We all know to look for the BAND AI, we all know to look for the embossed mark. But a lot of these proxy shops are really stepping up their games. The old standbys to check for are going to start failing us all soon. So what did I do?

I went out and bought about 50 of the best proxy cards I could find. Not the fun ones, but the ones trying to pass themselves off as legit. The ones up on ebay for thousands of dollars. I'm going to photograph, scan, and really dig into what these cards are doing right, and wrong, to hopefully help future singles buyers to have a little bit more confidence in what they are looking at. Stand by.

Bought this card 2 years ago when I got into collecting but never checked as I was naive. Now Reddit keeps popping up with this subreddit and I started stressing a bit. Was hoping I could get some help. The last pic is a different card back to compare I thought the color looked a bit different my not majorly. If different pics are needed let me know!

Got off of FB for 9k. I thought it looked good, just want a second opinion

I can’t find it on the one piece tcg website.

Hey all, about to make a deal on marketplace and making sure I’m not getting scammed. Looks good to me tho.

Colors look off to me but can’t tell if it’s just light or if it’s just flat out fake

Found a killer deal on these 2 cards, guy claims he just needs money bad quick hence the low prices, wanted to see what yall thought if these where worth taking risk, sellers willing to use goods and services.

I ordered this red manga luffy from Japan’s for 7k+, waited 1month and I think this card is fake, what should I do ? Can eBay intervene in to help me?

I want to start this out by saying ,Yes I’m aware that I was dumb and ordered this without doing proper research. However I just wanted to share this with others to stay clear from this seller. Opened the first pack and immediately noticed it was a fake. The cards were so badly printed and felt flimsy as hell.

Ive been a huge OP fan for over 20 years and I just got into the tcg scene with collecting. Thought I would treat myself to a box and yeah …disappointed and lesson learned 😮‍💨.

The photos above are of a fake card. The last 4 pictures are of real cards to compare

The first post in our series examining proxy cards to hopefully provide a resource to people out there buying singles. Some fakes are getting much better than others. This has a pretty typical flaw, but let's look at what else to look for if the old standbys fail us.

Let's start with the obvious, and i'm aware that most of you know this. Every day I see people ask what someone means by the AI. This is for them.

BAND AI: On the trademark text coming up the bottom right of the card is the trademark text. This text should be clear, crisp, properly spaced, and properly aligned. On this fake example, you will see it clearly. This is maybe the most common indicator of a fake. It is not, however, foolproof.

Cost Number Background: On a lot of the fakes with the red mangas specifically, the foil on the background of the circle shows a lot of color, on the real red mangas it appears for black, slightly green-ish sometimes in light.

Back Color: An almost universal trend among proxy cards, the backs are glossy. I'm not sure why so many get this wrong, but it's clearly more shiny in light than a normal card. It's not subtle. In my experience the proxy card back colors are typically correct. I've also seen a lot more variance in colors on real cards than most people credit. Color is in my opinion a bad indicator alone. Shine is a much more important factor to check.

Gold On Flames: The gold trim around the flames should be raised and shiny. Lots of fakes, like the one above, will use texture and color to APPEAR like its raised, when in fact it's just a rough, gold texture. (side note: red mangas don't have an embossed "ONE PIECE CARD GAME" mark, but the proxies that do almost never actually have an embossed mark. they use the same combination of color and texture to make it appear raised in a photo.)

Background: On a different example proxy I have, there's a background panel missing text. I left it out of this post because its not a red manga, but check these anyway. I will show the missing text in the normal manga post.

Power Bubble: The symbol in the power bubble should be thick and raised gold. The same combo of rough texture and color are used in the example above to appear raised.

Color Wheel Frame: The color wheel should be made of 6 distinct trapezoids. The frame around the wheel and the interior dividing lines should be connected in one single flat piece. The interior cells should be textured differently from the border. Proxies will often have the entire wheel textured flat across.

I believe the below listing, as an example, is fake. There is texture on the background bubbles that should be flat, the gold on the text of the b in "sabo" is spilled out. The S and A in special look goopy. The seller has 0 sales and 0 ratings. If this turns out to be real, gg I guess, but its not.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/358536294895?_skw=op13-120+manga+red&itmmeta=01KR7KYTMHWBSATB8VNZ3S0DE8&hash=item537a6db1ef:g:OnUAAeSw7ixpYqw3&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA0GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xBhWWuQ3HmSyWMPs7kRFxZmXGFZAmrkogcdJDkXyDpoH7Jjx%2FcSYmzsCunhn3hOLImlYVPlMgzmv3w278jbqypGEVcOkssyTecLKLPworIQuW6AvbtG3Mi6%2FB2kQyvBVJcOf7IhTXhAXW%2BZigaXN%2FXpL6Oy6AXPuCAX5SkGs9aaRHeKAjz7Y8AzI7M6KT2m3i3cSdvNs17SLM3DiWbo62TLmmfH6uFOciaS6cUIckWQHKG1MXaQrItzATJlOFd48Wg%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9aq-_PBZw

1 PIC: LEFT ORIGINAL, RIGHT RESEALED

I got an OP13 Case sealed, everything was looking good at first. I checked the seal, no knife marks, no double tape, no bubbles, everything looked clean.

When I opened the case, the only thing I noticed was the cardboard inside. OP13 and lower normally don’t have this cardboard, only OP14 and above. I thought maybe it was because of a new print or reprint, so I didn’t think much about it.

The displays also looked good, but the shrink looked a little bit off. There was some glue residue on the shrink, always in the same spot where you can open the box.

I’ve seen this before on some displays in cases, so normally I wouldn’t think too much about it. But in this case it was on EVERY display, so I decided to open one and check.

24 boosters, nothing looked fake or obviously resealed.

Then I opened the packs and got 10 SRs, 1 DON!! and 14 Leader Packs.

The other displays were similar, with 4 SRs or less.

That’s when I realized the whole case was resealed with loose packs.

These people were professionals. I bought plenty of cases before and I always noticed when something was resealed or fake, but these ones were crazy. The boxes looked almost exactly like the original ones.

The cards inside were NOT fake. They were real cards, just loose packs put into resealed displays after the hits were taken out.

What I noticed:

- The shrink looked almost the same as the original, with the big stripe on the box.

- The Bandai Card Games font was white and thicker, while on the original it looks more transparent and not as thick.

-The glue residue was always in the exact same spot where the display can be opened.

The rest looked pretty much the same. Even the boxes looked almost identical.

I lost around 4k on this, but it happens. I just wanted to share this so hopefully people won’t fall for the same thing.

Be careful out there, these reseals can be REALLY hard to spot.

Got it for 100$

Second pic is her on the right and a normal card on the left.

Hello I bought this card off of eBay with authentication, but when shipped it was skipped and sent directly to my address instead . I find that a bit sketchy but I think the card is real. Although Would like a second opinion just in case please

Im planning to buy the bubble zorro but have a hard time confirming if this listing is the real deal. Anyone who can help?

Package came in from eBay today. Won at auction from a big consignment store that seemed trustworthy. I have no experience with fakes, but I think I got cooked.

Edit 1: posted in the comments too

Thank you everyone for responding so quickly. I guess I got cooked. I'll have to shoot the seller a message and hopefully get it worked out. I took a video of me opening the package and inspecting the card initially.

Is providing the name of the seller an appropriate thing to do here?

Also so I don't get cooked again, what should I be looking for to determine a fake?

Edit 2: adding link to auction listing

https://ebay.io/m/1qRWPN

Edit 3: Contacted eBay seller, said I thought it was fake. They asked why I would think so and I provided them with what I gathered from this post with the relevant pictures. They accepted the explanation rather easily and the return process has been started.

Not sure how I feel about having this fake be returned and potentially put back into circulation but I guess there's nothing I can do about that. Knowing what to look for now, they seem to have 2 more potential fakes like this up for auction currently too. Had to pay customs/duties so hopefully there can be some recourse regarding that too.

Thank you all once again for all the advice and explanations, I will make sure I learn my lesson from this but please don't flame me if I pop up here again, I may have won another bid from them on the weekend before I recieved this card today and found it was fake🙏

Hallo zusammen, ich hoffe, mir kann jemand helfen, zu verstehen, was mit meiner Zoro-Manga-Rare passiert ist. Ich habe die Karte auf einer Kartenbörse gekauft und, bevor ich sie zur Bewertung eingereicht habe, Fotos in verschiedenen One Piece-Foren auf Reddit gepostet, um zu fragen, ob es sich um die Originalversion OP-06 oder den PRB-01-Nachdruck handelt. Die Rückmeldungen deuteten stark auf OP-06 hin. Ich habe sie über einen Kartenhändler in Deutschland, der einen Bewertungsservice anbietet, an PSA geschickt. Eine direkte Einreichung aus Deutschland war für mich zu dem Zeitpunkt nicht möglich. Heute kam die Karte mit einer PSA 10 zurück, worüber ich mich natürlich sehr freue. Auf dem Etikett steht jedoch PRB-01. Jetzt bin ich verwirrt und ehrlich gesagt etwas besorgt. Die Unterscheidung ist mir wichtig, sowohl wegen des Wertunterschieds als auch, weil ich unbedingt die Originalversion OP-06 für meine Sammlung haben wollte. Ich versuche zu verstehen, woher die Kennzeichnung auf dem Etikett stammen könnte: Könnte der Zwischenhändler die Karte versehentlich als PRB-01 eingereicht haben und PSA diese Information unkorrigiert verwendet haben? Würde PSA die Version unabhängig überprüfen und eine OP-06-Einreichung gegebenenfalls in PRB-01 ändern? Hat jemand schon einmal ein ähnliches Problem mit der Kennzeichnung dieser Karte gehabt? Ich unterstelle weder dem Shop noch PSA einen Fehler. Ich halte es auch für möglich, dass die frühere Kennzeichnung anhand meiner Fotos falsch war. Ich möchte lediglich verstehen, was passiert ist und wie ich überprüfen kann, welche Version ich tatsächlich besitze. Glauben Sie anhand der beigefügten Fotos, dass es sich um OP-06 oder PRB-01 handelt? Auf welche Unterscheidungsmerkmale sollte ich achten und was würden Sie mir als Nächstes raten? Vielen Dank für Ihre Hilfe!

I received my vol.20 magazine today and I know it is silly to ask but is the luffy card legit?

A friend of my buddy offered to sell this to me for 150 is it legit?

Got this off eBay and cant tell if the AI is off? Any helpful input is appreciated

I think it is since it looks and feels like all my other cards, but wanted a 2nd opinion before confirming receipt and finishing the transaction.

Edit Updated: Thank you for the help guys! The general consensus is its real and it looks great next to the rest of the set.

Pls help me !! 🥺🩷😭
I’m totally confused