Logan Paul’s ‘Base Set’ Case is Fake: Threats, Bribery, and Shady Behavior Down the Ladder
Logan Paul’s controversial case of Base Set booster boxes is indeed fake.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel, Paul and crew opened the case and could immediately see the boxes inside were forged due to their misshapen appearance and poor print quality. The booster boxes were then opened and contained G.I. Joe booster packs.
YouTuber Rattle lead the investigation into the case and created a series of comprehensive videos discussing why the box had so many red flags, which were covered in this article. This included a dubious eBay seller, multiple origin stories, conflicting labels on the box itself, and concerns over Baseball Card Exchange’s poor authentication process.
Logan Paul’s video ended with @shyne150 saying “I wonder if Jacob knew it was fake.”
Threats, Possible Bribery from Jacob Gabay (Cardkahuna)
To review, the Base Set box first appeared on Canada’s eBay in March 2020. The listing was full of grammatical errors and the seller had relatively no feedback. Most collectors assumed it was a scam, so the item only fetched a winning bid of $72,500 against an estimated value of $3.6 million.
The dubious eBay seller sold the case to @cardkahuna (Jacob Gabay) and his group for an undisclosed amount. Gabay flipped the box to @shyne150 for $2.7 million, who then sold it to Logan Paul for $3.5 million.
Gabay and his group invited Baseball Card Exchange to authenticate the box and streamed the event. However, Baseball Card Exchange did not show their authentication process, which raised even more red flags. They also aren’t known for authenticating Pokemon booster boxes.
After Rattle published his first video questioning the authenticity of the box, Jacob Gabay threatened him with legal action. Over Instagram Gabay constantly lied, deleted messages to Rattle, and exhibited unstable behavior:
– Jacob: Don’t worry about me buddy
– Worry about you
– I’m rich
– Young man worth over 150M$
– The definition lawsuit will be there for all business I lost out in due to your video
– Defamation
– You cut a podcast video of me that was 2 hours long and took a snippet that I said and made it out of context
– I’m 10000% sure this [Base Set] case is real
– Rattle: What was out of context?
– Jacob: Listen start talking to a lawyer and a good one
– Cause mine don’t lose
– Rattle: 150 million but you couldn’t afford a 4th print base case.
– Weird.
– Jacob: Not that I couldn’t afford it’s about being smart
– And making sure the margins make sense
– Either way my guy in your video you didn’t leave any possible doubt that it can be real
– I’m good forever
– Rattle: 1000 subscriber youtuber ruined the 150m young man because he showed people a box looked painfully fake
– lol
– Jacob: Nothing ruined me it’s the [point]
– I’m good forever
– Jacob: Good luck buddy your 2 minutes of fame is about to expire….
– Spoke to all the big influencers no one knows who you are and your insignificant life
Later, Rattle received a message from a separate Instagram account named @jacob_gabay:
– Jacob (potentially): I will pay you 500,000 to take the video down. This is my personal account. Logan cant open the box
Rattle believes this second account was real. It had 380 followers and photos matching Jacob’s intital Instagram account. There’s also a lot of people named “Jacob Gabay” on Instagram, so it seems unlikely a troll would have been able to create a plain “jacob_gabay” account and get 380 followers that quickly.
If the message did come from Jacob, why wouldn’t he want Logan Paul to open the box? Did he know something?
One of Jacob’s associates, @thepokejew, was paid a finder’s fee for vetting the eBay seller. However, he brushed off all warnings from individuals who warned him about the box’s dubious history — even before the box was sold to @shyne150. It remains to be seen whether this is because he knew something or because he was choosing to be willfully ignorant. Rattle stated “You just know he’s lying because everything contradicts itself, the stories always drastically change the next time he tells you, and the details that are essential to the story change completely.”
When PokeBeach questioned @thepokejew over Instagram about his vetting process, he claimed he gathered a lot of evidence and photos to check the box’s authenticity. But when asked to provide us with said evidence, he stated most of it was gone. It’s also apparent he did not disclose any such evidence to Baseball Card Exchange.
Baseball Card Exchange today issued a statement that they will be halting all authentication of Pokemon products. This also comes after questions were raised about their authentication process for Pokemon booster packs. They authenticated packs for PSA, but there were several reports of fake Pokemon packs being authenticated by them.
Jacob’s other associate, Jameel from @shopmeelypops, immediately blocked Rattle at the beginning of his investigation.
Update: Legal Fights
According to @cardporn, Logan Paul was credited back his $3.5 million by @shyne150.
However, @shyne150 now has to lawyer up to get his money back from Jacob and his associates. They are refusing to return @shyne150’s money, again showing the shady behavior of their group.
We can confirm that @shyne150 refunded @loganpaul’s $3.5m immediately.
HOWEVER, Jameel from @shopmeelypops and Jacob from @cardkahuna still haven’t paid @shyne150 back.
We have it on good authority that Jameel initially promised he’d pay Shyne back immediately (Jameel’s cut of the deal was $515,000 and Jacob’s cut was $2,185,000), however he has since gone back on his word and has lawyered up, making Shyne waste money on attorneys to fight to get his money back.
Micha Birch: Original Scammer?
A known and self-admitted scammer in our hobby is Micha Birch, or @Pokebutler. He usually sells resealed Base Set packs and boxes — sometimes even ones that he’s forged himself. He lives in Canada within the general area of where the original eBay auction originated. He deactivated several of his accounts during the last few weeks when his name was brought up as a possible suspect.
His Instagram account — now deactivated — was full of fake Base Set boxes.
He has an old YouTube channel showing how he spends an inordinate amount of time opening individual Base Set packs as cleanly as possible, presumably so he can later reseal them. He gets more upset when he damages the packs then the cards themselves. This is because “sealed” packs are worth far more than individual cards; if you’re going to scam someone, you’ll need clean packs.
He also recently purchased 60 packs of Base Set 1st edition wrappers on eBay.
If Micha Birch was involved, he probably didn’t intend for the fake box to make its way to Logan Paul. If Paul decides to open an investigation, he could potentially shut down one of the hobby’s big scammers.
This is now the second time Logan Paul has been scammed by a fake Pokemon product. As we posted in our last story:
A note to Logan Paul: why do you keep consulting these uninformed individuals who don’t know anything about Pokemon? Do you fall for these people because they know how to capitalize on hype and get a bunch of views on social media? Because they’re good at acting confident? These people are only of the moment. The Pokemon TCG community has several members who have been here since the beginning — through Pokemon’s highs and lows — who are passionate about the franchise and can help you (or at least lead you in the right direction). I myself have been running this website every day for 19 years and have been part of the community since day one. So feel free to contact us if you’re serious about collecting! We’re not fair-weather fans or hypers here.
Unfortunately it does not seem Logan Paul has reached out to anyone in the Pokemon community for help, despite confirmation that he saw Rattle’s videos and this article.
Thanks again goes to Rattle for the information in this news story and working with us on our articles. You can watch Rattle’s series of videos about the Logan Paul situation on his YouTube channel!
