Where are the 1000s of Vintage Card Reprints on ebay coming from??
 

Hi Everyone,

I've been out of the hobby for 20+years and have a partial set of 53 Topps and 54 Bowman in VG or worse that I would like to get closer to finishing. Strictly raw cards that I keep in a binder and look through it from time to time. I haven't been on ebay in quite a while and what I saw was shocking. Many, many sellers have 100s of cards in their inventory and they are all what look like high quality reprints. All years even into the 1990s. All the big name players but also many semi-stars and high #s. A 1963 Topps #496 Steve Dalkowski reprint?? That was listed by seller jackscollectibles2 in New Jersey. He has 428 listings and everyone is a vintage card reprint. They sell for $2-3 each and he and many other sellers have sold 1000s upon 1000s. Now they are all out there in the public with more being sold everyday. Some sellers plead ignorance and state they found them in an attic and don't know what they are, while others simple describe them as great looking reprints. Some look NM while some are beat up and aged. The feedback I see from customers is mostly very positive. I remember years ago when someone was caught printing Rose rookies, the card community was very upset, people went to jail and cards were stamped forgery. Now there are quality Rose rookies on ebay 24/7.
My questions; whos printing all these reprints-commercial printing facilities in the US? or overseas? How are these small time ebay sellers getting their hands on bulk vintage card reprints? why is nothing being done to stop it? and finally how does this affect the vintage raw card market in the future?
Thanks in advance for your responses.
Dave

reprint
 

Yea, its getting worse and worse...and most ebay sellers don't use the word - reprint in the heading..they make you drill down to finally a comment about " I was told the might not be real......

I think most of them come from estate sales...... or grandpa.......but more likely they come from laser printers.

The quality of home printers are making presentable copies easily made at home. The purchase of a good printer, the right paper stock and good guillotine cutter makes this an easy start.

As for the raw market, its already drastically affected due to the mistrust people have for the forgers and doctors. The sale prices of raw vs. a similar graded version will often sell for far less. This is not always the case as battlefield has shown by busting mid-grade and doctoring scans to get the gamblers to feel they will get a high grade, but that is an exercise in dishonesty.

I am not a fan of graded as I am a little old-school as I started in the early eighties as a collector and still love the smell of the cardboard. However, I always tell new collectors to stick to graded as it is a good (albeit imperfect) helping hand to avoid getting ripped off.

Concerning
 

Yes, it is getting very bad, all of my searches are littered with this crap.

I'm afraid in the long run it will really hurt the market and I think investing in cardboard might be a bad idea as the technology improves and can recreate the original or damn near close. Even if it can't reproduce exact matches the perception that these printers can, will drag prices too new historic lows. JMO

Either it's the same few sellers selling under hundreds of names, or they copy each other, because if I had a nickel for every time I saw a seller use the not-as-clever-as-they-think-they-are phrase "Per eBay rules I'm listing this as a reprint," I'd be a very rich man.

All these claims of ignorance and just trying to follow the rules are insulting.


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After seeing so many of the homemade reprints on eBay over the years, I decided to buy a few of them for a few bucks each to see them in person. I wanted to educate myself on what the actual fakes looked like and felt like in person. Some of these fakes look pretty good in a scan on eBay, but in person are easily identified as fake. I've put some real cards next to some fakes here. Which ones are real and which ones are fake? Can you tell from the scans?

AndyH


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The most obvious to me is the '63 Mantle.

...hope I'm right. The corner wear looks too uniform as does the paper lose on the bottom two corners,

Any more guesses on these guys? If you post your thoughts I'll send you a PM letting you know if you're right or not. Then I'll post after a few days which are real and which are fake.

Like you say they are easy to spot in hand and hard from a picture.

My guess is the 56 Clemente, Aaron, and Koufax are bad.

I honestly don't know, but I am going to guess the Mantle's?

Looks to me like both Mantle's the 67 Aaron and the 56 Clemente...

My guess would be the Aaron, the 63 Mantle and the 56 Clemente. Usually the reprints that I have seen have outstanding centering.

You nailed them. I was hoping to just show how people can create fakes at home that are pretty hard to tell from a scan if they are real or fake.

When you have them in hand you can see the damaged corners are actually printed that way and cut by hand to round them. But the cutting still leaves raw card around the printed damage. Easily seen as fake in person. The cardboard is way to smooth too. Overall, I think they are neat for comparison value to real cards and for educating people who are just getting back into the hobby.

Thanks for your responses and for guessing guys.

AndyH

My guess: 63, 67 and 56.