Is anyone here an original owner of a Jumbo Shadow Lugia card? It's pretty horrible for the community when they can range from $100 to $10,000 based on condition and yet there's almost no trusted source for authentication.
I've gathered information on about 24% of the PSA population of Jumbo Shadow Lugias, and 76% of the ones in my research are suspiciously impossible to find evidence of authenticity for.
My running thread where I make my weekly findings / updates public is here: https://www.elitefourum.com/t/most-difficult-card-to-authenticate-the-mysterious-case-of-jumbo-shadow-lugia/61171/23
One snippet from my thread concerns the fact that all PSA-graded copies fall into 1 of 3 exact variants:
We only have proof that one variant is real (Variant #1 below) - but all PSA graded copies fall into 1 of 3 exact variants. There are 74 graded certs by PSA and ~23.0% of the entire population I was able to find and populate below (17 in total):
1. Variant 1: Contains 2 TMs on the backside, has the white speck above ‘developed’ in the copyright region, has a drop shadow on the ‘BASIC’ text, but the ‘BASIC’ text itself is medium-bolded. Examples include certs 71294671, 71294672, 71294673 (yes all 3 of these were sold by the same eBay seller and when I reached out to comment they said they were the original owner and got them at Nintendo World in 2005), and 89689485 (4 certs, or 23.5% of public certs).
2. Variant 2: similar to Variant 1 it has 2 TMs on the back and a drop shadow on the ‘BASIC’ text, but different from Variant 1 it is missing the white speck above ‘developed’ and the ‘BASIC’ text is heavy-bolded rather than medium bolded. Examples include certs 76676770, 88897780, 97883219, 115881251, 119558248, and 126913332 (7 certs, or 41.2% of public certs). The last eBay account sellers of 88897780 and 119558248 got back to me claiming they are the original owners but they could not say from where they got the card so I’d still put this into question until further clarity is given.
3. Variant 3: is the most different. It has the white speck above ‘developed’ but it is missing the upside down TM on the back, has no drop shadow on ‘BASIC’, and ‘BASIC’ is not bolded. Certs include 66214051, 99854269, 101846776, 126231571, 135235558, and 141711389 (6 certs, or 35.3% of public certs).
The issue is that 100% of people who I speak with and are original owners of the card who actually got them in 2005-2009 at official Pokemon events all have Variant 1. There are other reddit posts discussing worse fakes (e.g. blurry text or discoloring) but my research is solely focused on visually crisp cards on seemingly accurate jumbo card stock with consistent patterns, sizes, and colors to actual cards that PSA has marked as real. I have found online forums and photos accusing fakes of this card that date as far back as 2007 so meeting someone who isn't an original owner but obtained Variants 2 or 3 on the playground back in the day isn't necessarily compelling enough to prove authenticity. If you want more nuance to why there's no consensus you can read the full blog thread I linked.
by Alive_Possible_1333