A trade at an Orlando card show has put Jason Paige, the singer behind the Pokémon theme tune, at the center of a dispute over a rare Gengar and a signed card. A video posted to Instagram by a user called Boostersandbangers showed two youths making the deal, then later realizing they may have walked away with the wrong end of it.
The clip spread because it captured the moment the boys began to question what they had received. One of them could be heard saying, “It’s a graded signed card, but it’s not real,” before the vendor reacted with disbelief and said, “You traded the Gengar I gave you to Jason Paige?” The other boy asked, “Is that good or bad?” and then, “I think you made a bad trade.”
The fight over the trade now hinges on what was said at the table and what the children and their father understood when they handed over the card. In the video, the vendor called Paige a con artist and said, “You guys just traded Jason Paige for a fake card,” while one of the youngsters later said, “Yeah, he said that it would be a better deal on our side.”
Paige pushed back and said the card was not fake at all, but a clearly labeled custom item with an AGS trademark on the back. He said the trade was conducted openly, that everyone involved looked up the latest eBay sales during the transaction, and that the children and their father said they were comfortable and happy with it. He also said he gave the boys free JP gold trainer cards and took photos with them.
Paige gave a detailed accounting of the exchange. He said the item the children brought in was a Japanese Heavily Played Gengar with an approximate market value of about $75 on eBay, even though the competing vendor had put it at $150. In return, he said, they received a one-of-one AGS full name JP autographed and inscribed, graded 10 AGS custom card. He said his published full autograph and inscription base price has been $125 for the past three years at events in the U.S., and that AGS charges $16 for grading, plus $22 for shipping and handling, with a $5 card value, bringing the cost basis to $170 before any grade or custom-item premium.
The dispute matters because it sits at the intersection of young collectors, live card-show trading and a public accusation that spread before anyone outside the table could settle what happened. Paige said custom cards are desirable across the card ecosystem and that many of his have sold at his booth and online for more than $2,000, which is why he said the trade was meant to add value for fans rather than mislead them.
The unresolved piece is not whether the video traveled fast. It is whether the boys and their father left the table with the understanding Paige says they had. Paige said the children later came back and traded the same AGS card for another of his full autographed Pokémon cards valued at about $250, a detail that suggests the story did not end with the first trade and leaves the original argument still hanging over the show floor.
