I bought 480 basic lands on a local auction site (my country's clone of eBay) for about ten bucks, from some guy.
They came sealed in transparent plastic packs, 80 lands, 16 of every type in them.
After going through one pack and almost rubbing my fingerprints off on the cards, I compared the lands with one that I got from an actual store earlier. Their colors are visibly paler, their black isn't nearly as black and their surface isn't nearly as smooth. They smell different from my new cards, but I only have Modern Horizons and Throne of Eldraine to compare, so that's not hard evidence. I also thought the corners aren't as round but I found variations of that even on legit MtG cards.
Do you think they could be fake? Fake basic lands?
The seller was really nice and the idea of somebody counterfeiting BASIC LANDS and selling them for less than a dollar/pack of 80 seems absurd, so I want to ask your opinions before I confront the guy about it. Obviously I'm gonna keep the cards, but it just bugs me a bit, y'know.
Additional thoughts:
- I got back into MtG after ten years or so and I know the cards' quality has changed since then. But they look and feel different from the same basic lands from the same set that I already had.
- I read on this forum that the quality varies between European and US cards. I'm European, so I guess it's possible that the seller somehow got those cards from a US source and that's why they're different... but I dunno. It doesn't seem very plausible to me that the US product would be so starkly different.
They came sealed in transparent plastic packs, 80 lands, 16 of every type in them.
After going through one pack and almost rubbing my fingerprints off on the cards, I compared the lands with one that I got from an actual store earlier. Their colors are visibly paler, their black isn't nearly as black and their surface isn't nearly as smooth. They smell different from my new cards, but I only have Modern Horizons and Throne of Eldraine to compare, so that's not hard evidence. I also thought the corners aren't as round but I found variations of that even on legit MtG cards.
Do you think they could be fake? Fake basic lands?
The seller was really nice and the idea of somebody counterfeiting BASIC LANDS and selling them for less than a dollar/pack of 80 seems absurd, so I want to ask your opinions before I confront the guy about it. Obviously I'm gonna keep the cards, but it just bugs me a bit, y'know.
Additional thoughts:
- I got back into MtG after ten years or so and I know the cards' quality has changed since then. But they look and feel different from the same basic lands from the same set that I already had.
- I read on this forum that the quality varies between European and US cards. I'm European, so I guess it's possible that the seller somehow got those cards from a US source and that's why they're different... but I dunno. It doesn't seem very plausible to me that the US product would be so starkly different.