Mendelsohn fake or real?...help please
 

Hi...let me preface this with that any cards I buy that is vintage and ungraded I consider a reprint and bought this card with that in mind close to 20 years ago. I didn’t even remember or realize I had it with the Burgess Nash back until I recently posted it on the Jim Thorpe thread that I’ve been posting my Thorpe collection on. I collect almost solely Thorpe items so when I bought it I considered it a reprint or fake and bought it as a reprint variation that I didn’t have in my collection. It’s obviously been trimmed all the way around. I have started wondering whether it could be an authentic card and best I can tell it might be a Mendelsohn M101-5. I am almost completely ignorant of early cards so other than what I’ve read about identifying fakes from that series I wouldn’t have a clue what to look for. I know the topic has been discussed several times. I’ve never even held a real one but did own a Famous and Barr back of Thorpe that was a PSA 3 but sold it roughly 10 years ago so I don’t even have it to look at. Would anybody enlighten me on the possibility (or not) about this card? Any thoughts would be appreciated! I’ll put one that has not been trimmed beside it to show how much trimming has been done. Thanks!

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Sorry to say, but fake.

Thanks...I was under no delusion at all and enjoy having it as a part of my Thorpe collection anyway...gut feeling was that it was a fake and bought it as a reprint so didn’t see any harm in asking...just wanted to put it to rest before I stuck it back in my fire safe to store.

What gave it away, Brian? I’ve only owned one M-101 (the Wajo, which was already slabbed) so I have a lack of experience with this issue that may have caused me to take a serious look at it, had it been un-trimmed and I was in the market for M101’s. What was the kicker for you?

A lot of things
 

There's a mottled quality to these fake Thorpes that is pretty easy to spot. Real Mendelsohns have a nice smooth glossy stock that doesn't look like that at all.

The other big giveaway is that with most M101-4/5 fakes, the black box around the picture is much heavier and also there is noticeably more white space between the box and the picture than there is on the real cards.

Note the real cards below for comparison:

Tim pretty much summed it up.

Also, Thorpe was issued as part of m101-5 only, and Burgess-Nash issued cards aligned with m101-4 only.

Sorry to belabor the topic, but the rampant stream of fake m101s is depressing, and I want to make sure the folks here don’t get burned. Most of what follows has been said before, but for the benefit of those who have not seen it:

Fake m101s are of two types–aged reprints and counterfeits. The Thorpes belonging to the OP are of the first type. They have the telltale wide space between the photo edge and the black box border, and as a result are cropped a little differently. Larry Fritsch created the set sometime last century, and all of these are m101-5-- I am unaware of any authorized m101-4 reprints. Tim pointed out the other differences with regard to stock, gloss and photo quality.

Here is an example, taken from ebay, alongside a genuine Thorpe–you can see a clear difference in spacing:
http://photos.imageevent.com/imoverh...ze/reprint.jpg http://photos.imageevent.com/imoverh...realthorpe.jpg


It won’t take long for a hobbyist to readily spot the gap just from scans, even if you do not collect them. In hand, the reprints are also noted as being made on thinner stock–the untampered Fritsch cards are translucent and are on white stock that has not toned and is not in any way “creamy”.

The more dangerous fake is the counterfeit, which copies an original and thus circumvents the telltale signs of the reprint. Here is a counterfeit Thorpe, now available on ebay.
http://photos.imageevent.com/imoverh...fakethorpe.jpg
I picked this one on purpose, because it is a copy of the same Famous and Barr card I just showed. You can tell by the surface wear on his chest, shown by some white marks, and a couple surface scratches on/near his left arm–these are in the exact same place and cannot easily be doctored when copying the original. Counterfeits will display the same flaws as the original, which makes them subject to photo match. Here is a thread about these that I posted more than three years ago:http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...highlight=mack

Back to this Thorpe (credit that it is clearly being sold as not genuine), notice the near perfect centering. Even if the seller were to beat up the card in hopes of making it look more genuine, the centering would remain unless trimmed, as would the white marks unless creased significantly in just the right areas. Oh, and finally, the example I borrowed from ebay shows a Sporting News back, and Thorpe does not exist with that back, for the same reasons he cannot be found with Burgess-Nash. Perusing the Old Cardboard site on these cards will show possible front-back combinations, and will enable you to disqualify some fakes immediately.

It sucks that these fakes are on the market at all, even if identified as such (usually wrongfully called reprints when in fact they are outright counterfeits).
The best advice I can give on these is the same given by many others on a variety of different issues: handle cards you know to be the genuine article first and often–doesn’t have to be Thorpe, trust your instincts and perform the usual analysis before spending big: 1) is the seller reputable and move a lot of prewar material; 2) is the price too good to be true; 3) is the centering too nice? -many m101s, especially Thorpe and Ruth, are usually at least a little off-center; and 4) is the wear even and natural looking?, or instead, e.g., are the corners well rounded but the edges sharp and without any chipping.

Fantastic stuff, guys! I learn something new every day from this site.

Thanks for all the great info.! So how was the gloss finish applied to these cards? Again..I bought these as counterfeits. Thanks in advance!

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