I know this is a few years past the 1980 cutoff date, but I figured since all the players in this set were well established before '80 there might be some knowledge here on the subject.
Does anyone know if the bronze set was counterfeited? The Standard Catalog has a listing for pewter ingots that were made in an attempt to fake the silver versions of these cards, but I have not seen any information on the bronze possibly being faked too. I have these in my display at home:
You'll notice that I have a silver and pewter on the top row and two distinctly different bronze cards on the bottom. I made a scan of all the bronzes that I own:
I got the first two from two different sellers, and they appear to look like what you'd expect for a bronze. The other 5 I got in a lot and have a more copper-like finish. You'll also notice that there is one that is off-center and miscut. The edges also lack the uniform smoothness of the first two and weigh 1-2 grams more on the scale.
Does anyone know of these being faked or have something similar?