How to tell if a Pokémon card is fake

One check on its own proves very little. Real cards vary between print runs, and good fakes get the obvious things right. What gives a fake away is a pile-up of small mistakes. So work through the list below, fastest first, and count how many the card fails. The best reference you can have is a common from the same set that you pulled from a pack yourself. If you don’t have one, the official Pokémon TCG card database shows the genuine card’s name, numbers and text.

The 10 checks, fastest first

The first four take seconds and catch most cheap fakes. The rest catch the better ones.

How do you spot a fake Pokémon card from the text?

Read every word on the card. Text is the cheapest thing for a counterfeiter to get wrong and the easiest thing for you to check.

The é in Pokémon

Genuine English cards spell it “Pokémon”, with the accent, everywhere it appears: in attack text, in the rules box and in the tiny copyright line at the bottom. A missing accent is one of the oldest and most reliable tells. Cardmarket’s counterfeit guide calls it a dead giveaway, because a real printing error there is so unlikely.

Font, spacing and colors

Pokémon cards use a distinctive typeface. Fakes often swap in something close but wrong, with wider or uneven gaps between letters. Look at letters with tails (g, y, j) and at the attack names, then compare with your real card. Colors are a clue too: fakes often print too dark or washed out, and blues can come out muted or purplish.

Energy symbols

Check every symbol: the type in the corner, the attack costs, weakness, resistance and retreat cost. On fakes the symbol inside each circle is often too big for its circle, off center or a slightly different shape. One exception: a blank, cloudy circle can be correct on an attack that costs nothing.

Numbers and things that don’t exist

Look up the card in the database and compare the HP, attack damage and collector number. HP has gone up over the years, so judge it against that set, not against old cards. Then look for things that were never printed: a “2nd Edition” stamp (English cards only came as 1st Edition or Unlimited), rock-paper-scissors hands in a speech bubble, a Pokémon on the wrong evolution stage, or flavor text that names a different Pokémon.

What does the back of a fake Pokémon card look like?

The back is a fast way to sort a stack, but judge its details rather than its exact shade of blue. Genuine backs vary a little from one print run to the next, so color alone isn’t proof.

• The border. On a real card the dark blue border is crisp all the way round and meets the swirl in an almost hard line. On many fakes it fades into the background, especially in the corners.
• The light patch by the Poké Ball. To the right of the ball’s red top there’s a lighter blue area with visible detail. Fakes often turn it into a plain blob.
• The finish. English card backs are matte. A back that shines like the front of a full art, or feels slick like a new deck of playing cards, is a strong warning.
• Compare like with like. Japanese cards use a different back design from English ones, so a Japanese card won’t match an English back. That on its own doesn’t make it fake.

Real vs fake Pokémon cards: holo and texture

Real foil sits only where that card is meant to have it, and it moves in a set pattern as you tilt it. Fakes tend to use a cheap rainbow film that shimmers the same way across the whole card, or print the shine as a flat image that doesn’t move at all.

Modern ultra rares are the clearest case. Full arts, V, VMAX, GX and ex cards from recent sets have fine raised lines pressed into the surface, like a fingerprint you can feel with a fingertip. Most fakes are smooth and glossy, or have the texture printed on as a picture. Cardmarket notes that a rare misprint can lack texture, so if this is the only thing wrong, keep checking. Older holos are easier to judge side by side: tilt both cards under the same lamp and watch whether the pattern matches.

If you have a 10x loupe, look at a flat color area. Most fakes made on home or inkjet printers lack the fine rosette of dots that a press leaves behind. Factory-made fakes can have it, so a rosette is not proof the card is real.

Does the Pokémon card light test work?

Yes, as one check among several. The Pokémon Company’s own support page says counterfeits are often easy to see through when you hold them up to a bright light. Genuine cards have a dark layer in the middle that blocks most of the light, and many fakes don’t. It only works as a comparison, so do it properly:

1. Take a genuine card from the same era. A common or a basic energy is fine.
2. Turn on your phone flashlight and hold both cards about 2 inches above it, side by side.
3. Look at how much light comes through each. A real card shows a dim, even glow.
4. Be suspicious if the suspect card lets through much more light, or none at all.

Don’t press the card against the flashlight. Collectors on Elite Fourum point out that a torch held right against a card will shine through even a real one. Older Wizards of the Coast cards and some Japanese printings also let through more light than modern English cards, which is why you compare against a card from the same era.

What is the rip test, and should you do it?

No. The rip test means tearing a card in half to look for the dark middle layer that genuine cards have and most fakes lack. It works, but it destroys the card, and if the card turns out to be real you’ve just ruined it.

You rarely need to. Look closely at the card’s edge under a bright light, ideally with a loupe, and you can often see the dark core between the two white layers. If you’ve bought a bulk lot and suspect the whole batch, tear one worthless common from that lot, never the card you care about.

Are gold Pokémon cards fake?

Some gold cards are real and most cheap ones are not. The genuine ones fall into a few groups:

• Gold secret rares. Pulled from ordinary booster packs. They have textured gold foil, normal card stock, a normal blue back and a collector number higher than the set’s total.
• Metal cards. A handful of solid metal display cards, sold only inside Ultra-Premium Collection boxes. The first two, gold-faced Base Set Charizard and Pikachu, came in the Celebrations collection in October 2021. Later ones came in the Arceus and 151 collections. They aren’t playable.
• Burger King, 1999. Gold-plated metal cards in a plastic Poké Ball with a certificate. These were never part of the trading card game.

The fakes are the boxes and bags of dozens of gold “VMAX” or “ultra rare” cards sold for a few dollars, often described vaguely as metal, gold foil or custom cards. Tells: a shiny gold back (genuine cards have the blue back), flat gold energy symbols with no color, impossible HP, and no texture. If it’s a gold card with a gold back, it’s fake.

How to avoid fake Pokémon cards on eBay and Amazon

Buy from the right channel, judge the listing’s own photos, and treat a price far below the going rate as the biggest warning of all. Pokémon’s support page says a pack priced well below suggested retail is a near-certain sign of counterfeit product, and that flea markets are where it gets the most reports of fakes.

• On eBay, use the Authenticity Guarantee. Single cards sold for $200 or more in the Collectible Card Games category, by a US or Canadian seller to a US buyer, go to PSA for inspection before they reach you. The threshold was $250 until eBay lowered it this year. Sets, lots and sealed packs aren’t covered.
• Ask for the right photos. Stock images prove nothing. Ask for the actual card front and back, out of the sleeve, in daylight, plus a close-up of the edge. A seller with a real card has no reason to refuse.
• On Amazon, check who sells it. Look at the “Ships from” and “Sold by” lines and prefer Amazon itself or a known retailer over an unknown third party. Skip listings for gold card bundles, “proxy” or “custom” cards, and boxes promising nothing but GX, EX or VMAX hits.
• Check sealed product. Cardmarket lists the tells: wrinkled, bubbled or burned shrink wrap, more than one seam along the side, a wrong or missing Poké Ball watermark, a product name that was never released, and “Pokémon USA Inc.” on anything newer than 2009, a company name that no longer exists.

Price checks matter as much as photos. Our guide to working out what a Pokémon card is worth shows how to find recent sales, so you know when a deal is too good to be real. The cards fakers copy most are the famous ones, so expect extra care with anything on the most valuable Pokémon cards list.

What to do if you think a card is fake

Stop handling it as if it’s valuable, keep the listing and messages, and get a second opinion before you decide.

1. Run the ten checks again next to a genuine card from the same set, and write down which ones it fails.
2. Take it to a local card shop. Pokémon’s own support page suggests shops that specialize in trading cards as a place to have a suspect card looked at.
3. If you bought it online, open a return or a claim on the marketplace you used, with photos of the problems you found.
4. For an expensive card, grading settles it. Graders check that a card is genuine before they grade it. See what PSA grading costs and how to send cards to PSA.

And if the card passes every check, it’s probably real. The next question is whether it’s worth slabbing. Our guide on whether grading Pokémon cards is worth it walks through the sums, and Buddy’s fake check will do the comparing for you once it’s on your phone.