Cards
Fraud, counterfeit trading cards rampant in hobby, PSA report shows
Collectors love transparency from companies in the hobby.
Third-party grading giant PSA is drawing back the curtains and allowing unprecedented access to once internal-only data.
On May 7, PSA released a report to the public outlining how much fraudulent activity the company encountered and prevented from going into the ecosystem in 2025.
“We had kind of identified late last year, it’s like, hey, let’s start sharing more of this sort of information, because people really value it—and not necessarily just showing off really cool cards that are in PSA holders or have sold at auction,” said Ryan Hoge, president of grading at Collectors, PSA’s parent company. “This is part of that theme.”
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The 2025 fraud report issued some staggering numbers.
PSA intercepted $200 million in projected market value of fraudulent collectibles, which includes trading cards and tickets. That is a yearly increase of 45.3% from 2024 for all counterfeit collectibles. It reflects an increase of 5.1% for counterfeit sports cards and a 125% increase for Pokémon cards during the one-year span.
Fraud is alive and rampant in the hobby.
“The $200 million figure is large, but that’s a pretty conservative estimate, based on how we calculated that,” Hoge told SCD. “If we assumed PSA 10 values for all of these fraudulent cards, we’re probably north of $1 billion. So, that was pretty staggering.
“It also was a little eye-opening how much Pokémon ends up becoming a key part of the potential fraud, whether it’s counterfeit cards or altered cards. I think it’s in lockstep with how that’s increased as a percentage of our overall business the last four or five years. But I think people might assume they’re safer with those, but there’s bad actors out there trying to take advantage of people and make a quick buck. That’s kind of our role here is to help police things a bit and keep people safe so they don’t get scammed.”
FRAUD BREAKDOWN
In the fraud report, PSA broke down the percentage of each category being impacted by counterfeit trading cards. Sports cards made up 43.1%, pop culture 0.6% and trading card games (TCG) coming in at 56.3%. TGC includes Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, Disney Lorcana, and ONE PIECE.
Pokémon were the most counterfeited trading cards, followed by baseball, basketball, football, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, Disney Lorcana, ONE PIECE, hockey and soccer.
As for the subjects that are being counterfeited most often, the top 10 are: Pokémon’s Charizard, Michael Jordan, Pikachu, Mickey Mantle, Gengar, Tom Brady, Rayquaza, Umbreon, Mewtwo, and Ken Griffey Jr.
Hoge isn’t surprised that six of the top 10 most counterfeit trading cards are TGC; he said it maps to the volume of TCG cards that are submitted to PSA at its facilities worldwide. PSA opened a massive location in Japan three years ago and 95% of the cards it receives are TCG.
Hoge noted that PSA is seeing counterfeits produced all over the world. Asian countries represent a large number as does the United States.
The highest counterfeit rates for individual cards came from baseball and football. Honus Wagner’s 1909-11 T206—considered by many in the hobby to be the holy grail—is tops on the list. PSA received 13 submissions of the famed Wagner card with 12 being fake (92.3%).
Mickey Mantle’s storied 1952 Topps card was submitted 181 times with 112 coming back counterfeit (61.9%). Michael Jordan’s 1984 Star #101 card had 96 counterfeits of the 360 cards (26.7%) that PSA reviewed. Jordan’s 1986 Fleer was fourth on the list as there were 821 fakes out of the 3,285 submitted (25%).
For cards that are infamous for being fake, PSA has additional measures to ensure they don’t slip through the cracks.
“The ’52 Topps Mantle really stood out to me. I didn’t realize 62% of those were counterfeit,” Hoge said. “I think a lot of those were reprints, not necessarily counterfeits, but people assumed they were the real deal. The Star #101 and the ’86 Fleer #57 Jordan, those are 20-25% fakes, and so cards like that have additional alerts around them that’s built into the grading software so that when a grader has one of those come across their desk, they have alerts that are in front of them and they’re able to read the alerts. If there’s specific tells or things that they’re supposed to look at for that card, we have found unknown counterfeits, it’s kind of laid out there in like an instructional view.”
An interesting revelation from the report states that it isn’t just the best cards of the best athletes being counterfeited. Scammers are finding savvy ways to deke out collectors.
Brady’s most counterfeit cards aren’t his 2000 Playoff Contenders or 2000 SP Authentic, which are worth in the six- to seven-figure range. It’s Brady’s mid- to low-tier rookies that are paper and less sophisticated cards that are being faked. The top two are 2000 SkyBox Impact #27 and 2000 Pacific Crown Royale Rookie Royalty #2. The SkyBox card has a raw value of $80-$120 and PSA 10 value of $1,377; the Pacific Crown Royale is priced at $70-$95 raw and $1,726 in a PSA 10.
“Counterfeiters are generally pursuing modern cards that balance a recognizable name, strong resale value and simpler printing technology,” the report states.
THWARTING COUNTERFEITS
Over the years, PSA has constantly tweaked its methods to make it the most innovative third-party grading company. In its 35 years, PSA has relied on human element to grade and authenticate all the submissions that come in.
PSA’s parent company Collectors—which also owns grading card companies Beckett and SGC—has mixed in technology and AI to help make its grading and authentication process run more effectively and efficiently. Technology just adds more layers of protection to combat counterfeits.
“We have multiple phases where things go in,” Hoge said. “We also have a brand protection team that actually spans all of our grading brands. That team also works with Beckett, works with SGC in addition to PSA. So, when we detect new types of fraud, specifically around counterfeits, that information is shared across all the grading companies, so they’re equipped with that information and they can be on the lookout for these things as they come into their facilities.”
Hoge said whether it’s on the card side or auto side, everything starts with the human authentication and grading teams.
“These folks are the best in the business,” Hoge said. “Many of them have been doing it for decades, and so they’ve seen so many things over the years. Their expertise on feel and smell of the card is something that a computer and AI cannot replace. So, that’s a key part of it, just being able to detect and see these things as they come through. But then what we’ve been doing is augmenting that with some pretty innovative AI models that are relying on the imaging that we’ve been doing for about four years now where we’re imaging every single, pre- and post-grading that comes into our facilities and we’re able to run those images against these models, not only to help with grade evaluation but also counterfeit detection. It can measure dimensions of the card to see if it’s showing signs of being trimmed, like if it’s too small.”
Hoge and his staff take a lot of positives away from the fraud report.
“I think in general, we’re doing a good job,” Hoge said. “I think our human team is awesome; the technology investments we’ve been making the last five years are really helping us stay ahead of the bad guys, so I’m feeling really good about the position that we’re in. But we’ve got to be vigilant and continue to invest. It’s not like a victory lap; it’s more like, hey, this is what we do day in and day out. I think the team is feeling pretty good about it. It’s kind of nice to put a bow on all the collective work that goes into it day in and day out.”
This is the first time PSA has released its annual fraud report to the public but it won’t be the last. Hoge looks forward to getting out the data for 2026 in quarter one next year to inform collectors.
“I think it’s super powerful and interesting that we’re sharing this data with the collecting community,” Hoge said. “We’ve, obviously, had this data internally for years. We felt like it was important to get this sort of information out in front of collectors, especially with so many new collectors coming into the space. Our goal with this is to make sure that people are informed and they’re making better decisions when they’re buying or selling cards, both on the sports side and the TGC Pokémon side.”
