Are Type I Photos The Only Safe Bet In This Hobby?

[slipk1068]

With all the recent depressing events, it is easy to have thoughts like this

[Leon]

How about 8 x 10 type 1s on movie lobby cards? There are lots of great things to collect. And my guess is most mid range vintage cards are fine too. But the ones with pointy corners.....a bit more suspect. (and I own a few)

[JeremyW]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "type 1" photos rely on the opinions of the experts. It's not an exact science.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Leon

How about 8 x 10 type 1s on movie lobby cards? There are lots of great things to collect. And my guess is most mid range vintage cards are fine too. But the ones with pointy corners.....a bit more suspect. (and I own a few)

Sorry, Leon, those are well known to be repros. Just kidding! (I think.)

[Peter_Spaeth]

This scandal, too, shall pass, and we'll all go right back to oohing and aahing about the stuff in slabs and buying the same stuff we always do and trusting the TPG/As and assuring ourselves that while there's a ton of fraud WE somehow have avoided it and nothing will change. Not a knock on anyone, I'll do the same thing. Human nature.

[RedsFan1941]

maybe john rogers will check in with an opinion

[bgar3]

Baseball books are a great collecting area, with many potential concentration, including history, fiction, poetry, older, recent, instructional, biographies illustrated and many more. You can also read them.

[drcy]

As a photo person, I think, beyond overprints and alterations for grades, forgeries of Pre-War baseball cards is not an issue, meaning that undetectable counterfeits will not happen. Some posters opine about modern printing technology and experts in China being able to create perfect counterfeits, but that's not true.

I also think provenance will become more and more important-- and something I've talked about often here--, because if you can establish that a card, including autograph card, pre-dated the forgery wave, that will be significant. I've often told people to establish the date of their overprinted card in case there is a future wave of overprinting forgeries.

[Hankphenom]

Photos have had their problems, too, with fake photographer and news service stamps, etc. And I think the process of breaking them down into Henry's four types has proven to have its limitations, also. As people have posted on the threads about the bogus signed T-206 and other cards, there were warning signs regarding the sudden appearance and increasing value of those, and after all, they have been exposed and hopefully everyone will learn something from that. In the end, when the dust settles, no matter whether this guy forged ten of these or a hundred, it will represent a very small percentage of the total universe of good ones. Do you suppose there's anything of value that someone out there isn't trying to reproduce or alter to cash in on? I'd guess that right now a "vintage" Superman lunch box is being manufactured as we speak. If all this scares you, stop collecting. If the probability that one or two percent of your collection is fake terrifies you, stop collecting. Or just collect things that have little or no value on any secondary market, you'll be safe then.