There has been an increase in the number of fake Trading Cards that are being sold to unsuspecting buyers. One example is the increase in the number of fake Obelisk The Tormentor YuGiOh cards. This has been due to the great demand for The Egyptian God Cards by collectors. These cards are not cheap, in fact an individual card can cost you anything from USD 28.00 (GBP 15.00) up to USD 46.00 (GBP 25.00).  

                Some of these copies are extremely good, however most are extremely poor reproductions. The God Cards are quite unique compared to other YuGiOh cards in the fact that the reverse of the cards are different to other cards. In this instance I will explain what you should be looking for in a genuine Obelisk The Tormentor Card.

                The Obelisk The Tormentor Card has a blue coloured front, this means that the rear of the card should also be the same blue colour and not brown. The Words YuGiOh and Konami should also be missing leaving just the swirl pattern.

                On the front of the card the stars at the top should be slightly blurred as on all YuGiOh monster cards. There is a tendancy on fake cards for the stars to be clear and distinct.

                The lettering of the name of the card on an original should be a dull gold colour almonst looking like bronze in appearance. However you will find fake cards range from normal lettering, silver coloured lettering or gold lettering that appears bright and shiny. There is a tendency for the latter to also be patchy in appearance with the blue of the card showing through the gold.

                To the right the Japanese symbol on a fake card tends to be rather thick, and gives the appearance of being slightly too white in colour. In fact the white colour in this area of the card is so bold that it is difficult to read the word DIVINE above the symbol.

                Moving down to the picture a few of the fakes have very poor reproduction of Obelisk giving the impression of poor artwork.

                Below the picture and to the left some fake copies have the words 1st Edition or Limited Edition, this does not appear on a genuine card.

                To the right of this should be the card ID number, which for a genuine card is GB1-002 some of the fake cards have the number GB1-038. This last Card ID does not exist. The GB1 prefix stands for Game Boy as these were released in packs of Yugioh games for the Nintendo Game Boy.

                The body of text is also a very common area of error, and the counterfeiters have not quite got their acts together yet in this area. If you look at one of your own YuGiOh cards you will notice that the type set is of the similar appearance. The fake cards always seem to have the Monster Type and ATK and DEF in a type set that is wrong. With the Monster Type section the lettering on a fake card is three times the size of the main body text and should be about twice the size. The numbers after ATK and DEF on a fake card are taller that the words ATK and DEF and should be the same size. In the main body of the text they also seem to have forgotten how to spell and the word WINDS becomes WIBDS and the word COMING becomes CONING. If you are at logger heads with a seller they may try and make out that these are printing errors by Konami, well it's not true.

                  On the bottom left of the card there should be a line of 16 Japanese characters. These characters replace the serial number found on normal cards.  On some fake cards the Japanese characters in the bottom left are missing. On some the characters have been replaced by the forgers own interpretation of the characters. On others a normal serial number has been inserted. Now the serial number does provide another use, which is for owners of the computer YuGiOh games. If this serial number is typed in to the game it allows you to have that card in your deck. Now if you were to type in the number expecting to get a Blue Eyes White Dragon for instance and you got Dragon Capture Jar, you've probably got a fake card.

                  The Takahashi Copyright markings to the right of the Japanese characters should also be present on a genuine card. Some fake cards are totaly without anything in this area. Other than that the forgers seem to have managed to get the copyright writting right. 

                 The small square hologram to the right of this also tends to be of varying quality on a fake card. However the definition of the outer parallel lines on each side of the Eye of Ra on a fake card are poorly defined and sometimes merge. On a genuine card these are well defined.         

                  You will also find that on some fake cards you can peel the front and rear of the cards apart. You may also find that the card is so shiny that it slips in your fingers when you hold it. I have seen one card that has been scanned with a large thumb print in the bottom left of the card. This is quite a big giveaway to the authenticity of the card. 

              (Appologies for the size of the pics, contact me if you would like to see the larger versions) Here on the left is an example of the front of a fake card. This one is virtualy identical to the real card shown on the right however there are various mistakes on it. Starting at the top the most obvious difference is that the gold effect lettering is far too shiney on the fake card. Next the symbol to the right, which has the word DIVINE at the top is not as defined as the real one. You can just make out on the picture on the left that the stars are much clearer and not blurred as they should be. The difference in the definition between the two pictures can also be seen and is quite obvious, with the fake card being a lot less detailed. You can also see the diffenences in the colouring of the cards, from the picture above it is not easy to make out the differences in the sizes of the text and numbers in the bottom half of the card.

            The second set of photos show the rear of the cards. The thing that stands out the most as mentioned at the start is the ommision of the logos on the rear of the cards and the fact that the rear should be the same colour as the front. You can see on the fake card on the left how much lighter it is and how easy it is to see the swirl pattern, again this is due to the copying process not being able to get the colours right.

           The third photo is a slightly larger image of the fake card.

            With some fake cards you may also find the card is either slightly larger or slightly smaller than your normal YuGiOh card.

             I will be producing a guide to all the God cards including the GX god cards, as the popularity of the latter has produced a ready market in fakes of these as well. Remember you may think you are getting a bargain, but it could well be a fake. If you see a listing and the picture is blurred or distant it could well be you are going to get a fake. This is done deliberately so you can't see the card and if you complain you will be told you got the card in the picture.

             Hopefully this has been of some help to those of you looking for a genuine Obelisk The Tormentor God Card and good luck in your hunting. And yes I do sell CCG and TCG (not on ebay anymore, only at my stand alone store Asgardtradingcards in the dot com world) but this guide hasn't been produced to sell you cards it has been produced to warn you of the thousands of fake cards out there and those people who are happy to relieve you of your money.

            If you need an authentication service for fake cards, to try and get your money back from Paypal etc then again send me an email and I can point you in the right direction.