Fake holders and cards ?

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Posted By: Johnny

So I finally won my favorite T206, a Cobb bat off shoulder and was informed that the holder and the card are fake ? It was in an SGC holder. So someone is out there making fake holders with fake cards in them ? How can I avoid this in the future, the serial number was covered and I had concerns that it was a possible stolen photo but an all out fake ? When you bid on higher end cards do you look up the serial number to make sure it is legit ? Thanks for any info on this.

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Posted By: leon

So the label was covered up and you had concerns. Next time don't bid.

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Posted By: Johnny

Just the serial number was covered. I'm waiting to hear back from the seller as to what exactly happened. I was just wondering if it is true that someone is making fake holders and if so how to avoid them.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Couple of questions...


Did you buy it on Ebay? If yes, file a claim right away.

Did you pay with Paypal? If yes, same thing. File that claim.

Post a link to the auction here to "out" the seller. (It's a public service to do this.)

If you can't claim through Ebay, contact the local Police where the seller lives.



To answer your question, yes, on occasion someone will try to pass off a reprint in a graded card case as genuine. There are usually signs of a scam if you look close enough.

1. Low feedback for the seller (either raw feedbacks or %.)
2. Private auctions.
3. Hidden serial numbers on the card.
4. Frosted edges on the holder (Sometimes difficult to discern in an Ebay scan.)
5. Small scans, poor quality scans, or using digital pictures instead.


I'm sure others can add more to this list.

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Posted By: Jim VB

It could be a fake holder, but it's more likely that they just opened a real one and switched cards.

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Posted By: Steve

I avoid situations like these by not buying from
people I do not know.

My advice to you is to do the same.


Steve

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Posted By: Steve

" and was informed that the holder and the card are fake ?"


May I ask who informed you?

Steve

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Posted By: Johnny

The seller informed me it was fake but it doesn't make any sense. I am happy that instead of an invoice he sent me this email. Again the seller let me know something was wrong immediately so I am not putting him out there just trying to figure this out. Thanks for all your info.

hello i noticed you were the high bidder on my auction for the ty cobb SGC 40 i have found out that the card is a fake in a fake SGC holder. I am very disapointed when i found this out and i tried to cancel the auction but it had under 12 hours to go.



http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220344028662&ssPageNam e=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

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Posted By: josh

So what is the story behind this?

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Posted By: Turner Engle

I was actually watching the T206 SGC 50 Green Cobb the seller also had for sale.

Thought about placing a bid until I checked the Bid History and noticed that ten different bidders had made a retraction on the auction.

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=220344027885

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Posted By: peter ullman

that cobb looks real to me.

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Posted By: Jason

Card itself looks fine. I wouldn't bid on that auction because of the stupid piece of paper over the serial number. (Like I care if you think it could be a PSA 4)

Anyways, maybe that affected the price and the seller is trying to nix the sale? :shrug:

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Posted By: dan mckee

Card looks real to me too. Bet seller has it sold for more.

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Posted By: Jim

I'm new to this, but it seems to me people are letting this seller off too easily. It certainly looks very suspicious that he had two items, both of which were high value cards, both of which were graded, both of which had little stickies on them that just happened to cover up the grading service registration number (let's see, where should I put these helpful little notes?), neither of which had the same type of notation (identifying the reverse vs. possible PSA 4) and at least one of which attracted a high number of retracted bids.

It has all the indications of a purposeful scam and the person who bought the other Cobb should at least be alerted if that is possible.

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Posted By: Jimmy

Try buying items from folks you know or get a clear picture, I know people that have come to me with the same issue with PSA holders. Most of the time they are high value cards, try buying lower end cards

Jimmy

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Posted By: Steve Murray

I agree with Peter U. and Dan Mc.

Card is real. Seller either sold to someone else for more or had seller's remorse.

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Posted By: JB

I was watching that auction as well.......I think it sold for less than seller had hoped. That's my guess. Sounds like his story is bogus, however, its not worth my $926 to find out.....let it go.

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Posted By: Tom

Agree it looks like a perfectly good SGC 40 Cobb so something else going on there. For the green Cobb I it may have been the seller who canceled the bids (no idea why?) as they all have the same exact text for reason for canceling but again just makes both Cobb auctions strange.

As far as fake holders go, what do you think of the font on this Cobb PSA Holder?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120366666567

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Posted By: Steve

Yup seller threw you a line of crap.

For whatever reason he does not want to follow through
with the sale.

I'd neg him.


Steve

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Posted By: Jim VB

I think ther'e more to it than just the obvious.

The seller hasn't sold anything in 2 1/2 years. Hasn't bought anything in almost a year.

Now he shows up with two, fairly high end cards. At least one, he reneges on the deal. The other has a ton of bid cancels.

I wonder if the account has been hijacked.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I was watching the auction for the green Cobb. It struck me as odd that both cards had stickers over the cert numbers, but I also know that some people cover their cert numbers to prevent theft, so I left the card in my watch list just to see what happened.

The night of the auction, bidding was at a robust $66. It seemed weird to me, so I went back to it a little later, and bidding had jumped considerably. By the time I went to bed, the price was up near where it should have been - I looked at the bidders and noticed one bidder with zero feedback had pounded the card during the night, bringing the bidding up close to $1K, or something like that. It seemed funky, and I thought about posting it here.

Weird.

-Al

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Posted By: mike wrenn

Why would the seller admit to the cards being a fake
after the fact. I can't believe that he just noticed it was a fake after the auction was over. Would SCG buy the card back from the new owner if the card is really a fake. If they would then why not pay for the card, then send it back to SCG. Finding out from SCG if they would buy it back would be a good idea first. Any thoughts

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Posted By: leon

Yes, SGC will buy back a fake card if they grade it. I know Beckett bought back a bad Cobby/Drum not too long ago. I know PSA has bought back some mistakes too. Something doesn't smell right with this seller, from what I have read....

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Posted By: Anthony S.

If I were to hazard a guess:

- hijacked account

- those are real cards in those holders, but they probably don't belong to the seller

- seller is probably trying to sell them away from Ebay (ie responds to a lower bidder email to end auction early)

- will ask for a money order

- buyer will never get the card

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Posted By: Mike

As far as I know SGC doesn't have a serial number lookup online anyway, so it wouldn't do any good to cover up the serial number.

I think it's fine.

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Posted By: Red

Both cards and holders look good. The seller's feedback doesn't indicate that $1000-$2000 baseball cards are what they normally deal in. If pictures were stolen to run a scam auction then maybe the high dollar value was unexpected and it scared them into finding a reason to cancel the sale. If they do own the cards then maybe the price wasn't what they expected. The Bat Off card is pictured on VCP, sold on 11/18/07 for $1225. Same card, same holder with scratch. They aren't fake cards in fake holders.

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Posted By: Johnny

Thanks for all the info. I have no idea what happened and guess it was just not meant to be. I asked the seller what happened and all he said was he was sorry this happened. I have never heard of fake holders before so that really threw me off and I believed what he said. If someone does send him a money order I wish them the best of luck in getting the card. I wonder what happened with the other Cobb he sold and why all those bids were cancelled on the last day.

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Posted By: Zinn

Covering up the Cert # does have one advantage in that it prevents someone from posting the card on the Registry.

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Posted By: Tom

The other questionable Cobb I mentioned earlier in this thread has sold for the second time through the link below ( http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120372794926 ). I don't think the card or holder looks right and considering it sold for a deal and that they had to relist from a prior non payment don't make things less suspicious. Don't know who the winner might be (another way ebay's hiding user ids makes us all less secure) but just wanted to put it out there as that is quite a bit of money.

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Posted By: Zinn

jeffreyandmary won this item with a Best Offer of US $2,165.00