phony PRO cards

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Posted By: macboube

First off, I have had this posted in the Postwar Football section almost 24 hrs prior and have one response. I am seeking prudent advice on this and am asking for assistance. Thanks.

Has anybody noticed, or does anyone have info. re. some of the highly graded PRO cards that have been auctioned on ebay? I have specific info, on two of them, both 1955 Topps All Americans. The first one was Jim Thorpe "PRISTINE" Grade 10. It actually sold for several hundred dollars a couple of months ago. If it were a legitiamte PSA 10, it's worth would be $30,000 easy. I first contacted PRO to see if the cert. no. was legit, and of course it wasn't. I was told that particular cert. no. was stolen, along with others. I then contacted the seller who ignored me and left his phony "10" up. I then contacted ebay (three times) and they did nothing. After the auction, I contacted the buyer and informed him of my findings. He then tried to research this on his own and found nothing but dead ends. No assistance from ebay, the seller, or PRO. As a matter of fact, he could not reach PRO, as he said he every telephone number they had was no longer working. (Did they go out of business?)

Even more peculiar was the Four Horseman Card that was put up for auction just a couple of weeks ago on ebay. This one had a GEM MINT 9.5 grade from PRO. The seller, (I will not yet mention his name)is actually a well known "playa" regarding the 1955 Topps All American cards. He sells many, many PSA AA's on ebay, mostly in grades of 5, 6, 7. I have never seen him offer even an 8 let alone a 9. Even more remarkable, the seller has one of the TOP '55 AA Sets in PSA's Set Registry. Surely he knows this card is illegitimate. Fortunately, he had a starting price of $499.00 and the card went unsold. He has not re-listed it. I contacted him and asked him if he knew this card was phony. He only got very defensive, stating that PSA was not the only company out there, and wondered why I was inquiring and assuming he was dealing a phony card. He told me he was 60+ years old (what does that have to do with it?) and if people like me were more concerned about stating things that were positve and complementing others, the world would be a better place, and he signed his correspondence "God Bless" with his name.

I can hardly believe this. A guy who deals cards, knows the AA Set inside out, and has his name attached to a top PSA Set Registry lot, tries to pull this crap?

What can be done at this point? Should I expose him by name here?