were fucking me, one had sharpie and the other was the most obvious fake in the history of fakes.
That’s so rough. Definitely a good idea to go with those with 10K+ sales
How do the judges test your cards if they’re double sleeved?
I'm not a judge, but I assume that they'll take a card out of it's sleeves if they suspect it is fake.
2:46 - 3:42 No, just ... no. There really is no reason (IMO) to do this considering that practically every other test roots out fakes (and also misses that some fakes do pass the bend test). That and this would be more problematic for foils from what I have seen and read.
Won a Timetwister in 1996 at a tournament - yup, found out later, a fake one.
A friendnof mine had a similar, opposite experience. He traded a long time player for a Force of Will that the old player thought was a fake, so my friend got it really cheap in his trade. Turns out, it was legit after he put it through a battery of tests.
Yo that is rough.
Will these tests work the same on foils?
Good question. I wouldn't think the bend test will. The light test might, but it could be different. I would do the light test with a foil you know to be legit (e.g. straight from a pack), then compare it to others that you're questioning. Hope this helps!
Hello everyone. I personally make all the comparisons detailed here; bend test, light test, pattern test... but there is a test that I do, that's usually more specific, the paper test. Over time, WOTC has used different locations and qualities to print the cards. I try to have a couple of original cards (easier with cheap cards) from each set, so I compare the reflection of light, the "roughness" or "porosity" of the paper card, since, in the current impressions, you can change the amount of ink, the smoothness or brightness, but never the type of paper. Especially in old cards, It is very difficult to get the same type of paper to make counterfits... So there you see the main difference.
Another separate issue is the ever-changing quality of WOTC, since I came to see letters with a different type of font (in different languages) but they were both original!
Greetings from Argentina!
Thanks for your input! 🇦🇷
Can you explain the green dot thing too? Or is that not legit?
It’s legit, but I’m colorblind so I suck at it 😂 it’s looking for patterns of red dots within the green mana symbol. There are 4 red dots that make the shape of an “L”. They’re tiny though, so you need a jewelers loupe.
I believe real cards can have a black or blue core depending on where they are printed.
As far as I know, all printing locations use a blue core in the card stock. but that would be really helpful to know if that’s not the case!
I didn't hear anything about a TCGplayer scam? Confused.....
Just the potential of fake cards being sold on TCGPlayer. Sorry, didn’t mean to clickbait!
TCG player has a lot of scams they will shut down a seller without notice, confiscate all their sales and never contact them, I've had that happen and I've also had sealed boxes go out and the people claim that they were open I don't know who has the talent to do that but you know that's on them to waste the time doing it. but with me they claimed the Box was open TCG player sent them a ticket to go back to them they get the inventory And they take the money out of your account so you lose twice
I know when its fake when its too good and the foils don't pringle.
lol flat, smooth foil? Definitely fake!
@@Vorniforous lol rehydrate. I like that term for straightening foils.
Force of will!! We gotta see more hype for the game. Would be greatly appreciated if you started talking about force of will again 🙏
Ha I actually don’t know anything about Force of Will. I’ve done a couple of videos on FAB and Sorcery though!
Had to mention force a will, had a mint one go out 6 months later the kid contacted TCG player says that I inked it and I get an inked card back, all played buggered faced. TCG player sucks monkey balls!!!
My recommendation: Get a jewellers loupe, and practise. These are small, relatively inexpensive, i think a good one can be 20 USD maybe. Most are small but surprisingly heavy, because the lens is a big solid piece of glass, polished in front and back. Some are lighweight, with a front and back glass lens that are curved on the outside like the chunky ones, and perfectly flat on the inside, with an air gap inbetween and a metal ring in the assembly to distance them.
How to correctly use it and how it works is simple. The small, powerful lens allows your eyes to get really close without going out of focus. You just need to play with the distances to get it into focus. First move the lens really close to your eye, and then move the card really close and move it into focus.
With close, i mean, i do the super close inspection with the card in an inner sleeve because i sometimes make noseprints. I also get some oil on the side of the lens close to my eye because my eyelashes touch it when i blink. Contact lenses are fine. If you have glasses, just take them off, they are not needed here.
The one i use has just a 2 centimeter outer diameter and is quite strong, so i can and need to get very close. It is all just practise, practise, practise. I grab the loupe with my right hand, swivel it out of its case, move my hand so it touches my skull putting the loupe at the right distance to my eye. This is a very solid configuration, all set up now, and then i use my left hand to move the card into focus and inspect what i want to inspect. I learned this back when i was into collecting gemstones, it is second nature to jewellers and watchmakers. Dentists and surgeons also learn this skill, but then use much more sophisticated tools, basically like two tiny telescopes integrated into glasses or attached to a headset for 3D magnification over a bigger distance, custom fit only.
I highly recommend you get into it and learn that skill. You could do videos about it.
Recently i was able to buy a Beta Ancestral Recall, damaged condition, 2500 to 3000 USD below fair market value, other dealers rejected it as a likely a fake of the re-back variety. The dealers got the seller convinced that its fake, he had written it off, had no clue how to sell it. He was not comfortable with the card, dealers he showed it to were not comfortable and rejected it. That was possible because i sharpened my skills with jewellers loupe and light test to the degree of being able to authenticate the card as real but with severe water damage warping the surface a bit and changing the paper texture a bit. I think its tournament legal, and looks really good double sleeved. So a few hours to learn how to use the jewellers loupe properly and less than 50 to buy some loupes to try them out is money and time well invested. It looks minty apart from obvious corner wear and just a few white spots around the edges, and its Beta, and i paid what others pay for a tournament legal copy of Unlimited Ancestral Recall. In Vintage, playing a black-bordered Ancestral Recall that looks nice is a bit of a statement i guess.
Woah, that’s sweet! Yeah, I might get become more skilled at it in the future. I don’t do high end collecting now, but might start some day! For now, I just can’t pass up a good deal on unlimited bolts ⚡️ ❤️
@@MagicMetalMoney With Lightning Bolt, i would go Beta, Judge Reward (oldschool foil) or Secret Lair.
Unlimited Basics have a use case: In Legacy and Vintage, you fetch for Duals or Basic Lands, few or no Utility Lands have a fetchable subtype like "Mountain". With black-bordered duals being rare and expensive and most duals being white-bordered, using unlimited white-bordered basic lands is a life hack. Quickly find your fetchland targets by having them all white bordered. Then go for the 1993 printing.
Unlimited Bolts only have the 1993 and never later going for them. Probarbly still a good investment long-term. I would not get caught playing these.
@@kurtilein3 I play with revised and keep my unlimited nice and clean!
@@MagicMetalMoney Europe. I would play foreign limited black-bordered French or German or Italian, and keep my Beta clean, but i am not playing decks that need it. I have no nice bolts right now. I might be going for a first Judge Reward old cardframe Foil copy now.
Double sleeved its OK to play highend cards, if they are not in rare perfect condition.
Brand or link ?
I lost 24k in fake dual lands on TCG and was immediately banned as well as my unborn children from TCG
Omg I hope this isn’t true
@@MagicMetalMoney it is very true
@@karidangergirl6267 😭😭nooooo
And if they get mad at you and cut you off there isn't a damn thing you can do except try to get your credit cards to dispute the charge
@@karidangergirl6267 rough
Great video!!!
Thanks, Ariel! You taught me everything I know!
I am a whale, i think you noticed.
Here is what i do, my routine: Get comparison cards, from the same edition. Nice if its the same card, otherwise same edition and cardframe is fine. As comparable as possible, like comparing masterpieces to masterpieces, etched foils to etched foils, from the vault to from the vault. I also do it from memory a lot, not bothering to fetch a comparison card.
I use the jewelers loupe, and do not actually do dot pattern comparison at all. I just check if there is a dot pattern, and make sure that certain aspects are NOT part of the dot pattern but printed on top in a seperate black layer with sharp outlines. On more expensive cards, i then do full dot pattern comparison on the top of the green dot on the back of the card. Like you know the 5 colored dots on the cardback, i picked the green, i think many others do the blue one, personal choice, you could also pick a different detail.
Then i do the light test. I look for the correct brightness, and look at how the crisp front of the card and the more blurry back combine. I also look for paper texture, with experience you can prove water damage with the light test. Works on foils, etched foils, and uniquely finished cards as well, but with much different brightnesses and properties.
Next i evaluate condition. For new cards below 20 USD i cut down the process to just a quick inspection, a glance with the jewellers loupe at the text box and mana symbols, looking for anything obvious, then its usually NM+ to mint, double sleeve it, done. 10-20 seconds in total. For highend cards, i go through the whole process in detail, and then a full grading follows. I inspect surface, edges, corners, centering, and also flatness and stiffness, look for signs of foul play like inking or restauration work, i remove dirt or dust if i find any, and i give it my own grading.
I write notes about condition/grading, purchase price, and purchase date on an ultra-thin piece of paper, double sleeve in KMC, put in the note if there is one between inner and outer sleeve, ready for the binder.
Engineers and people who do repairs keep praising duct tape and WD40. For me that is my jewellers loupe and my cellphone flashlight.
That’s pretty thorough! I would definitely do that for more expensive cards.
@@MagicMetalMoney Thanks. I can also fall back to a professional grader employed full time by a big dealer i know. The local big dealers know me and i can consult with them.
Always to the point! Thanks for the advice!
Glad you liked it! 🔥
since it's not Hasbro or WotC or anybody related with the production or sales of Magic cards, why does anyone care about proxies being used at tournaments? proxies are used all the time. what difference does it make to the skill of the player if they have authentic cards? (i'm talking strictly game play, value and collecting does not enter into this equation)
you think the NBA gives a frenchmen's F%@& if a player is using bootleg nike's or not? assuming those counterfeits don't offer any strategic advantage and meet regulations for fair play they could care less.
the only competitive argument against proxies is that they could offer a slight advantage just by the fact they are probably more accessible and would facilitate more thorough play testing, but there's nothing saying players can't use proxies to play test, and would be available to everyone, therefore not giving anyone an unfair advantage.
So, is that a fake?
After the tests, looks real to me!
@@MagicMetalMoney so there's no scam
@@oweltaxz8874 ha well fake cards are unfortunately sold all the time on different platforms, so more of a general PSA.
@@MagicMetalMoney yeah kinda scary out there
Stop the proxy hate. I mean WOTC is about to be selling proxies for $1k. Lmao
Lol who knew this video would age so poorly? 😂
@@MagicMetalMoney 🤣🤣🤣🤣
"TCGPlayer Scam EXPOSED"?
*Dumb