Posted By:
Al CrisafulliAbout a year and a half ago, I was browsing through T206 auctions when I came across one of those guys who tries to pass off T206 reprints as real. You could see his buying/selling patterns - he'd buy up reprints, list them as authentic, and then use the proceeds to buy shiny cards. In this one auction, he was selling a whole lot of "authentic" T206s - a Wagner, a Plank, etc...
...except some of them WERE real! The bidding was very light, and I got it for something like $150. When it arrived, there were about 20 reprints, but a bunch of authentic HOFers as well - Eddie Collins, Rube Waddell, Addie Joss, Rube Marquard, Frank Chance, and 3 or 4 others, plus a handful of authentic commons and two different Hal Chase cards.
I was pleased, because the seller was obviously so intent on cheating people (he had some other lots of "authentic" reprints being sold that same day) that he missed out on the opportunity to actually make some decent money the honest way. If I remember, his other lots sold for a few dollars each. Had he just listed the authentic T206s individually, he would have brought in plenty of money.
-Al