eBay is reportedly pulling listings that feature cards from the Pokémon TCG’s unreleased 30th Celebration set, on the basis that the cards are considered stolen property.
This set, an anniversary celebration marking 30 years of the Pokémon franchise, releases around the world on September 16. But while TPC slowly drip feeds card reveals, the entire set has been widely leaked, and now it seems some of the cards have found their way onto the secondary market ahead of schedule too.
An email, apparently from eBay, was posted to Facebook yesterday by a card seller going by Danny MadTown Collect. It reads:
“The sale of stolen property is not allowed on eBay.
eBay has received communication from The Pokémon Company International indicating that 30th Anniversary Pokémon trading cards are not distributed or made available for public sale through authorized channels as of today. As a result, this listing has been flagged for review.
Based on the information provided by the rights owner, there are concerns regarding the provenance and authorized distribution of this type of item. Specifically, the item may have originated outside of approved manufacturing and distribution processes. To help ensure compliance with eBay policies and intellectual property rights, we recommend that this item not be relisted unless documentation can be provided demonstrating that it was obtained through an authorized and legitimate source.”
This came after the seller tried to auction the “first ever” 30th Celebration Sylveon SIR, a full art card from the set.
There are many ways Pokémon cards can escape out into the world before they’re supposed to. Leaks can occur at any point in the pipeline: during printing, transportation, storage, or simply by distributors selling the products before they’re supposed to. A few years ago there was an incident where, allegedly, a printing worker tried to offload hundreds of stolen rare Pokémon cards from the Fusion Strike set.
This is by no means a problem that’s unique to 30th Celebration, but it’s obvious that TPC has a particular incentive to make sure things run as smoothly as possible for a Pokémon set that’s supposed to be a big birthday celebration for the franchise.
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Source: Wargamer
