Anyone familiar with these? + Looking for vintage TCG

[ttjust02]

Hey Eveyone. I was going through my old TCG cards from when I was a 90's kid and came across these:

Comments

[megalopunny]

The TCG stickers are bootlegs. They're so high in price because of novelty and rarity due to most of us sticking them on things as kids lmao I have some Rapidash/Ponyta of them myself.

[ttjust02]

How do you know they're bootlegs? Did they have bootlegs of these 20 years ago?

[artsyalraune]

if anything, bootlegs were more common back then to find out in the wild because everything was new and without precedent yet. I'm assuming you're from the US, and the fact these aren't in English if they were distributed in the US is another sign these weren't an official product.
These days there might be more bootlegs in total but you have to trip over them online while looking for something else

Not to knock on bootlegs if that's what you're actually looking for! When it comes to VINTAGE bootlegs, as long as they're not being sold with the intent to deceive the buyer, I think they're pretty cool. I have a few vintage bootlegs from my childhood collection cleaned up and hanging out with my formal collection. They just don't make 'em like that anymore, you know? the legal system is more robust, now, I guess

[megalopunny]

Yes, they had bootlegs of cards and many other Pokemon items around the world. The G1 era of Pokemon merch was a wild west before Nintendo started caring about protecting their copywrites from unofficial merch production which is why items like mirage plush exist. TCG sticker bootlegs from the G1 era are well known booties that we're distributed in 25 cent vending machines by companies looking to cash in on the card crazes. Besides knowing that official card stickers were never produced a lack of proper copywrite, the often poor quality, the nature of distribution, and the use of Japanese instead of English is how we know they're bootlegs.

[crispycreature]

These are bootleg vending stickers! Most asking prices on eBay are pretty inflated- I buy them routinely and they usually sell for 5-15 apiece

[ttjust02]

Guess them being bootleg makes sense. It was still nice finding them in my old collection though. A nice blast of nostalgia.

[tenkohime]

Like everyone else said, they are bootleg, but they're popular now and command good prices, because people think they look cool. I remember my bro had Lt. Surge's Raichu and I always thought it looked cooler than the real one. I'm pretty sure I used all of mine on school binders.

[okgod]

I have the alakazam bootleg tcg sticker on one of my binders from when I was a kid :) Even though they're bootlegs I think they're really neat! Also, I think I can hook you up with all the non-holos that you need. I'm at work rn but I can look through my cards later for you.

[ttjust02]

Thanks, that'd be helpful.

[okgod]