I am off tomorrow on a 8 hour trip to the annual NZ card show Hope to pick up a few promos and some odd stuff .
My interest is mainly Inkworks cards Promos and inserts but probably too old and wont be much there .
Possibly out of about 100 or so vendors 90 of them will be Pokemon but could be suprised.
Although I have a few early Pokemon Promos tucked away somewere might find something in that line.
But should be interesting to see what is available in the promo line .
Also hope to do some trading
Piko

If i went off for 8 hours in any direction i would be in the sea.

............and my cards would get wet.

yeah all that Pokemon stuff is frustrating. I was unhappy to see a bunch at Philly, but it gets people to come to the show so there's that.

My local comics and cards show recently added Pokémon vendors. Now there are more and more of them. There are several Pokémon shows in the area around the same time. It even coincided with this show one time, but still they joined. Less non-sports since less tables are available.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bassam Abdul-Baki,

Pokémon is the King of non-sport cards right now, and it has been for quite some time. My LHS caters to all the gamers, especially Pokémon. On weekends they conduct tournaments and actually hold classes to teach children and "more or less adults" how to play Pokémon.

Yeah, I have sat in on a couple of those and it's not for me. But I tell you what, if my kid wanted to play, I wouldn't mind. They have to read the cards, remember them, and do quite a bit of basic math in a game. It's educational, has strategy of a sort, and they will have to use their heads. It's also very expensive if you keep up with the latest editions and accessories.

Gaming, and there are other card games besides Pokémon, are outperforming sports cards in certain places and are even more collectible. It also has a big international following. By comparison, entertainment non-sport cards are much more fractured by individual interest. Gaming is its own society, somewhat like promo card collectors, only with more money.

I see adults stand around a Pokemon kiosk inside a local Safeway. It sells out quickly and then someone reloads the kiosk but there's some lag time before it's ready to dispense product. Somehow, some people know when the machine is going to be ready and they wait. The store does not allow loitering, though, and people have been told they can't just hang out. Fights have broken among among the waiters. I've heard that the kiosks are going to be discontinued because of the problems.

In this area a store was robbed of thousands of dollars worth of Pokemon. The owner indicated at least some of the thefts were graded cards which will be hard to sell in the open because of the grading company numbers on them.

Also, in the SF Bay Area, a guy was robbed of his Pokemon collection on the street where he had arranged to meet with a buyer. The "buyer" and an accomplice pepper-sprayed him and took off with his cards. However, there were enough security cameras on that street and surrounding streets that the police found and arrested the thieves the next day. Nice work.

I'm amazed that a continuously growing number of people are making money reselling Pokemon cards. You'd think the demand would've peaked by now almost 30 years later.

I don't know if promo collecting is really a society. Pretty soon it might just be me, a couple of Davids, a Steve, and an Adrian left and we'll all be looking for the same no longer existent card.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

Yes, there have been a couple of major thefts of Pokémon cards in Manhattan. A slew of rare cards just walked out the door when someone tricked the sales staff into thinking that they paid for them. I believe one of the stores robbed is part owned by Tom Brady. I have never been inside them, but they have all sorts of exclusive pop ups for various "collectibles" in the City.

Here is something I didn't know about Pokémon cards until I went to my LHS with my neighbor's kid. Do not buy them on Amazon and know how to tell counterfeit Pokémon if you see them. The kid had made a small binder of cards from her Mom buying a selection on Amazon. When we went to play at the store, more than half turned out to be fake. I couldn't tell either, they looked fine to me, until it was explained what to look for.

It's all in the cardstock. Real Pokémon cards have a thin black layer between the paper. If you tear a card in half, you can see it. However, that test would destroy the card, so there is an easy way. Put on a flashlight behind the card. A fake without the inner layer will shine the light threw, while a real card will have a dimmer glow.

Foil cards may be harder to detect, but cheaper fakes will display the usual signs like blurry images, different weights, lighter colors, etc.. If you are buying, avoid the made-up lots on Amazon. Get sealed boxes from hobby dealers. Know the eBay sellers well, if you want individual rare cards. This stuff is more dangerous than autograph cards because there is more money in it and more demand for it. I did not know it was so bad until I saw it for myself.

I was recently in a store and suspected that some POKEMON cards from 2006 were fake because they were so cheap though they looked authentic. I bought one pack, took a pic of front and back and asked ChatGPT its opinion. it immediately advised that it was counterfeit and pointed out the flaws. I showed it images of the cards themselves, and it explained all of the forged aspects of each card. This technology is becoming unreal! Having said all that, I prefer Raven's method. The good old fashion way.

quote:

Originally posted by promoking:
took a pic of front and back and asked ChatGPT its opinion.

I can barely use my GPS driving instructions, so that I haven't tried experimenting with ChatGPT yet is hardly surprising. I don't know how much I could trust it to detect counterfeit cards or forged signatures just with a picture. Remember when it told you that a LaMorte signed promo was a Gellar signature?

The new technology is an additional tool, but there are a lot of false results too. Good old fashion research is still the best method, but also never foolproof either. I always say that if the deal looks too good, if the autograph looks off, if it kind of looks counterfeit, if you have any doubt at all, leave it. Better to lose a good card, than get stuck with a bad one that you saw coming and ignored.

I do remember and that's why I prefer the human touch. But all other things equal, you should try out one of the AIs out there, you'll be astounded.

I recently bought a sports autograph card that was slabbed by AGS... not expensive end, I should add. I hate slabbed stuff, but it was cheaper than a non-slabbed one. As it was a UK based seller I think it was because he couldn't move it and it was only graded to 7.5.
AGS use just AI to grade cards and when you scan the QR code from the slab it takes you to a page where it shows all the many scans it took and the areas of issue it was downgraded for shown up in red. Having seen how flawed and almost fraudulent the grading system of PSA in particular is, it's interesting to have just AI grading.
However, the marks it was downgraded for could have been a finger mark or even how the sparkly finish of the card stock reflected in the scan. So I still don't trust or like grading of any sort and will probably break it out soon, but there was something nicely transparent about the results on AGS.
A combination of AI and human experience is probably the best recipe in all aspects of card collecting, though.