Real or fake photocard: how to spot an official card

Where a real photocard comes from

An official photocard is never made to be sold on its own. It reaches you through two routes. First, it is included in an album version, usually drawn at random, sometimes as a full set. Second, it is given as a POB, the preorder gift a retailer negotiates. Either way, the card comes from a production run tied to a larger object, a box or an order. Every card offered on its own has therefore been separated from its original batch by a first buyer.

That origin is your first filter. Before judging the paper, ask which version or which POB the card is supposed to come from. If the seller cannot say, or if the answer matches no known release, the doubt is already grounded. On pocabase, every album version lists its inclusions: item, quantity, the x-of-y formula, random draw, POB flag. The database covers 765 albums and 1966 versions; a card that fits none of them needs an explanation.

Paper, printing and the edge

An official photocard is printed on thick, stiff board with an even varnish or laminate. A copy is nearly always thinner and floppier, or the opposite, too stiff because it was glued in two layers. Set the card on its edge and look at it side on: on an official card the thickness is constant and the cut is clean, with no white fibre sticking out. A home-printed card often shows a fibrous edge, a yellower white, or two visible layers stacked on each other.

Printing is judged on small type. On an official card, the text on the back stays sharp under a loupe or through a phone camera. On a copy made from a scan, the halftone screen of the original print shows up as regular dots, letters bleed slightly, and flat colour areas show a faint moiré. A copied holographic card loses its depth: the effect becomes a flat printed image of glitter that no longer shifts when you tilt the card.

• Thickness: constant across the card, no second layer visible from the side.
• Cut: clean edges, even corners, no torn white fibre.
• Small type: solid and legible, with no visible halftone dots.
• Holographic effect: it has to shift when you tilt the card.

The back of the card

The back carries the most checkable information: label or distributor logo, album title, legal notices, sometimes a number specific to the series. Typography is identical across every card in a batch: same weight, same letter spacing, same distance from the edge. A copy often shifts the text block by a millimetre or two, changes the weight, or swaps the typeface for a near match. That shift becomes obvious as soon as a reference card sits next to it.

Numbering deserves attention, but no more weight than it carries. Some series number their cards, others do not, so a missing number proves nothing. What matters is consistency with the rest of the series. A number in a format the series never uses is a bad sign. The background of the back speaks too: an official flat colour stays even from corner to corner, with no shift in tone and no visible grain.

Colours, cut and comparison

Colours on a copy almost always drift. Skin tones go pink or grey, blacks block up, whites pick up a cold or yellow cast. The fault is invisible on a card seen alone and obvious the moment an official card from the same series sits beside it. That is why direct comparison remains the only reliable method: a seller photo, however sharp, tells you nothing about the real colours or the surface of the card.

The cut is checked the same way. Cards from one series share the same size to the millimetre and the same rounded corners. A copy trimmed with a guillotine shows squarer corners, a slightly different size, or an off-centre image, with the white margin no longer equal on both sides. Stack two cards flat, face to face, and the gap shows straight away, with no measuring tool needed. The check takes a few seconds and asks for nothing but a second card from the same series.

• Compare with an official card from the same series, not from another release.
• Look in daylight, never under warm indoor lighting.
• Stack the two cards to check size and margins.
• Tilt them together: the varnish should react the same way.

What is not a fake

An unofficial or fanmade card, sold as such, is not a counterfeit. It is a fan creation, printed in a small run, often with a design the label never produced. The problem only appears when a seller presents it as official or slips it into an official batch. An honest listing puts unofficial in the title and prices it accordingly. These cards are not in the pocabase database, which only records official inclusions.

Another common mix-up is official small formats. ID photo cards, mini photocards and transport cards belong to official series and are smaller than the usual format. A card smaller than a standard photocard is therefore not fake for that reason alone. Here again, the version page says what was actually in the box: item type, quantity, and whether the draw was random or the set complete. Reading that list settles the question faster than judging a card by its size alone.

Cross-checking with pocabase and reading a listing

Before buying, open the page for the version in question. It gives the version name, its format, its EAN, its catalogue number and its list of inclusions: how many photocards, which ones were drawn at random, which came from a POB. A card claimed to be included in a version that never contained one is a clear signal. The database also gives a scale: recorded versions list 3,4 photocards per box on average, and 62% contain at least one random item.

The listing itself reads like a document. A single photo, with no hand and no identifiable background, proves nothing: it may come from another account. A large stock of a card known to be rare is unlikely, since those cards surface one at a time. And a seller who refuses an extra photo, of the edge or of the back, refuses the one check that costs little and settles the matter fast. That refusal is an answer.

• Ask for a photo of the edge and a photo of the back, taken by the seller.
• Be wary of a large batch of a rare card sold at the usual price.
• Search for the image elsewhere: a reused photo often turns up on another account.
• Check on pocabase that the version named really contained that photocard.

Najczęstsze pytania

Na pocabase

• Photocards — aespa, Armageddon
• Photocards — SEVENTEEN, 17 IS RIGHT HERE
• Photocards — ITZY, BORN TO BE
• aespa — Armageddon
• ITZY — BORN TO BE
• TWICE