Cobb
I 100% would not have done it absent the guarantee. I knew something didn't look right, but couldn't quite place it. No excuse on my part for not knowing that red Cobb's don't come in 150 series (except the backs don't matter much to me). Other issues could have been due to poor photography, weird aging, etc. The exact same version of these cards will present considerably different to me depending on what they were exposed to -lots of stuff can happen over 110+ years. I felt like I had zero risk for the potential of getting a Cobb for less than half of what I anticipated. I guess the real risk was/is how good are the authenticators and how good is Ebay's guarantee?
I have been collecting these cards for 30 years, so I am not a total rube (no offense to Marquard, Waddell or Manning). I fully relied on the authenticity guarantee from Ebay, and the price was too good to pass up, just in case it was real.
For the most part I have collected low grade (A to 2) cards with common backs, so I haven't really had to be real vigilant about fakes(I do hit em with a black light when I get them). Of the higher dollar cards I have bought they have come from auctions or very high quality sellers and are generally graded. My Green cobb is raw but it came from Probstein. All my Mattys and Youngs came from auction houses as did my Cobb bat on and they are all graded. My Demmitt & O'Hara StL came from BST here.
In hand to me a fake is pretty obvious - not so much from pictures, so live and learn.
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