T206 Honus Wagner that was on Ebay - thoughts?

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

it all looks fake to me.

+1

[Yoda]

Interesting that the seller has an original Modiglioni oil painting also on auction with purported provenance from Sothebys (no scan of such.) Imagine a Wagner and Modiglioni when his current inventory is nothing but low value coins. What a lucky fellow. Must have a fairy godmother.

[TobaccoKing4]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

+1

What about the back looks fake? I'd like to learn what you guys are seeing that I'm missing. To my eye the back looks legit but the front looks fake as ever.

[drcy]

Other than when offered by a major auction house (REA comes to mind), an authentic T206 Wagner has never been auctioned on eBay.

[Jewish-collector]

Originally Posted by drcy

Other than when offered by a major auction house (REA comes to mind), an authentic T206 Wagner has never been auctioned on eBay.

That's not true. A few years ago, a Net54 member had his legit one listed (graded by PSA) on ebay for about 400K. I recall he was displaying a lot of his T206 set on his office wall. I forget his name/user id.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Jewish-collector

That's not true. A few years ago, a Net54 member had his legit one listed (graded by PSA) on ebay for about 400K. I recall he was displaying a lot of his T206 set on his office wall. I forget his name/user id.

true dat!

[njdunkin1]

Originally Posted by Jewish-collector

That's not true. A few years ago, a Net54 member had his legit one listed (graded by PSA) on ebay for about 400K. I recall he was displaying a lot of his T206 set on his office wall. I forget his name/user id.

Powell displays his set on his wall, and I think he has the Wags.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by TobaccoKing4

What about the back looks fake? I'd like to learn what you guys are seeing that I'm missing. To my eye the back looks legit but the front looks fake as ever.

Why the back is fake:

1. The color is too pink
2. The staining is artificial -- look at the left bottom edge and right bottom edge. You can see how the fibers that make up the card are darker. If you see a card that you think must be fake (e.g., a T206 Honus Wagner on ebay), always look for how the staining bleeds into the cracks of the surface and edges.
3. The corners (and you can see this on the front as well - especially top right and bottom left) were clipped with a scissors, and then rounded down by a thumb which caused uniform fraying at each corner.

Once you've handled hundreds of raw T206s and stared at them for hours at a time, all of these things and more will pop out to you immediately. Which is why you should not buy raw T206 cards worth over a couple of hundred bucks, at least until you've had a lot of experience handling them raw.

The front is just not what a T206 card looks like. The close-up of the eye should show a black dot matrix as the shadow.

Take a look at all the little black dots that make up the shadowing on this Hal Chase:



And instead what you see there is little white cracks, which were caused by the soaking in tea or whatever that was used to age the card. The surface of an authentic T206 would never crack like that.

It's a decent effort at a fake, all things told. But a fake nonetheless.

[drcy]

Didn't notice the Modigliani (in a $10 frame).

With items like these on eBay, just use common sense.

[53Browns]

Even remote tribes in the Brazilian jungle know about the Honus Wagner card. So the seller would have done his research and either got it to PSA or SGC or to an auction house. I hate that crap like this clogs up Ebay. FAKE.

[smokelessjoe]

I love how he took the time to purchase a fake Wagner card so that he could show you the difference (using a loupe) between it and the "original" wags... More effort than getting the "real" one graded

[drcy]

I'll leave the answer to the lawyers on this board, but I think selling a forged Modigliani with fake documentation is the type of thing one goes to prison for.