Help verifying card's authenticity
 

Hello Everyone,

I have owned this Fred Merkle card for a long time. It is the only E95 Philadelphia Caramel that I have ever owned. It looks and feels real to me, but I am not sure of its authenticity. It looks darker than other examples that I have seen. Maybe someone coated it with shellack sometime in its history. The print on the back looks blue in the scan, but black in person.

It has come time for me to sell some of my collection. Obviously, if it is a fake, I don't want to pass it on to someone else.

Any opinions on its authenticity would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards, Joe

Looks good
 

I’d say it looks pretty good to me….. might be worth a few bucks to get the slab to be sure. It’s not a high dollar card….

My first instinct was NG!

I doubt the authenticity of that card. It has the washed out reprint look. If it is authentic it must have went through a major spill of some kind.

...and the back looks too slick and evenly toned. I also vote no.

Brian

I would vote bad also.

based on the scan given, I don't like it

Easy for you to determine, illuminate it with a black light. If it fluoresces, then you will know it's not authentic.

I think it'll fluoresce. It doesn't look right to me, the left and right edges on the back are suspect, to me. It may be real, but I'm among the doubters above.

Get a black light and let us know what you find out, please.

Tea stained back

I know nothing about this set, so here's the card in question (left) matched up with a graded one from eBay...

Attachment 564087

Other than the purported 'fake aging' happening, what jumps out at me is how the real card has all sorts of natural gradations in the colors, like the way the background goes from yellowy orange to real light green and then into dark green, and the gray of the uniform is shaded and nuanced, but your card has none of that gradated toning, and the contrast is stark, dark or light. The border of it is pretty weak, too. Not strong, thick lines like the eBay one.

Again, I know nothing about the set, but it doesn't look right to me.

Great comparison, Darren.

the facial details look second generation when compared to the image from an eBay listing.

It is not a genuine card.

And look at the difference in the lettering on the front, clearly some marked difference between the two in how thick and sharp the lettering is.

Joe, the most obvious is the apparent lack of print dots on your Merkle you can see them clearly on the example that Darren posted in the side by side with your card.
The image you posted seems a little blurry to me take a look at your card under magnification and see if it is actually missing the print dots as it appears to be.

Thanks everyone for the input.

I know that it is difficult to authenticate a card based on a picture. In this case, it may be even more difficult because I think the card may have been coated with a substance to protect it. I do have loupe and there are hundreds of black dots on the surface of the card that show up under 16x magnification. Originally, that is why I thought that the card might be real. Perhaps, if the card has been coated with something it maybe more difficult to see the dots on my card, when placed next to the card in Darren's picture. (Thanks, Darren for taking the time to do the side-by-side.)

Thanks, Frank for the black light suggestion. I will purchase a black light flashlight from Amazon and check to see if the card fluoresces, and report back. Can you explain why a reprint will light up while an original will not under black light? I am sure that it has been discussed before, but it may be of help to someone else (like me) that may be reading this thread.

Again, I appreciate all of the comments.

Best regards,

Joe

awful

There shouldn't just be black dots there should be other colors the most noticeable on the Merkle are the Red.

Attachment 564200

Okay
 

Haha now since initially said it looked good all the scammers will be contacting me to buy their fake cards LOL . I agree with all the comments and it’s almost certainly a fake based on all that’s been said. I guess I was swayed by the OP saying he’d had it for a long time. Thanks to all for reminding me to “look before you leap” and often DONT LEAP AT ALL lol.

black light.........


I like to think about a commercial I recall years ago. BASF. It was and is a German company. The ad had a line in it, "we don't make the products you use, we make the products you use better"

One group of such is brighteners. After WW II, paper manufactures started making paper with brighteners. Laundry detergents have them, nowadays. If you illuminate modern paper (after about 1947-48) it most likely has brighteners in it, and it will fluoresce. If you illuminate a page from a magazine from the 1920's, it won't fluoresce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_brightener

My initial impression was that it wasn't good. But when you answered so quickly that it looked good, and since I don't collect that issue, I just figured I was wrong. I chose not to leap. :D

The "N" in Nat'l does not align with the shadow in the pants leg when comparing both cards. Ever since studying 1991 Topps Desert Shield cards ad nauseum, this is one item that sticks out.

uv light... brighteners...


Here's a BASF commercial. That's the voice I recall, but I think the language I recall may have been from an earlier commercial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NQuMr45xd4

If you're gonna be spending REAL money on old cards, spend the money on old cards that are REAL. You gotta have a black light.

Lack of dot patterns and/or color in the white borders are both telltale signs of lithographic cards which aren't authentic.

Frank you were right. I got the black light flashlight today and the card fluoresces. It is not authentic. Thanks. I can see where having a UV light is indispensable to a vintage collector. I am sure that black light also helps identify doctored cards, when modern material is added to a vintage card.

Thanks everyone for all for your help.

Best regards,

Joe