Polar Bear Fake?

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Posted By: willy1

I recently purchsed a T206 Slagle Polar Bear and the back appears to be very blue in bright light compared to the pure black of my other Polar Bears. The card's front looks legit, however the blacks are a little heavier than my other cards. Is this a fake? Any work on 'Blue Bears' going around?

w

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Posted By: Ben

If the PB back is significantly lighter than a navy colour, it's a fake- no doubt about it. Seeing a scan would sure help. If your card was an ebay buy, post a link so we can confirm.

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Posted By: Dave

This must be the ebay item, there is only one that matches:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31719&item=4122208988&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I'd bet that at the price of this card, it is trickery performed on the sellar rather than a fraudlent sale, if it really is bogus. The sellar has a 100% rating, so I'd bet he would "undo" the deal if you wanted.

Good luck.

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Posted By: Julie

they are definitey blue.

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Posted By: brian p

If the link provided by Dave is the card in question, I would say that nothing seems wrong with the back. Old cards vary in color for different reasons--exposure to light might have faded it a little, or perhaps navy blue was running a little on the light side that printing day. I would think that you have nothing to worry about. The more one collects vintage cards the more one realizes that the world is chock full of variations from the norm, and a porcupine is just a cactus that moves.

It's late, and I'm full of folksy whimsy,

Brian

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Posted By: Elliot

The card in the link above looks fine to me.

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Posted By: willy1

Thanks for all of the input. The link provided is the card that I purchased. It is a dardk navey blue so it seems to match the descpitions provided by some of you.

I did some more research on fakes and it appears real. The ink and front looks fine and there is nothing unusual with texture or the paper weight. Besides, it's not a high priced HOFer, I doubt people are falling all over themselves to fake $30 cards.

Thanks again.

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Posted By: Eric

One of the easiest ways to tell a fake is to hold it to the sunlight or up to a flourescent light and if you can read the back or see the players image it's no good.

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Posted By: hankron

The identification of counterfeits and modern reprints is straightforeward. With a cheap microscope of decent power (say 25x power minimum) examine the player image area. If the image is made up of a continuous (throughout the image) fine multi color dot pattern (lots of ink dots of different colors) like a modern trading card or magazine picture it is a reprint.

This exact same test can be used on many other early cards and related meorabilia as well-- Old Judges, Allen & Ginters, Goodwin Champions, Buchner, comic trade cards, 19th century tobacco labels, those 19th baseball litho pencil boxes.

Say you go to an antique store and see a beautiful colorful '1867 Broadway Theatre Poster' that, under your handheld microscope, has such a multi-color dot pattern. You may know absolutely nothing about 1867 theatre, may never have been to Broadway and may never before have seen an even a picture of this poster, but you will know the poster is a later reprint.