Calling All W517 Experts...

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Posted By: Brad Green

Please take a look at the card below. Does anyone have any compelling convictions as to whether the card is real or a reprint? Thanks!

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Posted By: Steve f

Not an expert, but have a couple graded. Hard to tell, but if the inner brown frame isn't solid (dots) then it's a repro. Can you do a UV check? Otherwise, it looks good IMO.

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Posted By: Mike

The distance from the edge of the card, to the border, seems to be quite a bit further than normal. All my 517s have much smaller distances in that regard. The rather horizonal grain in the card board on the back seems good though, so who knows. Good luck Brad !!

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Posted By: dennis

agree with steve (and i'm no expert either) but the back and the color looks ok. hows the stock compare to the other groves you own? rare to see that much border on these.

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Posted By: Jimmy

may need to get them graded, but appears to be okay - just off cut

Jimmy

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Posted By: Brad Green

I don't have a black light, so that's not an option. The things that bother me are as follows:

(1) the bottom left corner is cut a little funny, as if someone were trying to cut away the "W517" that's printed on the reprints
(2) the line at the top is made of dots and not dashes. Most other W517's that I've seen have dashes
(3) the card is a bit wider than the others that I have
(4) the card is a bit glossy rather than flat

The thickness of the card is similar to the other W517 that I have access to.

I got the card off of eBay from a seller with 0 feedback at the time. The seller had many W517's for sale. The others looked good to me, so I figured that I would be okay.

Here are all of my W517's. The card in question is on the far right.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

The gloss would be a giveaway. Compare it to your others; if there are stock or print variances, you know it's not good.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Although Bill Spigler made reprints with W-517 on them, he may have not made every reprint of this set which exists. Recognizing that consideration, the following observations apply to this card.

(1) the bottom left corner is cut a little funny, as if someone were trying to cut away the "W517" that's printed on the reprints
(2) the line at the top is made of dots and not dashes. Most other W517's that I've seen have dashes
(3) the card is a bit wider than the others that I have
(4) the card is a bit glossy rather than flat

1) Bill's W-517 is always located nearer to the player image than this card's trimming could hide. Therefore, IMO the W-517 indication is not cut off.
2)W-517s infrequently (but sometimes) come with dots rather than dashes. But that was not done on the Spigler reprints.
3)Wider could be a problem for a dispensing machine. Or maybe not. (boy that is clear, Gil)
4) I have not seen a glossy W-517. Spigler's reprints are quite glossy and all have white backs.

So, if a reprint, it is not one of those commonly available.

_________________________

Steve f: you have dealt with Bill S., and have some of his reprints. Do you agree with this assessment?

Gil

_________________________

Brad: if you can look at the card under sufficient magnification the brown color on the card will show dots of yellow, light blue, pink and black if it is fake. And if it is real, the brown color will show brown dots.

This is unmistakeable and you know the answer within seconds of looking at it.

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Posted By: Brad Green

Gil:

What magnification is sufficient enough to see the brown dots? Is 10x good enough?

Brad

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Posted By: Randy Trierweiler

Brad, I have 3 Cardinals reprints that have the W517 on the front. The W517 notation on mine are very close to the brown border, maybe 1/16" away. Also, the backs of my reprints are a bright white stock. This would help your case unless there have been more than 1 reprint. Randy

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Posted By: Steve f

Gil, I agree with you. These are not Bill's reprints.

The card stock on the back of Brad's card matches in appearance to my graded sepia. I have a rose colored W517 that has an altogether different looking card stock, but is genuine. This card looks like the real deal. Nice pick up.

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Posted By: Brad Green

I have ordered a 20x loupe, so I'm hoping that will put this to rest. If anyone cares to check out the other W517's that the seller sold, then click the link below. Just because the other W517's look okay is no guarantee that mine is okay, but I think it increases the chances that it's okay.

Thanks for all your help!

The other W517s

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Posted By: Paul

When your loupe arrives, the other thing to look for is dots within the circle that contains the card number. Other than the numbers, the circle should be white without dots.

I bought some fakes a few years back, and Bob Lemke determined they were fake based on the dots in this area. He later wrote an article in SCD about these fakes, along with fake 1963 Bazookas that had all come from the same source.

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Posted By: Brad Green

The 20x loupe arrived yesterday. I have examined all four of my W517's. The new one has some distinct differences from the other cards. The differences are illustrated in the picture below.

None of the other cards have dots making up hexagonal shapes or dots in the tan border of the card. The other cards do not have any mixed colors that Gil was talking about above. The other three cards are identical in dot pattern, except for the color of the dots as you would expect.

As illustrated below, my new card has tan colored dots in the border of the card. In the white areas of the card, the dots make up hexagonal shapes. The dots are mostly brown in the brown areas, with a few yellow and white dots mixed in. Do any of you have graded cards with these characteristics?

I have my opinions. What are yours?

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Posted By: Paul

The dots in the border are a very bad sign. The light tan color should be due to the color of the stock. When cards are reproduced using a computer, the computer attempts to replicate the border color as it would with any other color -- with ink dots. I had the same experience once with a D304 Cobb. You can imagine how disappointing that was.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

none of the cards I have has anything in the borders. The card stock forms the color.

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Posted By: leon

Dots didn't get mfg'd in the borders. Those happen when copies are made. I don't think I have ever seen an authentic card with a dot pattern in the border.....My only cards with dot patterns in borders are reprints and fakes....I don't know that much about W517's but I didn't really like the way this one looked when I first saw the scan. I do know there are many, many of these as reprints....

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Posted By: Brian

Along with Spigler as partners, I produced the reprint sets in Chambersburg, PA in 1998. All of our sets have white backs and are glossy with the w-517 label on every card in the bottom left corner. We made close to 5,000 sets and only made 1 card that was a reprint that had a cardboard back and it wasnt a Grove. I am almost positive that no one else made reprints of these as the cardboard is very difficult to find that matches the cardboard that was used in 1929-31. Very nice find there buddy. Any other questions about this set, email me and I will tell you everything you need to know.

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Posted By: leon

If there are NO dots in the farthest borders to the edges you are fine. From the very top scan it doesn't look like there are dots there. I just put these 2 strips from my collection under magnification and there are no dots in those borders. As you can see on this Grove the borders are a bit wider than the the others too. I know I am waffling a little but only because it was my understanding there are dots in the border on the suspect card... which I have never seen on a good card (though I haven't seen everything).....regards (large scans on purpose)

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

I agree, the card is real.
The four color dot matrix on copied or otherwise recently produced fakes is so striking that it is unmistakable. You clearly see light blue dots and pink ones and yellow and black ones on the fakes.
Brad, e-mail me at identify7@peoplepc.com and I will send you a fake brown and a fake green w-517 for your reference. I do not have any Groves, but that won't matter.

Or look at a magazine, or any other printed material. It is all recent and the technology blends four inks to produce all colors. Formerly they had to use individual inks for each color which was produced. This yielded in some cases, seperate passes of the card which occasionally produced improperly aligned colors.

Edited to add:
Current printing technology can not produce ANY brown nor green dots.

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Posted By: Brad Green

Gil:

Send me your address and I'll send you the card for you to examine, provided that you'll send the card back to me, whether it's fake or not. I would appreciate your opinion -- first hand!

Brad


Leon: Just to clarify (and I believe that you understand correctly): On the suspect card, there are dots in the outer border. On my three other W517's, there are NO dots in the outer border.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Brad: please understand that it is my opinion that cards can not be authenticated. The best that can be done is to systematically eliminate possible evidence that the card is a fake. Some consider the result of that effort as "proof". I do not.

My conversation above addressed one characteristic. The multicolor dot matrix. It is true that existence of a multicolor dot patern is proof that the card is a fake. But is the absence of that pattern "proof" that it is real? No. At best it is an indication that the printing occured before the war.

Based on the evidence presented this far, could your card be an original which was skinned and rebacked? Why are there border dots, since what Adam says is true? And Leon.

I am afraid that I am not nearly the best man here for this task. However, since the task which you requested is to state my opinion, I may be the only man capable of adequately doing that. But please recognize that the result will be an opinion.

While you are awaiting the return of your card, can I offer you a booklet entitled "Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards" for your perusal? Ummmm ... you must return it, even if you like it.

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Posted By: Brad Green

I've talked about the differences between the new card and my three original W517's. However, I haven't talked about the differences between my new card and one of Spigler's reprints that I have. These two cards are not identical either. In the background of Spigler's reprint, I can see all the colors that Gil talked about above (blue, red, yellow). In the tan border's of Spigler's reprint, the dots form hexagonal shapes made up of red, green, yellow, etc. In the new card that I have, the dots in the tan border are tan and do not make up hexagonal shapes. The backs are different, of course, as the back of the reprint is white and the back of my new card is gray. The cards are similar in that the white areas on the cards are comprised of dots making up hexagonal shapes.

I wish I could take a picture at 20x to show you what I'm talking about.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Hi all,

Since the last post, Brad mailed his card to me, I looked at it, and returned it to him.

The results of this inspection does not disagree with anything posted in this thread, by any poster. I have verified all statements which Brad has made, as well as those of Leon, Adam, and the observations of Mike and Dennis; as well as others.

It is my opinion that the card is real. This opinion is primarilly based upon the printing technique not being a multi-color dot matrix, complimented by the lack of indication that the card flouresces under ultra violet light.

There are caveats associated with the previous statement,and there is considerable circumstantial evidence associated with this card that tends to refute my opinion. However, the lack of a multi-color printing pattern is, in my estimation, an irrefutable indication that the card is of period manufacture.

If anyone is interested, I will provide detail of the limitations of the observations which I have made, as well as identification of resolved and unresolved red flags, which would cause a prudent collector to pass on the opportunity to acquire this card.

Gil

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

I think you guys are thinking too much....LOL.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Kevin,
Some of us have to struggle to grasp that which may be intuitively obvious to another. For example, in this thread, Mike and Dennis noted that the borders of Brad's card seemed bigger than normal. And Leon verified that his example also had relatively big borders.

As it turns out, Brad has several of these cards, and they all have big borders. Which is, since the card width doesn't change, the same as saying that the Grove card has a narrower image than other w-517s. And this is true.

But the Grove card is not unique in this. Out of 14 different cards which I checked, four had the larger borders. Three of these four I have multiple examples, so it is a design feature, not a printing variance.

Perhaps interestingly, each of these four cards depict a player in an action pose, and each of the ten with narrower borders depict a player in a portrait.

Although this initial check is far from verified, it could be that the w-517 set actually contains three different sized images (including the mini).

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Posted By: Steve f

Hadn't noticed the image size inconsistencies in spite of owning several examples over the past few years. Wonderin if any other issues carry a similar plate characteristic.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

We know that a dozen of the cards share art with the Exhibit PC back set. I have the original art for a PC card and I also have the original art for the W517 Terry. The pictures aren't the same size. It may be that the narrower images come from narrower art or art that was cropped for some reason in production.

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Posted By: Brad Green

I now have a high-res scan of this card that shows the dot patterns. To see it, click the link below.

For the best results, save the picture to your hard-drive and use the "zoom" feature to look at the dot pattern.

The High-Res Scan

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Posted By: leon

I don't think your link is working....

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Posted By: Brad Green

Leon:

You have to add .jpg to the end of it...

Brad

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Posted By: leon

I just sent you the one I have scanned at 600dpi. Unfortunately I don't think yours is real compared to the one I have...which I know is real...Those dots in the border are a killer, imho.....maybe I am wrong but I have never seen dots in a white (or light) border of an original card, that I remember....I was doubting myself but, unless this is some kind of weird original, it doesn't look good to me....

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Posted By: leon

black larger borders are solid...

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Posted By: Paul

The dots in the border, the dots in the white circle surrounding the "39" and the dots in Grove's name are all real bad signs.

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Posted By: leon

This bottom one is my card and I am pretty darn sure it's real. The dots in the white circle around the "39" look to be legitimate. None of the other dots, in white areas, are on my card....as are on Brad's suspect card....

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

The dots are both a dilemma and the only redeeming value which this card has
to offer. This card is far worse than dots in the border, which may be
explainable. Please allow me to outline my other observations relating to
this card, and please realize that your comments are sought. I will tabulate
these for brevity, elaborating on only a few. More detail certainly is
willingly offered.

-very sharp corners
-seller disappeared
-high gloss ink
-rippled cardstock on both sides
-microdot pattern indicates two inking passes because two different
brown colored dots are noted. The lighter one appears on the entire
surface, the darker only in the image area
-the lettering on the card has minor differences from normal lettering
-slight image size difference from typical Grove w517
-the above are the unresolved considerations with this card, there
are other unusual characteristics which have been explained away by stating
that they have been encountered previously in this set

Coupling these potentially significant factors with the fact that although
the card did not luminesce, it was grey cardstock, which I’ve never gotten
to luminesce (old or new). This could be a failing of mine, or a
characteristic of grey cardboard.

So all I have to hang the assessment on is the dot pattern. That, and the
belief that if a faker was sufficiently resourceful to create a phony card
which has a viable dot matrix, he would not have gotten so many other
things “wrong”.

As indicated above, there are dots all over the front of this card, I think,
because the cardstock was grey on both sides, and the manufacturer “painted”
it a cream color to the front before he placed the card image on it. Yes, I
know, unprecedented! Crappy! But also perhaps a rush job during the
depression. Gotta keep them doors open. What is significant about the dots is their color. If you have no pinks, light blues, yellows, blacks - you are on reasonably firm ground regarding legitimacy.

There is more – there is are the dots fake?

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Posted By: leon

I have traded several emails with Brad on this suspect card. I admit I am a little stumped. This could be the first real card that has dot patterns in the light area on the borders that I have seen. From my limited experience those dot patterns are made by a copier spewing ink in the copy process (fake). The card looked real at first. Then I scanned mine at 600dpi, as can be seen, and viola...no dot patterns in the border. Couple that with the dot patterns in the black (bigger border)on the suspect card as opposed to mine that has a solid black border and it becomes more suspect. The dots around the "39" are on both cards so I ruled that out...at this point I am not sure of Brad's card. It looks good and not good.....I am about 60% leaning towards good and 40% not good.....

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Leon:
Copiers have cartriges in them. One is for black and white and the other is
for color. Sometimes the one that is for color is broken down into individual
cartriges for each color. The black and white one has black in it. The color
ones have pink, blue and yellow in them.

If you have a phony card made by this type of equipment with dots in the
border, the dots will always be made up of those colors (eventhough it looks
white, or off-white). That is, the border dots will be blue, pink and yellow,
probably not much black if any, because black is a bit dark for a border.

It is impossible to produce brown dots with current technology.

The best that can be done is to overlay yellow, pink and blue to produce
the brown. I investigated the card in question at 60x. This gave me a far,
far better view of the dot pattern than Brad's .jpg allowed. There were only
brown dots. Some of these were a light reddish brown and others were a deep brown.

The light reddish brown dots extended throughout the card. I presume that this
was an undercoat. The darker dots comprised the image. No dots were hexagonal,
all were irregularly shaped.

This "undercoat" is why there are dots in the border. I speculate that the undercoat was necessary because the cardstock was grey on both sides.

Edited to add:

I am not sure what you are referring to with regard to the dots in the dark border.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

My limited understanding of printing is that what you have described is typical of what a half-tone screen print would look like if the printing plate was made using the cards rather than the original art (think W565 or E220). It doesn't prove the card is authentic, only that it was not produced using modern printing technology. It may be a reprint from the original cards. Perhaps the company that produced the cards decided to produce a second printing but did not have the first set of plates or original art and made a new set from the cards themselves?

None of my cards from this set look like you have described.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Mr. Warshaw:
It was never my objective to prove the authenticity of Brad's card, because
as I have stated, I do not believe that one can prove authenticity, I think
that the only achievable objective is to eliminate possibilities that the
card is a fake. I know that this sounds like semantics, but really there is
no proof that a card is real. And there is proof that a card is fake.

However, your suggestion that this card could represent a reprint with a
point of origin different from the original issue, has considerable merit.
My initial analysis eliminated the liklihood of reprints employing old
printing hardware through 1980 primarilly because the value of the card
would not warrant the effort necessary.

But your suggestion is not a fradulent motivated reprint, simply a
manufacturing choice. This falls within the framework of my thinking, thank
you.

None of my cards have characteristics similar to those of Brad's card
either. Effort is underway to contact other purchasers of cards included in
the offering which Brad acted upon, to determine if those cards have similar
attributes.



Edited to enhance readability.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

It currently appears that all action poses in the w517 set have narrower
images, that is wider borders, than all portraits in the set. This is new
information for me, and for many of us. So, we have been paid by Brad for
the help which we are offering him, and our pay is expanded awareness of the
set. So lets figure out whether his card is real or not.


I have stated that I believe that Brad’s card is real, and I do. Leon has
indicated that he was thinking 60/40 that the card was real too. I am not
quite as optimistic as Leon though, I feel 51/49 that the card is real. This
is because if you believe that the card is real you also believe:

- that the seller made a brief appearance just to sell these cards, and he is now gone.
- that the card survived all of this time with poke-your-eyes-out sharp corners.
- that the card’s high gloss surface, although unique, is ok.
- that the card’s cheap cardstock which is rippled on both sides, and never before seen
on this nor any other identified baseball card issue, is ok.
- that a printing technique which includes an undercoat, although to my knowledge never
done before on a regular issue pre-war baseball card, is also ok.
- that there are differences in the lettering between the card in question and other w517 Groves, is ok.
- that the image size of the card in question is smaller in height and width when compared to other w517 Groves, is also ok.
Now, I will freely admit that I was willing to accept much of the
circumstantial evidence shown above and hide behind the fact that the dot
pattern of the card is consistent with an item manufactured before the war.
But there is really too much here to accept on that basis, imho. Well, maybe
not tooo much, but exactly enuff to get a Gil ranking of 51/49 certainty.
Which means that if the wind blows the wrong way, we really have to discuss
how a half tone dot pattern can be faked with modern equipment.


However, it is noted that SGC has graded several w517s in the 90s range this
month. This is a new level of achievement for this card. Reportedly all of
these cards have a common source. It is unknown whether Brad’s card is one
of this group, but his card does have the strongest corners I have seen on a
card of this set.

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Posted By: leon

Ya' know....looking at the suspect card again, in the enlarged scan, it doesn't look too good. I think I am coming more to your 51/49 percentage but I am not even sure which I think "more" anymore, good or not? I really hate dot patterns in areas that shouldn't have them.

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Posted By: dennis

add to it that the seller is "no longer registered" on ebay. that has to add more to the mystery of this card(s).

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Posted By: Brad Green

The fact that the seller is no longer registered on eBay is what gives me less hope that this card is real. I must say that all of the other W517's that the seller offered looked real, too. They looked much more real than this Grove W517, as the others looked like well-loved cards.

I still haven't heard from any of the other buyers of the other W517's that "run4urdreams" was selling.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

To my thinking Brad, "hope" is resolved by action.
Your card exists in the dimensions which we have all come to embrace.
And it either was printed before WWII or it was not.
It was either printed on cardstock which existed prior to WWII, or it wasn't.

You sought my analysis, and the results of that assessment are:
The card was printed prior to WWII.
The card was printed on cardstock which I can not establish its date of origin.

Now Brad, I am not your best choice among participants here for this type of investigation.
I recommend that you seek a second opinion on the printing and cardstock.
And I do not think that a grading company is a good choice, because they have
a history of rejecting anything that they haven't seen before. And they reportedly,
are not very communicative.

Does anyone here know how to use a magnifier and black light?
If so, please contact Brad at his e-mail address accessible via a link on
his webpage (which is accessible from our links section, two pages this way <----),
and offer to help - he doesn't know who to ask (or he wouldn't have asked me).

[leftygrove10]

Some of my scans from above have been lost over the years.... I wanted to add a few of them, given the other W517 that was started a few days ago....

Here is a scan of the card that I was questioning....

[leftygrove10]

Here is a scan that shows where the dots exist on the card....

[leftygrove10]

Here is a comparison of font sizes between another W517 (on the top) and the card in question (on the bottom)...

[Clutch-Hitter]

Brad, I haven't read the previous posts, but the paper the card you're questioning looks modern in and of itself. The front edges in the comparison scans are what I'm referring to.

[Clutch-Hitter]

FYI: one does not need a loupe to authenticate a card. Simply scan the card at high resolution (I use 1600 DPI), open the scan in an editing program and crop out sections from the card. One can see the dots very well in 600x600 mp sections or even up to 1000x1000 mp sections, and not only that, you can separately save those sections as individual photos. If one has a confirmed authentic comparison, the card in question should be scanned next to the authentic at the suggested high resolution so sections can be extracted from both, together.

Also, one can do this so that another person will be able to tell each individual section still represents the subject card, such as by gradual zooming to particular areas, etc.

_______________________________________

To clarify, the reason I said the card in question looks modern is because the edges look like they would be less smooth than the authentic comparison. For example, I scanned a Fro Joy fake next to a real one; notice the edges on the fake (card on top) look less smooth. That's an indication the paper is modern.