Everything
In a world where wannabe celebrities will do anything – and everything – in their power to claw their way to the top, it would seem that YouTube ‘sensations’ Logan and Jake Paul, brothers from Ohio, just can’t establish any form of legitimacy amongst their ‘peers’.
Take Jake Paul, for example. Only last month, the social media influencer-turned-boxer was seen flaunting a fake Richard Mille timepiece in an Instagram post promoting his fight with Tyron Woodley.
Ouch.
Jake Paul wearing a fake Richard Mille RM55 🤦🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/pu6lHNWtqa
— Watch Anish (@WatchAnish) December 16, 2021
But now, it’s Logan Paul who seems to be in an embarrassing situation of his own. The 26-year old recently paid a whopping $3.5M USD for a first-edition Pokémon set, only to have pundits slam what would be an ultra-rare set as being a fake.
It begs the question: when you’re about to drop millions on an item from a foreign eBay user via the internet, let alone any item worth a pretty penny, wouldn’t you think to have it verified first?
That’s the million-dollar question. While it’s well documented that the Pokémon TCG (Trading Card Game) universe is rightfully a business in itself these days, long gone are the days where users can treat it as simply a humble schoolyard trading card game.
Beyond the fans who actually play the game, there’s a whole division of serious collectors who will do anything to seek out first edition cards and rare booster packs – like what Logan Paul thought he was buying. Hence, when Paul dropped 3.5M smackeroos on an apparent “sealed and authenticated” first edition Pokémon booster boxes, heads went turning amongst the Pokémon TCG community – and beyond.
For those that aren’t in the know, a single Pokémon booster box contains dozens of Pokémon card booster packs, with each pack containing a randomised set of 10 cards apiece. Typically, Paul’s acquisition alone would have guaranteed him hundreds of sought-after first edition Pokémon cards, some of which could be worth hundreds of thousands individually.
But here’s the kicker… suspicion ran rife when it was disclosed that the Pokémon set sold to Paul was done so by a Canadian eBay seller with little to no feedback and an apparent lack of grammatical efficacy.
Do you hear that? That’s the sound of metaphorical alarm bells ringing wild.
Red flags were scattered around pre and post-sale, too. Take the seller, for example, not allowing an inspection of the collection before purchase. Or the fact that the collector’s box was deemed ‘genuine’ by an authentication service that had little-to-no experience in judging the authenticity of Pokémon cards.
Things just don’t quite add up.
Online community PokéBeach also conducted a thorough investigation of their own on Paul’s Pokémon set, finding suspicious flaws like foreign barcodes and unwrapped plastic of certain booster packs.
Long story short: to the experts, it looks like Paul got scammed.
we cracked open my $3,500,000 Pokémon box to see if it’s REAL or FAKE.
coming tomorrow… pic.twitter.com/oIEfWMMX74
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 12, 2022
But to prove that 1). Logan Paul isn’t a dud and 2). he wouldn’t be stupid enough to purchase a dud Pokémon set worth millions, Paul is officially flying to Chicago to meet with Baseball Card Exchange (BBCE) – the same company that initially attempted to authenticate his Pokémon cards – where he hopes to quash reports that he spent $3.5M on a fake Pokémon collection, turning his unfortunate events into a completed publicity stunt.
While this spectacle is surely damaging to the Paul brand, it would seem that the jokes continue to stack up against the brothers, who are vocal about exploring any new investment opportunity presented to them without doing the proper due diligence.
Stay tuned for the verdict tomorrow – all will be revealed!
