back in the day, we had monthly tournaments at school, someone had fake cards and refused to believe it. His blue eyes peeled right off the front and it turned out to be a recycled spiderman card

Wow. If there is one thing a grading service MUST not do is to grade fake cards. This is the worst thing possible. Wow, thats damn embarassing.

PSA should hire you man you could teach them so much and prevent so many fake cards from being graded xD

anime theory: PSA is stealing duelist's rare cards and sending back fakes to build the ultimate blue eyes deck, only one demonically possessed boy with incredibly spiky hair can stop them

The Old School Expert is an incredibly smart collector. And overall a great guy. Awhile back, after seeing his collection, I began to search for old sealed booster boxes and managed to find an unlimited edition LOB box. I wasnt sure what the value of those were at the time and wasnt sure where to find that information. This guy was the only person i could think of. Most people like him dont offer advice or help to people looking for it but i managed to get a hold of him and he was more than happy to answer all of my questions. Hes a very helpful and intelligent guy, and I wont forget that. Thanks man.

i remember that I was able to figure out that yugioh cards with the redder backs were fake when i was maybe 7 years old, when a 7 year old is able to realize that, its pretty embarrassing that a professional card graders cant

Konami should really do something about all these fake cards officially sold at legit stores...

I'm colorblind and even I can see the difference on the back of the cards.

What if the guy is making fake PSA cases too 0.0

I along with I'm sure other people would love to see the response from PSA RE this topic. Its pretty dam interesting! Cheers for this video man :D

As an original yugioh player, I recall some first edition classic cards from Pharoah's Servant that were course in texture, but they were opened by me from a legit pack from a well known retailer (like walmart, target, toysrus), and some were very dark orange in color on the back, but the rest of the cards in the pack (same booster) were not and were smoother in texture. It's just hard to tell sometimes from stuff back in the day.

they had one job

Dang, that a good fake. If I was just flipping through random cards I probably won't even have noticed.

The red backing should give it away instantly. That should be instructed to the PSA workers lol.

Kinda makes you wonder if there are other fake graded psa cards

Hey Old School Expert, I saw this video a few years ago and ever since then I've been cautious on observing my cards when they arrive in the mail. I received a LOB card online and noticed it was exactly the same fakes you had in the video. I want to say thank you for this video because of you I contacted the seller and received a refund. Thanks!

Also (on monsters atleast) you can see the print on the atk and def numbers are printed differently

thanks for the info bro. I was thinking about purchasing some old singles. Needless to say I won't be doing that now. Great vid!

What an absolute fucking joke. PSA should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. I can relate to you man, I've had to return probably 10-20 orders in the last month alone from TCGPlayer due to counterfeit cards, and it's beyond frustrating. I've had sellers try to hassle me and claim that they're selling legitimate cards when an experienced collector can tell straight away. I've always been curious but reluctant to send some of the fakes I have received to PSA because I've always been afraid of exactly this. And if they can't even authenticate properly, AND try to push you away... Wow. Just wow. I'm tempted to switch to BGS for grading because MTG collectors primarily use that, but I'm honestly afraid if they could even tell either. Don't ever stop this channel bro, you're doing a service for this game and the card collecting hobby. Thanks for the great videos.

Aren't those the "Original fakes"? I mean, the ones made by Upper deck themselves, that brought all the shit storm on them from KONAMI when they found out that they were distributing legit cards and counterfeit cards as well (using the original designs but maybe with not the perfect ink mixture). Because someone at UD realized how much money it could be made by selling the oldest 1st edition sets to "selected" stores who would then give them a fat kickback after selling them, when of course those shouldn't be printed ever again to keep the value of the legit ones as high as they would naturally go over time. With the super HD scanning and printing techniques now at the hand of many more it is pretty obvious the market will get flooded with high quality fakes. It is not only PSA, most grading brands have trouble with newer stuff, take NGC for example; after some serious trouble by grading fake Chinese coinage at their beginnings they decided to stop grading any Chinese Republic coinage until a few years ago when they finally got the machines and experience necessary to spot the 1 legit among the 999 fakes in submission; and now those CR NGC graded coins are worth A LOT.

Giant Solider of Stone, I could immediately tell the fake by the Rock text.

Saw that card and knew right away; brought so many memories of my old corner store that sold fake cards.

This video was such a big help haha I nearly bought some fake Yugioh cards from ebay thanks man! :)

Also look at the ATK and DEF stats. The numbers have a different/wrong font.

Please open your own grading service! I was thinking about grading some oldschool cards, but there seems to be no logic behind the scales. 10 with slight edgewear and 6 for a flawless card?

when i was a kid (when yugioh first came out) i remember a kid in my school having the 3 magnet warriors and valkyrion, he claimed they were real and they stood out to me as a fake right away long story short he was like look they're real and handed it to me and turns out they were stickers over common cards

Fake 1st Ed LOB. That's so frustrating.

Thanks for this video, brother. Keep up the great work. I enjoy watching your videos!

Great video! I have a question though. How do the printing patterns look on the authentic cards vs the fake cards? Have you ever taken a jeweler's loop and really looked at the printing patterns? I know with Magic the Gathering cards there is a certain inking pattern to look for as well as the fact that lettering on the card is added in a second layer which doesn't match the base inking pattern for the rest of the card. I don't have any fake Yu-Gi-Oh! cards to inspect unfortunately.

Damn dude, super insightful video. You are a true expert.

would you rip a fake card to show whats in side and a real cards

I have lots of respect for you OSE. a genuine person, a genuine collector, trying to purchase genuine cards. which is getting difficult these days. Cheers buddy! happy hunting!

anyone who used to play this back in the day knows they didnt have shit for consistency in their card printing i know a lot of people who used to get the start of the paper roll i myself wound up with a lot of misprint cards not to mention the ink running together in the words on the name of the creature and in the flavor text

With the Tri-Horned Dragon, you can also look at the Atk and Def area with the text. On the fake card, all of the text isn't in-line. Whilst on the two legal printed cards, the text is perfectly aligned.

I was so worried that my blue eyes sdk were fake because they were slightly different color, but now I'm pretty sure they are just different prints. Thanks for your knowledge!

Back in grade school I was the strongest player in my class because I was using an exodia monster with an atk and def stat of "limitless offensive force". It was a fake card and I didn't know back in the day lol

Reminds me when i was at locals one day, and this kid was trying to sell his fake yugioh cards and the vendor thought they were absolutely real. He didn't end up selling them though.

For the commons and rares, the dead giveaway is the gold square. On the back of the card, you can see the imprint from it.

As i´ve always knew, the quality of the cards back in the day was the better! i don´t know if it is because I started buying/playing YGO since LOB was new but i can easily know which ones are fake, as you stated by the reddish color of the back. Also a very useful tool is the smell, those old cards have some kind of sweet smelling, (which the new sets does not have anymore). Greeting from Mexico.

omg... these cards are so clearly fake... can't believe psa graded this...

You can notice in the card text too 7:45

The worst thing to deal with when buying cards it still makes me back of to this day today knowing the fakes that was going about back in the day like damm they was loads and loads of nasty fakes to really good counterfeit pokemon cards everywhere endlessly it was actually really difficult to even find buy or trade a legit one back then great times though.

Also where the silver foiling is for the name giant, the letters are touching slightly on the fake

You also missed how "giant soldier of stone" runs into the attribute symbol on the fake which was a huge give away

the ATK and DEF on that giant soldier of stone counterfeit were what gave it away to me instantly. they're in different fonts (from each other, not just the original), and the numbers, especially the zeros, are very thick and sloppily printed

You have to make a video of you attempting to play Yugioh in its current state. Would be a hit. Love your old school-centered content tho.

For the Tri-Horned Dragon, the flavor text runs into the left border as well. It's super obvious.

To summarize: Konami simply DOES NOT have a way to ensure that your product is authentic. People, and even stores, are prone to buying a FALSE product. Maybe a path would be: 1 - Generate a unique serial number for EACH card produced. 2 - Create a database system for CARDS and for CUSTOMERS, where the customer provides his name and reports to secure email, and ALL CARDS HE PURCHASES COULD BE REGISTERED IN HIS ACCOUNT. Thus, when he wanted to sell to a store or even to someone else, he could verify the authenticity of the card and, by selling it, could transfer possession of the card to the person through the konami system. But the konami just wants to know easy money and no quality work, what to do? ...

good for you for helpin out the ppl! lets just hope whoevers making these hasnt fixed all their errors xD

Wonder if these fakes are the ones that got Upper Deck sued.

The names on the Giant Soldiers are a quick giveaway in a side by side comparison. The weight and kerning are tighter on the authentic one.

Wow you officially scared me away from buying cards until I know more. So so so close and can almost not believe it

I was about to have a full set of foils from a game and a few rare promos sent to PSA, now I'm thinking I know more than they do...

Fake card has a blood orange color that's the word you were looking for.

Thank you for explaining the difference between real cards and fakes!

I haven't played yugioh in ages but fakes always had a fucked up hologram. Is this not still the case?

Phew! I got lucky lol. Thanks for uploading man if a fake ever slips by I'll know how to check.

how that giant soldier of stone sneaked past PSA, I will never know. they will bump your grade to a 9 because the centering is like an inch off, but they'll accept fake cards with glaring dead giveaways. very oxymoronic by my estimation

Question! Cant find an answer on google, in the video you mention some older cards having a darker brown/orange compared to newer ones? Can you elaborate that a little more ?? I purchased some on Google and everything else checks out except that some are lighter brown/orange while others are brown/orange. They aren't Dark Orange/red by any means

you can also tell by looking at the ATK/DEF numbers they seem different too.

I have a ton of old yu gi oh cards that I used to play with. I was a child, so the cards are in pretty bad conditions(I play magic now) but I have never used a cardsleeve until I started playing magic. Soooo a lot of my 1st edition cards are not worth as much, and I remember back when fake yu gi oh cards were in terrible laminations, I'm surprised they advanced so far.

i thought I had fakes as well but investigating with a loupe the patterns match. I have pulled out first edition cards straight from an entire booster box and there is always color variations and blatant issues where the printers were not properly oiled and cleaned. The gloss that they used back in the day fades over time, so just beware that using gloss as a measurement tool is not always the best methodology for spotting counterfeits. I worked in the printing industry for many of years and can tell you first hand that when you are busy, you will cut corners because sales team always over sales regardless of workload and current client expectations. I couldn't tell you the amount of times that quality control department was skipped because products had to be parceled up for logistics the following morning.

wow! you can even tell on the fake the lines in the foil look printed on vs the authentic the lines are in the foil and give off a sparckle. so im guessing if grading go with BGS?

you had me worried checking my cards lol, i bought an new old stock in box of LOB-E 1st eds like 8 years ago and was worried that they may have been these cards; I wasn't aware of the amazing quality fakes, it's definitely not the really old days of pokemon cards where they were clearly fakes lol. I wish I knew someone who could value my cards, they're probably not worth an incredible amount, but it would be nice to know which cards i could send in to get graded; I've been thinking of getting some graded for a long time, I just haven't put in the time to figure out which ones are worth it to send in.

Another giveaway is the corners of the cards. The real ones have more pointed corners than the more rounded fakes.

recently bought a psa graded 8 yugioh card on ebay, once i received it only came to find out the grading is bs, the card is best 7. The front holo was shifted about 2-3mm, two corners had wear, a slight gouge on the back upper center area and to top it off card sides are somewhat yellow compared to being white.

Thank you for this video! A LOB monster reborn I bought that arrived today is one of these fakes. After a long debate I managed to get a refund (I got them to watch this video). I wouldn't have thought it was fake if I didn't watch this.

Where you recommend to buy packs ? Cause you really got me thinking lol

I always have trouble identifying fakes from real cards by the 1st edition mark on the cards. It's really hard for me to tell. But the back is definitely noticeable. What are other red flags of fake cards? Because I've had trouble with them before...

card numbers in the bottom left corner also had their spacing off on all the fakes.

The red backs to the cards and the miss-aligned and inconsistent text of the GSOS are clear giveaways but color and text thickness variations definitely do happen with the newer holographic cards as I have witnessed from several trustworthy locations. This is especially true with box sets such as duel power. A ton of variation within that set for some reason.

Do PSA not have to give you like a written sheet on on why they gave them the grade they did???

great vid...I mostly play magic but I've got some first edition yugioh cards is there any your looking for??

wait that is a fake? I thought the Eye of Anubis Hologram on the bottom right would reflect with the eye and yu-gi-oh. Are fakes that good now where they're printed the Eye of Anubis Hologram into the card?

I remember I had a winged dragon of ra, never knew it was fake because it looked so legitimate (well at least for my young eyes) , a friend peeled it and found it was a sticker.

Please send this fake trihorn man,if it comes back graded it is going to make hell of a video🤣

What if the card has 1rst edition next to its number on the bottom left instead of in between the picture and description ? Does that make it fake if it isn’t placed there ?

Code on bottom for video games is also spaced a bit on fakes

Hey, Old School, you should also mention that the font on the ATK and DEF are completely off. Same thing with the numbers.

Also the word [ROCK] on the solder of stone on the fake one has like 3 different fonts and sizes in it and the brackets are also different sizes.

the numbers in the bottom left corner are off as well, the fakes have thinner numbers, you can really tell on the 5, the 8, and the 1

This video got scarier over time

I just bought like 2 packs for 3.55,but I noticed the 1st edition is at the bottom instead of under the image does that mean its fake?

This reminds me of one of the markets in lindon i went to, they had these clearly fake yugioh cards with laughable packaging to someone who knew yugioh. wanted to get a pack just for shits and giggles but never did (they also had structure decks )

PSA at it again.

Great video. You should invest in a small macro lens for your phone to show all the little details.

Can I just send you my cards and have you grade them?? You're honestly more reliable than PSA. I cant buy anything PSA graded anymore after this video. I need you to inspect them first

If you look at the Guardian Solider of Stone name on top, the fake ones last letter is MUCH closer to the attribute symbol than the real one.

Well done, you should definitely start a authentication company / business :D

Hey great video, lucky I checked out your video before buying.. "Dave and Adams Card World" on eBay right? So they are not legit sellers?

That's why I like becket more than PSA it might cost more but it's rare for them to grade a fake since they are very very strict and very professional(at least in my opinion)

So today I got 6 cards through the post that I bought off ebay, I bought 2 trecherous trap hole (gold rare) and they just look....suspect? I also bought 2 paladium Oracle mahad, also gold rare, they look less suspect, but they almost feel way nicer than a genuine yugioh card, almost like it's made of a different material altogether, I bought a paladium Oracle managed which I don't suspect really, and a dark magician gold rare which I definitely do suspect, are gold rares supposed to have a shiny gold border? Are they supposed to feel different? The back seems perfectly normal, no off colouring, no wrong holo colour and all text is crisp and smooth. I spent a lot of money on 11 cards and I'm not worried about 5 of them. My last question is does the little holographic stamp in the corner have any text as well as the symbol?

Plot twist, the authentic card he's using for comparison is actually the fake one.

Highly appreciate this video man. Is it only lob cards that are appearing like this though ?

I remember these fakes with the red/orange backs, it's super noticeable. My cousin bought some packs of MRD at a kiosk in a mall and we noticed right away they were fake. when we were kids we had the original booster boxes from lob and magic ruler so we knew a lot. unfortunately as kids we played with the cards so much and never used sleeves. But yeah I always hated the fakes. only old schools can notice right away I guess..

screw that company

btw just subscribed. GENUINE content. Cheers buddy!

I haven't played yugioh in years but I clicked this video for whatever reason and afterwards decided to go through my old collection to look for fakes. I must've been swindled soooooooo many times as a kid because holy crap there was soooooooo many fakes lol.

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when I was a kid, I could quickly tell what a fake card was and what wasn't, and for psn having trouble? thats very sad...