Logan Paul Paid $3.5 Million For Pokemon Cards And It Looks Like They Might Be Fake

Vice - Last month, Logan Paul, huge Pokémon fan, boxer, and semi-retired YouTuber who has done some questionable things for the vlog, was very excited to acquire a case of six First Edition Base Set Pokémon card booster boxes for $3.5 million. This was a holy grail-type purchase: For years, the Pokémon fan community has wondered if any undiscovered unopened cases like this even still existed. 

It turns out, maybe it didn’t exist after all.

According to an extremely thorough investigation by Pokémon fan news site PokeBeach, several clues tipped off the Pokemon fan community that this set might be inauthentic. Paul eventually bought the cards after a series of sales last year. The case originally popped up on eBay in March 2021, when the Pokemon card market was hotter than its ever been. And yet, the seller, number1pokemonmaster, chose to sell on eBay rather than Sothebys or some other highly reputable auction house (eBay is fine, but it’s rare for a collectible worth literally millions of dollars to be sold there, as PokeBeach points out.) 

Talk about a kick in the dick.

Three and a half is a lot of dollars to pay for Japanese cartoon cards. I don't care if they're first run, one of a kind, or whatever. And that's if they're real. 

These most likely aren't even real and it looks like Logan got taken to the cleaners by an all-pro scammer.

First off, I didn't even know eBay auctions were allowed to go that high.

Second off, isn't rule numero uno when buying anything on eBay, that's not a pack of knockoff iPhone chargers, to check the sellers feedback history?

number1pokemonmaster had very little feedback, and their account is seemingly no longer active at all. The seller had three different stories for where he got the cards: from an old woman’s estate sale in Canada, for his 12th birthday, and abandoned in an attic. The box originally sold to the highest bidder for $72,500, but the deal fell through when the seller refused to allow the buyer to inspect the cards themselves. And the box was authenticated by a company called Baseball Card Exchange, which doesn’t have expertise in Pokemon cards.

Also, if you're coughing up that much money for something, aren't you requesting verified information, or authenticity docs? At the very least inspecting the pictures and checking out serial numbers?

Maybe the most damning evidence presented by PokeBeach was that the barcode on the box doesn’t match the printed product code. The label also isn’t faded, as labels made in the 90s from the card maker Wizards of the Coast typically are.

I'm by no means calling Logan Paul an idiot. The guy has made more money than I'll ever make and continues to prove himself as a marketing machine. I actually met him this summer at my spot in Cleveland FWD, and he, and his father, were both surprisingly really nice and cordial guys. But I am calling his financial advisor an idiot. The guy/girl he trusts with safeguarding his money let him fall for this one. 

If those red flags weren't big enough, this one definitely should have raised suspicions.

The fact that it was even on eBay at all was suspicious—selling such a valuable item outside of an auction house, and then mailing it to the buyer for $30 via Canada Post, were other red flags.