1952 Wheaties Need Help Verifying Authenticity

[Chesapeake]

Steve, Here is one from my batch scanned by itself.

[brett 75]

According to the Standard Catalog the set was extensively counterfeited around 2002. All of the ones I have ever seen look toned in color. The pure white looks to good to be true. Brett

[steve B]

Here's my Musial. Cream stock, and I've had it since well before 2002.

Side by side with the white one. You can see where the printing block was getting a little worn with mine, the white dots to the left of the STL on the hat are gone, the shoulder on the left side is slightly less detailed because all the lines are thicker. That's the sort of detail that's hard to add in if you're faking something.

There's a few details of the printing method that I could probably see in a bigger higher res scan. It shows on the Snead Alex scanned.

I wouldn't have any question about the ones Alex has shown. (I need all of those BTW)

Steve B

[Volod]

I'm with you Steve as far as the feasibility of faking such detail goes. It just seems way too technically difficult for the potential profit return on this particular card. Searching online, I could not find the Lemke research on the reported counterfeiting of this set.
Maybe, if Bob notices this, he will help us out.

[Volod]

So, I guess, in the absence of any further comment or evidence, the reported counterfeiting of the 1952 Wheaties set is somewhat questionable, no?

[GoldenAge50s]

I'll throw in my .02¢ worth here. I have had a near-set of these guys since I was a kid & cut them off the cereal boxes myself. I just looked thru all of them and most all of mine remain pretty nice & white w/ only a hint of the dark toning usually found today.

Maybe it's the way I stored them all these yrs, but here are 4 at random I scanned. All have the typical grayish backs, some w/ & some w/out the stains shown in original post.

While the Musial in question sure has a ultra snow white border, mine are close to all white also and I can guarantee w/out question that they have been mine since day of issue.

[Volod]

Thanks for your input, Fred. I'm still open to some convincing evidence of counterfeiting from the 2002 report, but as of now, based on the comments above, I'm skeptical about that.