It has not escaped your notice: the Pokémon cards that were all the rage in the 90s have been experiencing a phenomenal resurgence of interest for a few months now. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year alone, 3,7 billion Pokémon cards were sold worldwide and among the long list of collectors or fans of booster openings, some youtubers have made it a specialty.
Quite recently, the controversial American youtubeur Logan Paul once again distinguished himself through a strange case of Pokémon cards, from the first edition of the game, which would have cost him several million dollars.
A story that does not lay its cards on the table
In reality, the story begins well before the announcement of the youyubeur concerning his recent find. This mysterious cardboard box has come a long way before ending up in his hands. Originally, this one was put up for sale, at auction, from the Canadian version of the Ebay site by user number1pokemonmaster, on March 29, 2021.
From the start, the Pokémon community smelled the scam. And for good reason, the addition of many elements did not play in the favor of the seller: many spelling and grammatical errors, no opinion concerning him, several different stories about the provenance of the cardboard box... In the end account, the sale closed with a total of 86 bids, the highest of which was $72.
However, this sum only added doubts around the authenticity of the box since the community concluded that the true collectors were not sufficiently interested. Worse still, the happy new owner retracted following the seller's refusal to let him inspect the box. It was ultimately the second auction that won the bet, shipped to the United States, in the direction of its new buyer, and this… without insurance!
« What’s in the Box ?! »
But the story does not end there. Received by Instagram user @cardkahuna, the cardboard box has been authenticated by the Baseball Card Exchange company, which specializes in sports collectibles, but not Pokémon cards, which is a big deal. In addition to not being an expert in this field, the company did not share the process used during the certification.
This legitimacy was quickly challenged for many reasons: no known box lists the code indicated on the label of the box, the barcode and the product code do not correspond, the label has not been altered by time as it should have been, the tape does not seem to be the one used by the manufacturer of the cards, namely Wizards of the Coast, and a whole bunch of other small details that have left the Pokémon community very skeptical about this case.
But if it's not an actual cardboard box containing six boxes of the first edition of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, what does it contain? Some people authorized to authenticate the product have already positioned themselves to discover its contents, but for the moment it seems that Logan Paul has decided to keep the box sealed, bought $ 3,5 million from @shyne150 who acquired it from from @cardkahuna for $2,7 million.
Difficult to throw the stone at the American youtubeur, who has already distinguished himself in a case of this kind in the past, as it is a non-compliant authentication carried out by a company with unsuitable processes. Unfortunately, scams for fake products or concealed items have become commonplace in this environment, and Logan Paul is, once again, the victim.
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