T206 Freaks Beware

[mrvster]

[Rob D.]

It makes total sense that bogus printing freaks and fake "scrap" are the scammers' best friends right now. As recently as two years ago, a majority of collectors who now salivate over T206 oddities would have turned up their noses at them. But now, those oddities are the flavor of day/month/year, so everyone wants one, which means you have a lot of uneducated buyers who really don't know what they're buying.

When you add into the mix that most legitimate printing oddities are one-of-a-kind, it makes it easier for card doctors to turn out more "unique" examples to unload on the unsuspecting. Because of the high prices that printing freaks and their brethren bring, you have the perfect storm for fraud.

Chris was the Ames w/Cobb a Cobb red port. on the back? If so I almost did a trade at the Balt.2010 nationals. It was slabbed as an A by SGC. I was concerened with the Cobb port. having a dot matrix and took it over to SGC and was told that it was an A because the Cobb was not an authentic ghost and this made the card altered. My $5.99 loupe has saved me a lot of $, but learning how to identify these issues came from a lot of reading the board.

[tbob]

I collect E98s and used to have a couple of Old Put printing stamps on the back of some but now I wouldn't touch an Old Put card with a ten foot pole after a fellow collector showed me a fake he made which looked identical to the ones I have seen.

Another thing which isn't really being mentioned is the seller on ebay who sells slabbed T206s with red backgrounds and never mentions the color variation anywhere but the scan looks very, very orange and then when you get the actual card it is a red background just like the rest. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice......

[Runscott]

It's so easy to create scans of real T206's with backs of real T206s overlaid, it isn't even funny. I once overlaid a black and white T206 Cy Young portrait over a real Piedmont back that would have fooled anyone. Creating the actual card is another thing, but the scammers are only concerned about your paying, based on their crafty scan.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by tbob

Another thing which isn't really being mentioned is the seller on ebay who sells slabbed T206s with red backgrounds and never mentions the color variation anywhere but the scan looks very, very orange and then when you get the actual card it is a red background just like the rest. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice......

I have noticed this with Brown Old Mill backs. There was a scan I saw recently that I was sure was brown, but looking closer I realized the edge of the card looked a bit red. So I took it into Photoshop and removed some of the reddish tint when I got the edges to more of a natural tone the back ink was now black.

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by mrvster

Thanks. This is the best reason to keep one's cards raw and do stupid things with them.

[mrvster]

iv been fooled on a few brown oms, these scans are tuf.... i dont own one.....yet....

[Exhibitman]

Or just buy from reputable people...

Nah, too easy...

[biggsdaddycool]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Or just buy from reputable people...

Nah, too easy...

As the old saying goes...if it is too good to be true...

[bn2cardz]

This thread got me thinking about how easy it would be to make a freak. At the very least a WST.

So this morning at work when our printer was idle I ran a very quick test. I used a cobb t206 portrait and printed just the black layer.

As soon as it came out of the printer I put a piece of paper on top and pressed down on the wet ink.

Here is what I got:


The scanner I had quick access to didn't show it very well, so I took a photo with my phone. The photo isn't great but it gets the point across.

The left one is the first press. The right one is the second press. I looked under my loupe 8x magnifier and didn't see any discenrable printing pattern due to it just being a wet ink transfer.

My thought is that if it only took me 10 minutes to do this, how many "Wet Sheet Transfers" could be fake. Or maybe other t206 printing anomalies.

[ullmandds]

Awesome!!!! Now u should take a t206 beater and repeat your experiment on the card?!