[drcy]

A good rule is to gather a list of reputable sellers who know what they sell and buy raw cards from them. There are many good sellers on and off eBay.

Back when I was an active collector, I'd have links to my favorite sellers and I'd see what they had for sale. In part it was because they sold authentic items, in part because they had a plethora of stuff I'd be interest in and in part because I knew from experience that they were reliable about shipping, etc.

As far as the fakes T206s shown here, the front of the genuine T206s have a white coating (before the printing) and anywhere where are surface abrasions (scrapes, creases, edges, etc) it should be somewhat darker (The back of a genuine T206s is somewhat darker than the front white borders). The reprints linked to here are much whiter where the front surface is missing, which is a giveaway of a reprint. Though I do agree that a few of the reprints linked to here are very good.

Also, if you look at enough cards, most reprints are obvious and, as already noted, most scam/tricky sales have red flags in the written description-- "being sold as reprint," etc. After all, all the examples posted here were being sold as "unknown" or "reprint." Some descriptions have enough red flags you don't even have to see the pictures to know it's a reprint.

Another thing to do is to check out the seller's other auctions. As a collector of rare photos and considering bidding on an expensive esoteric photo, I'll check out what else the seller is selling. If he has other photos I know about and it's obvious from the descriptions that he's knowledgeable about photos, I'll bid with confidence. In the case of the seller here, he's offering two "unknown" Goudey Lajoies, along with an unkown T206 Wagner, unknown Ruth Rookie, unknown Cracker Jack Joe Jackson, unknown Leaf Ruth, unknown 53 Mantle-- yet his 1992 Donruss Mike Piazza is being sold as original and PSA graded. If you can't deduce that something fishy or questionable might be going on from the totality of his listings, you shouldn't be bidding on expensive baseball cards. Even if you take him at his word, which in my opinion would be most charitable, he says he doesn't know if what he is selling is real or fake and is offering the buyer no guarantee of authenticity-- not exactly the type of seller you want to be purchasing raw high end cards from.