Counterfieting
 

https://www.livescience.com/65847-ga...ook-fraud.html
I watched the PBS show a few days ago and it was awesome. It shows how someone counterfeited an entire 17th century Galileo Galilei book that fooled the experts. It was a few years later before someone figured out the entire book was a forgery.

I post this as I have said for easily 30 years this is what was going to make the cards in our hobby completely worthless. I am beyond amazed it hasn't already.

If someone can counterfeit an entire 400 year old book. Imagine how easy it is for someone to counterfeit a little piece of cardboard with a picture and some writing on the back.

The key to getting away with it is to not flood the market.

How do you know it hasn’t already been done?
Some of the greatest criminals you’ve never heard of because they walked away ahead. The ones you know are because they had 10 houses stacked to the ceiling with $20’s and stayed too long.
The best are sipping drinks with umbrellas on a tropical island and the world is unaware who they are.

A handful of stamp forgers have produced impressive fakes.

Sperati was among the best at it, often using cheap genuine stamps and removing part or all of the design to replace it with elements from rare stamps.

He often sold them as reproductions or "philatelic art"
One group got him arrested not for forgery, but for exporting valuable stamps without a license. They fooled both Customs and their expert, until he produced an identical group. He was aquitted as his defense was that the stamps intercepted by customs were all forgeries!

https://www.sperati.org/Technique.htm

Someone like that turned loose on cards....

It has definitely been done several times. I personally know someone that was a part of counterfeiting a lot of 60s stars back in the day. He was never caught and no one ever questioned a single card.

There are a ring of sellers in NJ now that are pumping them out in insane #s and have been for a long long time.

One example of a card forgery
 

Just one recent example of a card forgery I ran into--Alcindor RC--

Please see my question on reselling on the watercooler site under basketball

( although this may be a fairly detectable fake I really hope the grading companies catch excellent type fakes)