[Ahron Wayne] succeeded in something he’s been trying to accomplish for some time: figuring out what’s inside a sealed Pokémon card packet without opening it. There’s a catch, however. It took buying an X-ray CT scanner off eBay, refurbishing and calibrating it, then putting a load of work into testing and scanning techniques. Then finally combining the data with machine learning in order to make useful decisions. It’s a load of work but [Ahron] succeeded by developing some genuinely novel techniques.
While using an X-ray machine to peek inside a sealed package seems conceptually straightforward, there are in fact all kinds of challenges in actually pulling it off. There’s loads of noise. So much that the resulting images give a human eyeball very little to work with. Luckily, there are also some things that make the job a little easier.
For example, it’s not actually necessary to image an entire card in order to positively identify it. Teasing out the individual features such as a fist, a tentacle, or a symbol are all useful to eliminate possibilities. Interestingly, as a side effect the system can easily spot counterfeit cards; the scans show up completely different.
When we first covered [Ahron]’s fascinating journey of bringing CT scanners back to life, he was able to scan cards but made it clear he wasn’t able to scan sealed packages. We’re delighted that he ultimately succeeded, and also documented the process. Check it out in the video below.
Reminds me of Q’s X-Ray Document Scanner from 1995 James Bond GoldenEye.
When you’re a loser….find a way to cheat….smh
These collectible card games are just gambling anyway, and gambling has always been for losers. Remember, the house always wins.
The best winners are cheaters too, usually. Remember, the rules are part of the game!
Remember, endorphin sells!
That’s how casinos work, the game is designed to be unfair but if you “cheat” to even the odds you get kicked out.
If you’re lucky they kick you out.
You’d have to find a bunch of very valuable cards, without buying any packs without them, to pay for the scanner. And what store is gonna let you x-ray all their packs, and then buy only the ones you want?
(A fun exercise nonetheless, Kudos!)
You could simply buy a large pack of cards scan them and then only keep the good ones and sell the cheap ones again. That way you are the store so access is not a problem. However I guess this project is more about fun than profit.
That is how ‘weighing’ packs works. This is why some listings say ‘unweighed’, although you are given no reason to trust this claim.
Well he could buy booster boxes find the SIR and re sell the packs on ebay. Just imagine buying evolving sky finding the moonbreon and then reselling all the other packs for $20 each. This is criminal mentality at its best.
The store that you also own. They can scan all their loose packs and keep the good ones to sell as singles, while selling the chaff at the lootbox-rate instead of the worthless-card-rate.
I wonder if he can tell what cards are in a graded sealed pack. That would be interesting
I would think the real business case here is for collectors who own unopened old packs to be able to scan them in order to know if breaking the pack is worth it. I.e. if the cards inside are more valuable than the unopened pack itself.
Yes, and then sell the ones that aren’t worth opening
The moral of the story is.. if your not buying from the factory, no need to ever buy a resale unopened pack again.
Are you small minded or daft? Just buy a bunch of packs then resale the bad packs after scanning. Unopened packs still go for the same price as normal prices online.
You can tell that 2 of the commentors didn’t watch the video. It wasn’t about cheating and it wasn’t about scanning before you buy.
This is really cool.
Counterfeit Pokémon cards?
Well, I guess so…
I don’t collect cards anyway. (Other than the Holy Cards my wife keeps giving me.)
“Holy card” from your wife? Some game? Sounds kinda kinky.
Everybody missing the point here, it’s for packs that have been out of print for decades, likely that you already own.
Some cards would be more valuable to a collector opened and identified and the rest would likely be more valuable forever mint.
They aren’t going in any shops and asking if they can CT scan their stock.
I see someone modifying hardware and software to do something new and that’s really cool. I bet the techniques here would end up being useful for archeology or forensics or similar.
Gotta CAT ’em all…
The main point is probably to check older packs of pokemon cards, like collectibles, not to cheat lmao, how do you expect them to bring that into a fucking target smh
It could be interesting to be open about the technology and sell the scanned packs with a discount. The ‘doesn’t contain foil’ packs could be half the price, enabling new options for some people. Or even better, with an exact list of what’s inside as that can enable loads of things, including magic acts.
I didn’t understand the part about scanning whole packs at one. The images aren’t clear, but it’s unclear why known statistical methods don’t give you a sane result after analyzing thousands of noisy images. It could likely help to expose only a small part of the pack at the time as well.
it isnt to cheat? yah they can scan their old packs. if they get a pull open it. otherwise sell that old pack for top dollar on ebay. then buy more and repeat. buy booster boxes open and scan for pulls then sell the single packs. how is this not a way to cheat. yah he is pretty tekky, but a cheater.
Everyone here seems to be missing the point. Scanning older packs is a huge problem for collectors of them. They are valuable for two reasons: 1) the unknown, 2) the scarcity. Once you open a pack, it’s opened, never to be a real sealed pack again. If you can scan it to find its contents, it’s essentially open.
People won’t use this to sell non-foil packs at a discount, lmao. Hey I know, let’s buy an expensive machine and spend countless hours on it so we can sell packs cheaper! It amazes me how naive some people can be. If this was to be used for something like this, the packs with lower value would be sold as normal, and the good packs would be opened to sell the valuable singles. SMH.
So, is this machine licensed by the state? Mine is highly regulated. Or are they operating incognito? Good luck to you.
Your horrible bro unreal the lengths you went thru to cheat your exactly what’s wrong with trying to legitimately collect cards
What about scratching lottery cards at gas station?
I have an incredibly strong hunch that everyone who’s described this as a “cheat” has at one time spent money on cards whether pokemon or otherwise. And probably been disappointed not to receive rarer cards than they did. I understand that in order to perpetuate the system this has to be prevented, and so I would not be surprised to hear of various laws protecting state-sponsored gambling by making doing anything like this to scratchoffs illegal, probably by finding a way to redefine it as fraud. Though the guy says at the end of the post that it doesn’t work on those, so he’s probably been asked too many times and maybe it really doesn’t.
The cards the company produces a lot of will never be considered valuable even if they had the highest possible intrinsic value (which would be based on looks and maybe how useful they are in games based on the card). They and everyone else knows that the company makes an amount of each kind to get to sucker people out of money while only actually selling printed cards. I’ll admit, if the cards can be used in games for a sufficient amount of fun, that can justify some expenditure, just like with paying money in video games that you download without ever physically owning anything.
But the structure is designed to get people to gamble without it counting as such due to no cash prizes. And to create a system where you attract and retain “whales” who pay much more than even the average gambler, to bring the profit up even further. It’s astounding how much support there is for the idea of a company raking in money from gamblers by effectively selling fake lottery tickets as collectibles for people to fight over, but hatred for the idea of some random guy making anything off the same bad decision makers.
I find it neat that this is possible, especially as it’s resurrecting older equipment, and the other scans they did further back in the project were interesting too. I’d very much enjoy being able to image arbitrary things for non-medical purposes, whether that’s written material that’s stuck together or whether it’s just to see inside of things to see how they work.