A graded slab is meant to settle the question before money changes hands. That promise cracked a little wider on November 8, when collectors in Japan posted two finds within hours of each other and both pointed at the same weak spot. The certificate number on a label can be completely real while the slab in front of you is not.
Kits that borrow real numbers
The first find was a listing on AliExpress offering printed PSA labels together with empty shells. The offer paired a printed front label and a printed back label with an empty case that is ready for whatever card a buyer puts inside. The front label in the listing photo carried a certificate number from a 2002 Dark Persian Reverse Foil, while the back label carried a different number, and scanning that back label opened the genuine PSA record for a 2002 Mewtwo Reverse Foil graded EX 5. PSA has since deactivated the front label number.
An investigation by CheckCOA then traced the same kind of product to two more stores. One store sold a do it yourself custom rating card label with an unsealed case, and buyer review photos showed its labels on two cards, a Mew ex from Paldean Fates and a Dark Gyarados from the Rocket set, with the number on each one matching a real PSA record. A second store printed labels to order from details a buyer supplied, and its product video tilted a copy label under a lamp, flashing the silver patch the way the security patch on a genuine label flashes. PSA has deactivated one number seen in that video. Another is still active, attached to a One Piece card graded GEM MT 10, so a simple lookup on it still returns a clean and genuine looking record.
Dexerto reported the wider listing on November 10, describing a customizable label listed at $4.05, with the page showing over 5,000 sales, and front and back designs carrying barcodes, QR codes, and a hologram patch. That price and that sales count belong to the listing Dexerto described, and we are treating them as that report rather than as a market total.
Real labels sold loose are the second half
The second find from Japan was quieter and in some ways harder to fix. A listing on a Japanese flea market app, already marked sold at ¥6,800, offered genuine labels from PSA, BGS, and ARS, removed from their original cases, with PSA 10 and BGS 10 examples among them. Nothing on those labels is fake, and that is exactly the risk. A genuine label placed in a new case around a different card will pass every text check a buyer runs, because every printed detail on it is real. CheckCOA marked the readable numbers from that bundle as suspected rather than fake, and says eleven certificates in total now carry a warning in its fraud database once the AliExpress numbers are added.
Why the usual check falls short
Most buyers verify a slab in one move. They read the number, look it up, and relax when the card name and grade match the listing. Both finds are built to pass exactly that move. A fake label with a real number returns a real record, and a genuine label in a new case returns a real record too, because the lookup describes the certificate and cannot by itself prove that the card inside the case is the card the grader saw.
PSA makes the same point itself. A certificate lookup cannot rule out a counterfeit, because the number on a fake label can be copied straight from a public record. Dexerto reported that warning alongside PSA guidance to compare the card against the images in its record, look the case over for tampering, and buy from trusted sellers. Dexerto also reported that the PSA 2025 fraud report put Pokémon at the top of its counterfeited categories, with counterfeit Pokémon submissions up 125 percent year over year.
What this means for prices and for buying
Our take is that the risk lands hardest where a grade does the pricing. A raw copy and a top grade copy of the same modern chase card can sit worlds apart in price, and that gap is what a borrowed label is trying to steal. Expect careful buyers to ask for clear photos of both sides of a slab, expect sellers with nothing to hide to provide them quickly, and expect any slab described as cracked or as label only to trade with a discount or not trade at all until the card matches the record. None of that slows an honest deal by much. It does raise the cost of a lazy one.
Before paying, run the number, then compare the card in the case against the grader record itself, including centering and print marks and edge wear where record photos exist. Ask for clear photos of both sides of the slab without glare. Check the number against the CheckCOA fraud database as a second screen, while remembering that a clean result there is not a guarantee. Where record photos do not exist, which is common on older certificates, treat the purchase as higher risk and lean harder on seller history and return terms.
What to watch next
Watch whether PSA deactivates more of the numbers now circulating in listing photos, and whether marketplaces pull the label listings themselves. Watch also whether grading companies move toward stronger physical or digital authentication, an idea some collectors raised in reaction to these posts, according to Dexerto. Until then, the number is the start of the check and not the end of it, and a slab that cannot survive a photo comparison should not survive a purchase either.