Weighing your cards

[rdwyer]

Any truth in weighing your cards in grams can determine whether or not your card is a fake?

[packs]

I bite mine

[bnorth]

Any truth in weighing your cards in grams can determine whether or not your card is a fake?

Only if it is a really bad fake.

[rdwyer]

Was wondering if PSA, & others weighed the cards as one of the steps of authenticating?

[bnorth]

Was wondering if PSA, & others weighed the cards as one of the steps of authenticating?

I can guarantee PSA doesn't or their scale doesn't work.

[rgpete]

Maybe the TPG's have discovered the density of each baseball card thru the years and are keeping it a secret on Oak Island

[JollyElm]

Maybe the TPG's have discovered the density of each baseball card thru the years and are keeping it a secret on Oak Island

Damn, I was wondering what the Lagina brothers were looking for.

[Harliduck]

Post war collector, and I bet many will agree with me...but 50's and 60's topps have a certain smell...can't replicate that smell...

[drcy]

I think weight is a minor thing to look for, but it could be and has been done before. An SCD book on fakes talked about weighs. But you'd have to have to have an accurate and precise scale.

I think if some did an accurate weighing of authentic cards and made the data available, that would be useful.

Card thickness is also a biggie.

[toledo_mudhen]

Post war collector, and I bet many will agree with me...but 50's and 60's topps have a certain smell...can't replicate that smell...

+1

Yep - that is correct

[bnorth]

Post war collector, and I bet many will agree with me...but 50's and 60's topps have a certain smell...can't replicate that smell...

+1

Yep - that is correct

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but that smell is super easy to put into counterfeit cards.

[Bigdaddy]

Weighing cards is the best way to sell junk-era stockpiles - sell 'em by the pound.

[Huysmans]

Damn, I was wondering what the Lagina brothers were looking for.

Keep watching.... they're almost there! By season 38 in 2052, they'll find more metal pins!!!!! Amazing television!!

Oh History Channel, what would we do without your informative and questionably-sane shows about nutbag UFO "theorists", eating moldy old food and "hunting" for a German dictator dead for three quarters of a century.

[topcat61]

I weigh cards for research but I'm a printer by trade. Probably the biggest reason why you should do this is that printing technology is so darn good these days and there are a lot of fakes and altered cards that can fool even the best. One of the things they often get wrong is the stock -but a digital microscope and a black light are very handy tools for vintage and I highly recommend both.

Some dealers are so good that they can tell what the proper weight should be depending on the card just by holding it in their hand, but I'm not. The more cards you see the more experience you'll have.

[hcv123]

They use a 1-10 scale.

[rdwyer]

Let's try this out. If you have a real and fake card of someone that are the same card, weigh them. Let us know what the results were. Weigh in grams.

Sorry I don't have any fakes to try this myself.

[Hankphenom]

Post war collector, and I bet many will agree with me...but 50's and 60's topps have a certain smell...can't replicate that smell...

cardboard and bubble gum. Like the old ballparks, that inimitable combination of spilled beer, cigar stubs, popcorn, peanut shells, mustard, and a hundred other things pressed into the concrete walkways and aged for generations. Nothing else like it in the world.

[bnorth]

Let's try this out. If you have a real and fake card of someone that are the same card, weigh them. Let us know what the results were. Weigh in grams.

Sorry I don't have any fakes to try this myself.

You will need something that weights items smaller than a gram. I tried my mail scale but the cards are way too light.

I just measured the thickness of a real card 17.5 thousandth of an inch. Then I measured a counterfeit that is good enough that PSA has graded at least a half dozen of this exact card. It measures 15 thousandth of an inch think. If you handle a lot of cards you will easily notice the difference in thickness of the 2 cards.

[Stampsfan]

I can guarantee PSA doesn't or their scale doesn't work.

My wife uses the same brand of scale, apparently.

[egbeachley]

Wouldn’t older cards expand in thickness and weigh more in humid environments?

[Bigdaddy]

Wouldn’t older cards expand in thickness and weigh more in humid environments?

I would imagine so, just like wood (from which paper is made).

[Bigdaddy]

Let's try this out. If you have a real and fake card of someone that are the same card, weigh them. Let us know what the results were. Weigh in grams.

Sorry I don't have any fakes to try this myself.

You really need to weigh lots of real and several fake cards and see if the fake cards fall within or outside of the variances that you would see from a stack of real cards.

[bnorth]

Wouldn’t older cards expand in thickness and weigh more in humid environments?

Not in my experience. I haven't owned a ton of T cards like several on here. I have easily owned 100 T206s and 100 T210's and every one I have measured(a lot) are all within 1 thousandth of an inch.

Now older cards that have been wet/soaked and not dried properly will be a little thicker.

[rdwyer]

My thinking is the card stock on fake cards are heavier than real. (In grams). Can someone test this out, and let us know the results. I have a digital scale that does grams, carats, etc. Only have real T-cards, so I cannot test.

[bnorth]

Here is a pic of cards that are the same player from the same year. One of them is counterfeit.

[steve B]

Not in my experience. I haven't owned a ton of T cards like several on here. I have easily owned 100 T206s and 100 T210's and every one I have measured(a lot) are all within 1 thousandth of an inch.

Now older cards that have been wet/soaked and not dried properly will be a little thicker.

That's what I found when I measured several of mine. They were very consistent, and pretty much the same on humid days as they were on dry days.

[Bigdaddy]

Here is a pic of cards that are the same player from the same year. One of them is counterfeit.

#7, starting on the left. What year are those cards?

[bnorth]

#7, starting on the left. What year are those cards?

Correct, they are 1989 Bill Ripken F Face cards. Strangely that counterfeit card sells for easily 3 to 4 times the real one. I know the counterfeits PSA graded sell for absolutely silly money. Yes Bill Ripken collectors are very strange.:D

It is a long time known counterfeit among advanced Bill Ripken collectors. I am not up on current totals but last I knew there was about 30 of the counterfeit cards known to exist.They are very well made and fool most people rather easily.

[Exhibitman]

I would imagine so, just like wood (from which paper is made).

Wood...

Sir Bedevere : There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.

Peasant 1 : Are there? Oh well, tell us.

Sir Bedevere : Tell me. What do you do with witches?

Peasant 1 : Burn them.

Sir Bedevere : And what do you burn, apart from witches?

Peasant 1 : More witches.

Peasant 2 : Wood.

Sir Bedevere : Good. Now, why do witches burn?

Peasant 3 : ...because they're made of... wood?

Sir Bedevere : Good. So how do you tell whether she is made of wood?

Peasant 1 : Build a bridge out of her.

Sir Bedevere : But can you not also build bridges out of stone?

Peasant 1 : Oh yeah.

Sir Bedevere : Does wood sink in water?

Peasant 1 : No, no, it floats!... It floats! Throw her into the pond!

Sir Bedevere : No, no. What else floats in water?

Peasant 1 : Bread.

Peasant 2 : Apples.

Peasant 3 : Very small rocks.

Peasant 1 : Cider.

Peasant 2 : Gravy.

Peasant 3 : Cherries.

Peasant 1 : Mud.

Peasant 2 : Churches.

Peasant 3 : Lead! Lead!

King Arthur : A Duck.

Sir Bedevere : ...Exactly. So, logically...

Peasant 1 : If she weighed the same as a duck... she's made of wood.

Sir Bedevere : And therefore...

Peasant 2 : ...A witch!

[chalupacollects]

Damn, I was wondering what the Lagina brothers were looking for.

They are looking for long lost rulers for the TPG's...

[steve B]

Correct, they are 1989 Bill Ripken F Face cards. Strangely that counterfeit card sells for easily 3 to 4 times the real one. I know the counterfeits PSA graded sell for absolutely silly money. Yes Bill Ripken collectors are very strange.:D

It is a long time known counterfeit among advanced Bill Ripken collectors. I am not up on current totals but last I knew there was about 30 of the counterfeit cards known to exist.They are very well made and fool most people rather easily.

And they include features I've never seen on a fake. Unlike most where shortcuts are typical whoever did them spent a lot of effort, so much that I'd think there would be far more of them.

[toledo_mudhen]

Correct, they are 1989 Bill Ripken F Face cards. Strangely that counterfeit card sells for easily 3 to 4 times the real one. I know the counterfeits PSA graded sell for absolutely silly money. Yes Bill Ripken collectors are very strange.:D

It is a long time known counterfeit among advanced Bill Ripken collectors. I am not up on current totals but last I knew there was about 30 of the counterfeit cards known to exist.They are very well made and fool most people rather easily.

Ben - your post immediately prompted me to go out on the ePay and purchase 2 Bill Ripken F Face cards which the perfect feedback seller described as "Fresh Pulls". Upon completion of my impulse buy - it occurred to me that other than the card thickness that you describe I don't really know how to determine the "Reprint" version on these. Online search not offering a lot of info either. Could you describe the differences or indicators? Thanks

Update - Found your post from 2013 on the boards (not sure why I didnt search here 1st).

If anyone else interested : https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=175607