Considering that these fakes out of China are looking really good and the small details that are wrong with them, probably can be fixed.

What do you think of doing something like the US treasury. At major tournaments or a mail in program where people could say mail in their duals, forces or other cards of high value and getting one back with the same art and everything but has the new foil or other counterfeiting measures being taken by wizards.

Sure the old ones would still be good, but I think that it would help reassure the collectors that what they have is genuine.

No the company would not reprint them in the sense that they are going to make more, but simply doing a one to one basis of an exchange for the cards that are seeing counterfeiting. Would it affect the value, probably in some sense that cards that were in terrible shape now are NM but have the new features.

Those that wanted to keep theirs, simply would have their cards checked for authenticity. After awhile in theory they wouldn't have to check as many as people converted.

Consider the alternative they do nothing, the cards are printed in oblivion and the value drops.

Think about all the cards ruined by hurricanes, floods, etc that could now be traded in for tournament playable versions. Even if you had to pay a processing fee it'd be worth it and it would even drive up the value of older ones as people would prefer those over the newer ones and they'd be come more rare as they get destroyed by WOTC or taken out of circulation.

alternatively, learn to spot fakes.

and the logistics of reprinting millions? of cards just to update them all, with ZERO monetary gain for the company? Good luck getting Hasbro to even think about it.
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"He fights you not because you have wronged him, but because you are there."

quote:

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Originally posted by Timmyhill:
What would stop people from abusing this? For example I could buy a "Heavily played" Underground sea from tcgplayer for $900 then get it certified. Which would give me a NM sea that could maybe sell for $1800.

This could be an extreme case but I think its still something that would have to be worked out for sure.

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I would be absolutely shocked if the new cards were worth anywhere near the value of the originals. It's not like they'd be reprinting Alpha and Beta cards, it would be new cards with the authenticity holographs and such. I don't see this ever happening, but wouldn't mind much if it did, as a way to help battle fakes.

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I actually think beat valuable cards would increase in value so they could trade them in. I think someone else brought up a good point the ability for a card to be played again that otherwise was not sleeve playable before.

You could still play with both, but the people with the older cards would always be worried that theirs were fake or having them checked for authenticity.

As for the cost, What does it really cost to make a magic card? .01 .005 more less? Someone said you can buy an entire set with shipping included for every fake card that website sells for 28.00. 28.00 for thousands of dollars worth of cards. What is to keep someone from buying 10k of fakes and just duping everyone at the stores and events.

Sure people play this game for the fun, but a large portion of them collect. Would you pay 4.00 for a pack of cards that you could get a playset of the entire set from China for 10.00? No you wouldn't. I think wizards has a lot at stake hear and that is why I would like to see such a program.

I would say read this article it sums up lots of angles on what makes MTG successful
http://blog.betable.com/game-monetization-lessons-from-magic-the-gath/

For those that say this would cost to much money, again what does a card really cost and for the cost of maintaining a product even if you had to pay 5 people 50k a year for this program, 250k is a heck of a deal to pay for the a company that does over 400 million dollars worth of sales in mtg cardboard...

quote:

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Originally posted by Timmyhill:
What would stop people from abusing this? For example I could buy a "Heavily played" Underground sea from tcgplayer for $900 then get it certified. Which would give me a NM sea that could maybe sell for $1800.

This could be an extreme case but I think its still something that would have to be worked out for sure.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Timmyhill:
What would stop people from abusing this? For example I could buy a "Heavily played" Underground sea from tcgplayer for $900 then get it certified. Which would give me a NM sea that could maybe sell for $1800.

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The situation you are describing would not occur in anywhere near that extreme a value difference. Nobody would sell a card for $900 when the original owner could give it to WOTC, get an $1800 card in return, then sell the new card for $1800.

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Originally posted by slurpee:
As for the cost, What does it really cost to make a magic card? .01 .005 more less?

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I would presume this program would collapse all multiple edition cards into a single reprint edition. As in Alpha Underground Sea and Revised Underground Sea would return the exact same new card.

You've now lost cards that were for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from legitimate cards. Cards you could have played in tournaments. Cards you spent hundreds of dollars acquiring. And now you're likely to get a letter from Hasbro's lawyer threatening you with a lawsuit for breach of copyright.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

If you buy a car that was sold as legitimate, take it in for a tuneup, and the serial number comes up as stolen, what then? In that situation you skipped one or more verification steps and you need to deal with the repercussions.

Now, losing the utility of a fake card is a bit slippery as well. If your card is recognized as fake in a tournament, it is removed from the deck and you should have an opportunity to replace it at your own cost in a timely fashion. Who can say if that would ever happen, but the specter of it always exists.

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Originally posted by wjuseck:
I get that, but I would put them in deep storage rather than burn them like old currency or something.

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That doesn't seem like it would be in their interests.

And in any case, the circumstance I'm talking about is one in which our hypothetical person does not know she has a forgery, nor does she really have any reasonable indications to that effect. She merely bought a card on ebay, thinking it was legit, and sent it in only to lose hundreds of dollars. Even if it wasn't shredded, there'd be no reason to return the forgery to her (in fact, there are good reasons not to do so).

I suppose WOTC could just accept all cards that are returned and aren't obvious forgeries, provided the processing fee was sufficiently high. Some forgers would get legit cards back in return, but WOTC would still have made (enough) money from the fee. I suspect, however, that the fees would be too high to be workable, given the projected number of printings required. Seems like a lot of work (and cost) for little gain.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

To be honest I doubt WotC would go to lengths such as a redemption programme as they have stated the reserved list is off limits, full stop. Also consider what a redemption for authorized, anti-counterfeit measures embedded cards would do to the FBB dual land market. It would bloody tank hard as people swap out their Unlimited / Revised WB duals for new BB versions.

However, if they did such a thing those people keeping their originals would see the value go even higher as those cards become that much rarer. As far as fakes coming in to be redeemed it may actually be useful to the company to have counterfeits being willingly sent in, making the collection screening and sourcing triangulation that much easier. And yes, I would fully expect them to destroy the vast lion's share of redeemed cards as to retain them would be suspicious. What would the company do with a mass quantity of old cards on the reserved list? Insert them as treasures in the next trip to Zendikar? Quietly sell them on the secondary market as some black stock issue?

No, they'd have to destroy them, bringing us back to the originals being retained by collectors being breathtakingly expensive.

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Originally posted by Goaswerfraiejen:
And in any case, the circumstance I'm talking about is one in which our hypothetical person does not know she has a forgery, nor does she really have any reasonable indications to that effect. She merely bought a card on ebay, thinking it was legit, and sent it in only to lose hundreds of dollars. Even if it wasn't shredded, there'd be no reason to return the forgery to her (in fact, there are good reasons not to do so).

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I guess I'm unclear on why this particular issue should be different than any other item where someone finds out that they've been scammed. It's a fake, and there is no good reason to allow them to continue to use this card if WotC finds that fact out. Yeah, it sucks for them that it wasn't real, but if I accidentally accept a fake $100 bill and take it to the bank where they find out, they sure as hell aren't going to give me anything for it even if it's a virtually perfect forgery detectable only by trained professionals.

Honestly, that's part of the appeal of this to me, to authenticate what's out there and give people a measure of confidence that their items are genuine.

The more I think about it, I wonder if another approach might be interesting. Rather than sending in cards and having a reprinted card sent back, I wonder if there would be a way to watermark or stamp the card itself in some manner that can't be replicated or add a holographic sticker that wouldn't be able to be removed and put onto a different card. Then WotC could charge a fee to verify a card, and it would be similar to PSA or someone certifying a grade, but with people who can better catch fakes. This would allow that NM Beta Black Lotus to still have the collector appeal of an old card, but with an easy way to know it's legit.

__________________
There's no need to fear, UNDERDOG is here!

All your Gruul Nodorogs are belong to me. Trade them to me, please!

Report rules violations.

quote:

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Originally posted by nderdog:
I guess I'm unclear on why this particular issue should be different than any other item where someone finds out that they've been scammed. It's a fake, and there is no good reason to allow them to continue to use this card if WotC finds that fact out. Yeah, it sucks for them that it wasn't real, but if I accidentally accept a fake $100 bill and take it to the bank where they find out, they sure as hell aren't going to give me anything for it even if it's a virtually perfect forgery detectable only by trained professionals.

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It's not really all that different. But it would result in unhappy players and bad press (by itself, not a problem, but you don't want to accrue too much in a short period of time), and might discourage people from trying to redeem their cards (which could easily become a problem). There's a lot of risk on the player's side of things, and not much reward. There are a lot of costs on WotC's side of things, and I'm not convinced there's much reward there either unless they get rid of the Reserved List.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

quote:

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Originally posted by nderdog:
.

The more I think about it, I wonder if another approach might be interesting. Rather than sending in cards and having a reprinted card sent back, I wonder if there would be a way to watermark or stamp the card itself in some manner that can't be replicated or add a holographic sticker that wouldn't be able to be removed and put onto a different card. Then WotC could charge a fee to verify a card, and it would be similar to PSA or someone certifying a grade, but with people who can better catch fakes. This would allow that NM Beta Black Lotus to still have the collector appeal of an old card, but with an easy way to know it's legit.

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Being able to certify that certain cards are authentic, with the certification coming direct from the producer oft eh product, is a very attractive proposition. Whether WotC wants to allocate resources to this particular endeavour is an interesting business call.

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Originally posted by headumpire:

Also, as for the fakes, from the reports I read, the fakes ARE BAD. Ill consider a fake decent when it only has 1 or less things wrong. These have a list of things different about them. Just be smart

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It seems like we aren't talking about the same forgeries, then. These reportedly pass the bend and light tests, although they lack the blue paper (so if you tear 'em up, you'll see). Yes, some of the samples we've seen have font and text size problems. Rectifying that is hardly a difficult proposition, however. Perhaps this batch is relatively easy to identify; all indications are that the next will be much more difficult to spot.

__________________
"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me." -T.S. Eliot

RIP Ari

quote:

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Originally posted by headumpire:
I like the idea, however the serial number idea is much better in my opionion.

Also, as for the fakes, from the reports I read, the fakes ARE BAD. Ill consider a fake decent when it only has 1 or less things wrong. These have a list of things different about them. Just be smart

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I imagine serialising the cards will be WotC's last resort, as it would provide important clues to the print run sizes. A watermark or holo-stamp doesn't give this information away and can be visually appealing. Remember all of these measures will need to be on the front of the card, a highly limited and regimented space indeed.

The blacklight idea is interesting, though then we'd all need to add portable blacklights the the junk already rolling about our gamebags.