Can someone confirm these type of cards for me?

[Section103]

Im almost positive they are Venezuelan. Im pretty sure they are from 1972. Im not at all certain if they were issued by Topps or not. Thanks for any advice.

[a761506]

That is a counterfeit 1972 Venezuela Stamp.

It is often credited to Topps, but there is no known affiliation. The set depicts very crude, miniature copies of the images on 1972 Topps cards. The paper is slightly thicker than parchment, the production quality extremely poor. Since they were likely unlicensed, they technically shouldn't hold any value, but the hobby recognizes them, and they are pretty rare. Commons are virtually worthless as there is no market for them, but stars have value primarily to player collectors for registry purposes. I know of no one in the entire hobby who is working on building a set of these. They are almost never found without evidence of glue on the reverse, as they were meant to be glued into a paper album.

Around what I believe is 5-6 years ago, someone counterfeited the entire set, and did a pretty nice job at it. The origin of the counterfeits is believed to be Venezuela, as the primary seller distributing them via eBay was in Caracas. They fooled many people for years, including myself, PSA & Beckett, primarily because of the idea that no one would bother counterfeiting such a set, especially in what seems like its entirety. Now that they are known, they are easy to identify. The fakes are on a bright white paper stock and use a different font face than the originals. PSA to this day will still grade the counterfeits even though I have presented them with overwhelming evidence proving they are fakes. They claim that since the counterfeits are not documented in any main hobby publication, they can't conclude with certainty that the set wasn't just printed by a different printer in 1972. This is impossible, as the printing technology used to make the counterfeits did not even exist in 1972. I think it's easier for them to brush such a thinly traded issue under the rug and hope the problem just goes away.



If you examine your card under a 10x loupe, you will find all of the following additional characteristics of the counterfeits:
1) Stray yellow print dots along each border and throughout the image.
2) Perfectly aligned print patterns which include 4 straight green edges. Every single original card has an uneven green edge near the upper right corner.
3) The green ink is printed in half-tone (tiny dot patterns). On originals, the entire green ink area is printed as a solid color (it's actually solid blue and solid yellow to produce the green hue). On originals, above the green is often a tiny strip of yellow which did not get combined exactly with the blue, and at the bottom of the green, is often a tiny strip of blue that did not get overlapped by the yellow.
4) The half-tone dots are significantly smaller in size on the counterfeits, as the counterfeit utilized printing technology that did not exist in 1972. On the originals, the half-tone pattern is much less refined.

[Mark70Z]

Originally Posted by Section103

Im almost positive they are Venezuelan. Im pretty sure they are from 1972. Im not at all certain if they were issued by Topps or not. Thanks for any advice.

I believe it's a '72 Topps Venezuelan sticker/stamps. I have a Brooks Robinson 1972 Topps Venezuelan # 241 and looks the same as the Davey you've pictured. The team names are in Spanish, but the Orioles are translated "Orioles".

[ALR-bishop]

No one I know knows more about Venezuelans than Josh

[Section103]

Excellent info - thank you everyone. I should add, the picture above is not mine, but the only example Ive ever seen of the Johnson I am chasing. I think it was on eBay some years ago. Im glad I didn't get around to picking it up. I had no idea it was a fake.

Thanks again!

[Cliff Bowman]

I got burned by that guy in Venezuela selling those counterfeit 1972 Venezuelan stickers, but it was only for $100-$150 because I only pursued the Cubs, two Ron Santo's and five commons, but there are other people that had to lose several hundred or even a few thousand dollars because I remember he had counterfeit 1972 Venezuelan Rose, Kaline, Carew, Ryan, Seaver, and Yastrzemski cards that were going for big money. I have replaced all but one Santo and Jim Hickman with the real cards.