The careful wording of card companies game used memorabilia...
 

Hi all,

I recentlly aquired this card with a swatch of jersey and button from Joe Mauer. My question, is that with such vague wording that companies use with memorabilia cards, is how would you interpret the statement on this card? It reads,

"Congratulations. You have received a trading card with Joe Mauer Game-Used baseball memorabilia. The memorbilia has been certified to us as having been used in an offical Major League Baseball game."

By saying that the card contains "Joe Mauer Game-Used baseball memorabilia" makes me more inclined that it was from a jersey worn by Mauer, rather than if it were to say it is just game-used memorabilia on the front. I've added a picture of the back of another card from the same set to illustrate my point about plain "game-used" and no player name attached to the staetment.

I know that the authenticity of these pieces is already controversial but if Upper Deck is telling me the relic is that of Joe Mauer, I feel better.

Thats legalese for "someone told us this is a real game used jersey but we don't actually believe them enough to guarantee it"

I have a few relic cards that came in lots that I bought, but I don't actively collect them nor do I trust them. How could you ever prove thats a Mauer jersey, let alone a GU jersey based on hearsay?

If you want actual Mauer GU, buy MLB authenticated stuff. I imagine a baseball tied to him can be found for a reasonable price..

I'm not sure how you could ever feel comfortable with those cards when you can even see a pic of what they cut up. Mauer is a perfect example. There was someone making a ton of bogus Mauer game used jerseys in his first few years in the Majors. The team had blank jerseys they could customize as rosters changed over the course of the season. Someone took several of these and customized them with Mauer's name and number. The tagging on these jerseys were wrong for guys on the roster at the beginning of the season. Even the size was wrong. You would see Mauer "gamers" in 48, 50, and 52 for the same reason (all with wrong tagging of course). But they went to auction houses and their "experts" issue a COAs. Good enough for plenty of people, especially if you're a card company picking up whatever is needed for a card set. Who's going to question you? Would would ever know? Like I said, you can't even see what they cut up.

"official game" could also mean spring training or an exhibition game....

Also the verbiage on the Mauer card could be boilerplate for him if he had several pieces in the set - bat, glove, pants etc...that way they could use same wording for card back...

Official JC Penny button...Enjoy it!

In looking at this set, I see that most players have a button version, jersey, and signed jersey, I see why they put that. As I can now see many feel strongly that this is not real, I'm going to be optimistic however. Due to that verbage, do you believe they are saying that the memorbilia is of Joe Mauer and not a random player. Yes, I know there is a chance that companies do this any way but I am strictly asking about the wording on the card.

Thanks

Panini is worse: "The enclosed game worn material is guaranteed by Panini America, inc." Guaranteed to be what, exactly? It never mentions the player by name. At least the UD cards name the player. I saw that and decided not to buy any Panini allegedly GU products.

I have noticed that too. They have some neat cards of Peyton Manning but with their wording, I only look and keep going. I took a chance on the Mauer because it specifically mentioned him by name and you don't ever see cards of his that feature a button. The card looks neat but the more I thought, I wanted to see what everyone on here though. Thank you for your opinions so far, they are appreciated!

More than likely it is from Joe Mauer but at what game you'll never know... If Panini ever fakes this stuff that would be bad news for them and collectors...

In general, you can't even trust any jersey cards, especially any before the Bradley Wells story:
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i...icle-1.1159317

The game used ones you can really trust (for baseball) are the certified ones, but even then they are not so nice to look at because they have the hologram on them.
For example, it looks like this:
https://www.topps.com/on-card-auto-r...card-690f.html

The cool part is that the label has a number that you can look up, to find which game it was from.