T206 Ty Cobb ‘Bat Off Shoulder’ with Cobb Back – Definitely Fake, but What’s the Stor

[Birdman916]

Hey everyone, first post here (finally got verified—shout out to whoever pushed it through). I’ve been lurking for a while and reading up, especially around the Cobb back cards.

A buddy of mine showed me a Ty Cobb card his uncle gave him as a Christmas gift years ago—probably at least 20+ years ago. The card has the Bat Off Shoulder front and the ‘Ty Cobb – King of the Smoking Tobacco World’ back. As everyone here probably knows, the Cobb back is only known to appear with the Red Portrait front. No authenticated examples of the bat-off-shoulder Cobb with that back exist.

We’ve since sent photos to Rick Snyder (shout out to Rick for responding), and he confirmed it’s a fake. That said… it looks insanely real.
• It has natural aging, realistic wear, period-correct sizing, a solid litho dot matrix, and the back ink looks close to real Cobb backs.
• No signs of digital printing.
• Green ink Cobb back with the correct Factory 33 line.
• No visible signs of tampering or card surgery.
• No gloss layer on front (though that might have worn off).

We’re 99.99% sure it’s a fake. But what I’m interested in is what kind of fake?
• Any guesses on the era? We know it’s at least 20 years old.
• Could this be one of the 70s/80s high-quality reprints? Or a more recent fake made to deceive collectors?

Also, included with it was a 1948 Leaf Babe Ruth card, which also looks legit at a glance, but… now obviously we’re skeptical of everything in that stack.

Would love any info or feedback from folks who’ve seen this kind of thing before. I’m not trying to prove it’s real—it isn’t. But I’d love to learn more about how to spot these well-made fakes, what giveaways I might’ve missed, and maybe even where this one fits in the fake genealogy.

Pics attached.

https://imgur.com/a/aofHpii

Video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1naU...w?usp=drivesdk



Thanks in advance—this hobby is wild