With the stakes rising, how worried should we be about high quality counterfeit cards

[thatkidfromjerrymaguire]

We've all been watching and marveling at the exponential increase in card prices (modern and vintage) recently.

I know most people on this board and vintage collectors in general are honest folks. However, money tends to attract lots of different types of people...including scam artists and crooks.

We've always believed it is hard to counterfeit old, vintage cards. And I believe that to a degree. I think it would be hard if not impossible for most people to produce a believable counterfeit with easily accessible equipment.

However, over the last 12 months there are MANY cards that have crossed over the 50K range. Making it reasonable for a bad actor to invest a lot of money in to specialized equipment to produce fake cards in small batches and still be able to make a reasonable return.

And I have to be honest...the thread on this board a few months back regarding the Dover Reprint Cracker Jack card getting in to a PSA slab really spooked me. I mean, that card literally had the perforations showing and was still graded as an authentic card. That was a TERRIBLE fake. So my faith in PSA to be able to discern between an original and a professionally done counterfeit is low.

Unfortunately, I'm NOT in the group of people that has enough disposable income to be spending 50K on a card any time soon, but for those people that will be...is that something that should cross their mind? Do you think PSA and SGC are being extra diligent to be on the lookout for a fresh breed of crooks to enter the market along with all these high dollar buyers?