OT: Topps takes measures to discourage CT scans of packs
 

My apologies for the paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/606...trading-cards/

"Topps has taken its first steps to discourage trading card vendors and hobby shop owners from using CT scanning technology to reveal what’s inside packs, boxes or cases without damaging the packaging and potentially reselling them to the public.

A new section within Topps’ MVP direct buying program agreement added an “Intrusive Device Policy” as part of its code of conduct, according to the agreement document obtained by The Athletic from an industry source who was not authorized to share the document publicly. YouTube channel NEO Cards and Comics was the first to reveal the document.

The policy states that Topps will “permanently suspend” all direct accounts with a vendor or hobby shop that uses or has ties to the practice of CT scanning products. Topps includes the use of weight scales as a violation of the new policy, according to the agreement.....

Catching someone breaking the policy presents challenges for Topps, though.

There’s no way to know whether a pack or box has been scanned without the person or company divulging that. There’s no database kept by IIC for what’s been scanned, nor is there an indicator placed on the product to show it’s been scanned by IIC.

Additionally, the company doesn’t know the true identity of everyone sending in products to be scanned.

“We’re not verifying our clients,” IIC general manager Keith Irwin said in an interview with The Athletic a few months ago. “A lot of them we assume are using fake emails. And so we don’t know who they are. Fake emails, fake names, and then we use Square for credit card processing. So we don’t know who any of these people are, honestly"....

I found a way around the pay wall and read the article. It is very interesting and frankly, it is up to the card companies to create ways around this. There is no real way of catching the "Bad Guys" if they take a couple of easy steps to avoid being named.

Rich

Doesn't sound like they done a damm thing actually to prevent people from doing this.

Has to be an existential threat to their super expensive box / chase card/ box break business model. I don't know much about CT machines but wouldn't you think there is some kind of packing that would sufficiently obscure the nature of the card so that efforts to smoke out what it is would be impossible or significantly more difficult? Like put a dummy card of some special construction on top. Or make all the chase cards redemption cards and make sure they are not the top card in the box?

As mentioned directly above, zero, nada, zilch, & nothing was done by Fanatics.
Doesn’t surprise me. They also won’t suspend anyone meaningful as they need businesses to buy their mostly crappy products

Now if we had multiple companies manufacturing cards per league, then something would get done. E.g. 1986 when Sportflics introduced the tamperproof pack.

It's interesting to me how opinions get expressed on this site.

I posted about this scanner technology a month ago, and every comment was dismissive of the issue. "Nothing to worry about" was the common theme.

Now every comment is a complaint that the industry is not doing enough to prevent this.

At least they're different members posting. Nobody is switching horses yet, as far as I can tell.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

I'm sure this has been covered by somebody along the way, but I talked to my wife about this, as she comes from the medical field and has experience with CT Scanners.

Simple fix seems to be to pack with some type of Aluminum Foil type material.

I still don't think this is a practical concern. If you buy a case of product, all you have to do is open one box and you'll know where the hit packs are in every box of the case. CT scanning might tell you what's inside of the pack, but there's no incentive for anyone to buy what is marketed as a "hot pack" because there is already the current assumption that the pack is bogus or a bust.

If you search "hot pack" you'll find a ton of them. But what you won't find are that they sell for exorbitant amounts.

While scanning the pack might tell you what's inside and sway whether or not you personally open the pack, if you try to sell the pack as a "guaranteed hit" the assumption already exists that it's a turd.

The same assumption exists for all loose jumbo packs and even loose hobby packs. The general assumption is always going to be that a loose jumbo or hobby pack is simply a pack leftover from a box that already had the hit packs opened.

Nobody familiar with the hobby really buys into the idea that there is a potential hit in these packs. Their sale prices reflect that even the general public is skeptical as well.

I think the main issue is with the ultra-high-end product where people pay a bazillion dollars for a packs that have only a few, or even just 1, card.

Topps Dynasty, Topps Definative, Topps Guilded, etc etc...

Ah, I could see that. Luminaries only has one card. Personally, if you're spending $550 on a box with one card inside, you're playing a losing game whether you know what's inside or not.

Even in the 1990s it was possible.
The place I worked did some stuff for a company selling ruck sized scanners to customs. X ray back scatter I think - it's been a while.
The boss went to visit them. and they showed him a picture of his briefcase.
The industry magazines were clearly identifiable by title. And every metal object was also clearly visible, including the springs inside the pens.

It was before a lot of foil stuff, but I would believe that 25+ year old tech could probably read at least the foil stamped serial numbers.

As the technologies to do stuff like that get cheaper, and they have gotten cheaper like all tech, I don't see how stopping them is possible within any reasonable cost and production.


When I was in school spectrographs were very expensive. 20 years ago or so I saw a hand held unit that when I checked was something like 50K. Now I think they're under 20K and some are under 10K.