Counterfeit sports cards from Omaha, NE
 

Has anyone had any interaction with a person from Omaha Nebraska that is selling "authentic" PSA and SGC graded baseball, football and basketball
cards ? From my understanding he has had several (maybe more) handles on Ebay including monfutsu, handymanoncommand-8 and brickbrackthisthat-0
His cards include '52 Mantles, '53 Mantle, '57 Bill Russell, '57 Mantle, '65 Namath, Kofax, Alcindor, etc etc as well as many 1930's and 1940's stars
In his ads he claims to have found a huge stash of 1930's-40's-50's-60's graded baseball cards while cleaning out a house. With me he claimed he inherited all of his cards from his Father after he died in 2016. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Never heard of him, but you can tell from the PSA flips they are fake. They have the old font and the new hologram. Doesn't jive.

agree with stlcardsfan, the serial numbers are too old for the flips... newer PSA flips numbering start in the 25 million+ range I believe...not sure on SGC..

Here is a listing from his current Ebay account

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1914-Cracker...IAAOSwyjJZ3GSr

SGC 96 should easily fetch OVER $100K

Any thoughts on the card ?

This is the buy/sell/trade section. Theses are great topics but should be posted in the proper section. http://www.net54baseball.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

Can someone get PSA involved to verify they are fakes? I would assume they would want to take legal action as it could hurt their reputation. This guy should be in jail. He's not just peddling knockoff Topps T206 frames.

I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong forum

Not a problem, you are new so just pointing you in the right direction.:)

Here is what the real 57 Mantle should look like.

Real
<a href="https://imgur.com/nskHkHL"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/nskHkHL.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

Fake
<a href="https://imgur.com/UzTE44N"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/UzTE44N.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

The "ghost" groundskeeper
 

I've never ever seen such a pronounced "ghost" on a '57 Mantle as on your bottom example..

..

This is really disturbing! I don't pretend to be an expert on identifying counterfeits. I'm doing my best to learn and read things on here. But one thing I will say is at times depending on the card I do pay a bit of a premium to get a graded version to increase the chances that its legit. I didn't realize there are lots of counterfeits in slabs. I totally get the second hand autograph authentication can be a bit of a crapshoot but I thought the card market was pretty tight.

The buying feedback on all of those eBay accounts mentioned is full of reprints.

What does that tell you? Slabs all look bad.

This seems like an important topic so was moved to the front page for more eyes to view it. Fraud is always a black eye for the hobby.

Article
 

Not an exhaustive resource by any means, but here is an article I wrote several years ago on this issue. I made some updates last year. Here is a link to the article.

http://bbcemporium.com/california-craigs-list-psa-scam/

57 Russell
 

Here is a side by side comparison of the good and bad card

Mantle
 

Here is a side by side of the Mantle

So with a few adjustments to the label, the cards can pass as good. How many counterfeiters have already made those adjustments? Pretty scary for collectors of high grade cards.

+1

You don't see to many pre war rare cards done like this. Prewar Rare cards will always keep their value compared to the high graded commodities.

I remember when the SMR came out in early 2000s. Dealers were always using the Krause SCD price guide to buy cards and then they would use the SMR to sell their cards.

Scary, sure, but if you avoid sellers with red flags it'll help. He's also selling a coin with some suspicious bidding, a coin which was re-listed since yesterday when it had some REALLY suspicious bidding. Also low feedback. Just danger signs all over the place.

These cards have been making the rounds for at least 10 years. There's is/or was a few Jordan rookies, etc. Craigslist was a favorite spot. Needs money bad, no time for auction. Father died, mother died etc. If it seem to good to be true, with these it definitely is.

The good thing is that since ultra-high grade cards aren't too common, you can do a google search (ex: 1957 Mickey mantle 8.5) and see if you can find previous auction sales. If you find the same serial number, you can compare before buying. Truth is you probably shouldn't buy any ultra expensive card on eBay anyway unless it's from an extremely reputable dealer.
I wonder if the major AH's would have caught the fraud if they had them consigned to them. Fraudsters, of course, would never consign these fakes because they would easily get caught (AH would have their contact info).