Babe Ruth 1928 Fro Joy Complete Set Real Or Fake??

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Posted By: Jeff

FRO JOY

Being how these pop up on eBay every once and awhile I was curious as to anyones opinion if these are real or fake?

Thank You,

Jeff

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Posted By: Alan Zimmerman

there is a reason that grading companies won't touch these anymore. caveat emptor on these. definitely not making a decision on the realness of these cards or the seller, but I am just saying that you need to be REAL careful with these.

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Posted By: Paul Griggs

I emailed the seller very politely to give him my opinion, but no response yet.

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Posted By: MW

100% Fake.

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Posted By: fkw

B&W Fro-Joys are the toughest to authenticate. Stay away from ungraded examples. 98% are reprints. Frank

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Posted By: scott ingold

This seller is as sleazy as they get as well.

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Posted By: t206King

Fake

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Posted By: leon

fake....I have had some good experience with these....as a lot of other board members have too..

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Posted By: Jeff

I kinda figured that the odds were very high that these are fake.

Thanks to everyone.


Jeff

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Posted By: Mike Campbell

First off, the ebay seller isn't real familiar with this set. He has card #4 listed is Ruth us a crack fielder. When card# 6 should be the crack fielder card. Possible just an error, but just another landmine to avoid when buying this set. I own cards 2 and 6 in the set, (They are legit) I would avoid the ones you are watching. There is something just not right when looking at them on here. Not sure what it is. They just don't look right.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Collectors should always be wary about the Fro Joys. The reprints come in a variety of styles. Some are obviously bad from a scan, others are better done. The average collector should purchase them from someone like MastroNet or Robert Edward Auctions, as they will be able to identify the real ones. Or from a fellow collector you know and trust, so that they can be returned if they turn out to be reprints. The real ones can be identified, but few eBay bidders or sellers know how.

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Posted By: Paul

Wow, I own a set of these reprints too. I didn't know they were so darn valuable!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8740909427

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Posted By: jay behrens

There are real Fro-Joys out there and this seller seems to be willing to stand behind what they are selling. I wouldn't buy a Fro-Joy unless I could see it in person before handing over any money. And given all the fakes out there, I wouldn't be spending a $1k on these cards, even if it is a complete set. Getting your moeny back out of them is going to be really tough.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

give specifics about how to recognize fakes? (I'd hate to waste a bid in Mastro or REA on a Fro-Joy!)

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Posted By: Paul

I cant seem to upload any photos. If I can get your email address, I'll send you some info.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

MastroNet and REA are likely to be offering the real cards. When these auction houses offer them, the cards tend to sell for good money.

For the collector, there are so many different Ruth cards out there, so there's no need to purchase a Fro Joy when you aren't sure. There must be hundreds of different Ruth cards out there. There's no no need to get a complex over purchasing a Fro Joy.

The ultimate way to authenticate a 1928 Fro Joy is by putting the card under a miscroscope. The original Fro Joys used a no longer used form of commercial printing that is identified under a microscope. Whether or not they look nice to the naked eye, the reprints use different printing. With Fro Joys and beyond, even the best baseball card counterfeits are only trying to fool at the naked eye level .... Though, with the Fro Joys, many fakes look bad to the naked eyes. Beyond the color ones, automatically skip the Fro Joys that are heavily toned/brown.

Printing is like any technology, from computers to cars. You can accurately judge the age of something by the technology and materials used to make it. If you find a US made teddy bear made from asbestos, you can be confident that the bear wasn't made just recently. Today's toy maker who uses asbestos would likely face prison time.

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Posted By: Paul Griggs

The seller is lying in his ad. I did email one of the bidders that the cards were reprints. I have not repeatedly email the seller "threatening" him, & he certainly did not ask me about how to authenticate Fro Joys. What a joke. Here's a quote from his ad:

"I have received an email from a bidder who said he was emailed by someone stating they were fake. This individual has repeatedly emailed me threatening me to pull the auction, but when questioned did not know the basics about the authentic Fro Joy characteristics (funny)"

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Posted By: Joann

David,

In your publication on authenticating cards, I think I remember you saying that modern half-tone printing methods result in dots appearing in all areas under magnification. In authentic cards, some areas including printed names, white borders, etc. will not have the dots but will be solid for that color.

In this seller's rebuttal, he specifically states that the light/white areas on counterfeits will be without dots, and that actual cards will have dots in all areas. This is the exact opposite of the general rule described in your book.

When you said (in a post above) that these cards used a technique now obsolete, did that mean that Fro-Joys originals used a method that actually did leave dots in all areas? Or is this seller somehow reversing the descriptions, so that a buyer finding dots in borders will mistakenly conclude that they are real when in fact they are not?

I'm a little twisted around on this one.

Thx,

J

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The original Fro Joys have a dot pattern in Ruth's picture and the white borders have no dots. Many to most reprints have the same pattern.

This seller knows little to nothing about what he's talking about, which I'm sure doesn't surprise many. For example, the cards he is selling have dotted lines on some of the edges (look at the pictures). This means they aren't singles as checklisted in the Standard Catalog, but were handcut cut from a sheet. The Fro Joy sheets and reprint sheets have the cards surrounded by dotted lines and with the at top text "Cut along the dotted lines." As these cards weren't cut well, following the dotted line like grandpa in a white Cadallac, the seller would have to be a mole with an eyepatch to think the edges were factory cut. Irrelevant to authenticity, who wants to buy from someone who doesn't mention that his cards were sorted by Edward Scissorshands.

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Posted By: cmoking

I had assumed that since SGC and PSA won't grade these, that they can't tell with confidence between the real thing and a fake. Yet some of the posts here seem to imply there is a way to tell the difference.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The real ones can be identified. I don't know why PSA and SGC don't grade them, perhaps they will in the future.

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Posted By: Paul Griggs

The strongest magnification the grading companies use when authenticating cards is ony 10x. That's ok for looking at the printing dots, but not good enough to properly determine a printing technique such as photo engraving. The real Fro Joy's are photo engraved.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The essential problem for collectors is not that the original Fro Joys were made is some unusual manner, but that the average collector has never seen one in person and they are rarely offered for sale online. If a collector had a stash of 20 original it would be easy to identify real ones and you'd simply compre the questioned card to your cards. Duly note that there are 1928 Gene Tunney (boxing) Fro Joy cards that I do not beleive were reprinted in the same manner, so it is possible for a collector to purchase a real Fro Joy card, both for collecting and comparison purposes.

Unlike Fro Joys, real T206s and 1952 Topps are readily available so the average collector can lean what the real cards look and feel like. Even if you've never owned a T206 there so many real ones offered online that you can identify many fakes simply by comparing online images. Since T206s and 1952 Topps are in bright colors, reprinting is more obvious. With a black and white Fro Joy it's harder to tell what is a bad card and what is a bad scan, especially if you've never seen one in person.

One of the best and most practical ways for the average collector to identify reprints to to compare a questioned cards to known authentic cards from the same issue. You may not own a duplicate 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, but you can compare the Mantle you just bought to 1952 Topps commons. You may not already own a 1986-7 Fleer Michael Jordan for comparison, but you can get a small pile of commons for cheap. In almost all cases, reprints and counterfeits will be significantly and obviously different than real cards from the issue when compared in person(thickness, gloss, etc). This is why people often say that before you buy your first 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth, purchase a few low grade commons so you can learn what the real Goudeys look like. And this explains why the Fro Joys are a toughie for collectors, as it's hard enough to get the first comparison card, much less the second card. For the average collecor, authenticating Fro Joys is like what was said about the NFL: "Do you know why it's so hard to win consecutive Superbowls? Because it's so hard to the first one."

People who really know what they are doing can authenticate cards without a comparison card. For example, you can put a suspect Fro Joy or newly discovered issue under a strong microscope and accurately judge it's age. You do this in part by identifying the type of printing used to make the card. Early baseball cards were made with printing processes and inks that are no longer used and can be identified. Under a microscope, the printing type and age is identified by a distinct printing and ink pattern. Old photographs are are authenticated in a similar way. By putting a $20,000 1870 baseball cabinet under the microscope, you are seeing if it was made with the correct photographic process for the period, a processes which hasn't been used commercially for over 100 years ... This scientific examination is not used instead of normal collector's judgment and knowledge of cards and photographs, but in addition to. If that 1870 cabinet looks good in comparison to other cabinets you handled from the period and appears to come from a legitimate source, that the microscope shows that the photographic process used to make the cabinet is period should seal the deal.

As an example of microscopy, below is a microscopic picture of the edge of a printed letter. The pattern reveals what type of printing was used.



Notice the the little dust-like grains of black that surrounds the edge of the letter? This shows that the letter was printed with either a photocopier or laserprinter (like you might have at home). Photocopiers and laserprinters do not use ink, but a dust-like pigment that is magnetically attracted to the desired design (letters, image). The pigment is fused (melted) to the paper, but not all of the dust-like pigment reaches the desitination before being fused. This means that a photocopy or laserprint will have this dustiness as shown here under the microscope. Even if you've never seen before a real 1914 Cracker Jack Christy Mathewson, you don't have to be Keith Olbermann and his television staff to deduce that a real Cracker Jack wasn't made with a color laserprinter. The technology wasn't invented until long after Mathewson was dead.

Most to all big auction houses and graders, Sotheby's to PSA, depend on their hands on experience and do not use microsopic techniques like this. Having bought and sold millions of dollars worth of cards, folks like Bill Mastro, Lew Lipset and Rob Lifson's hands on experience is vast and deap. But as PSA and SGC not grading Fro Joys show, personal experience has it's limits, and there will be legitimate material you can't authenticate.

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Posted By: Joann

So the grading co's used to grade these, but stopped? Or is this recent? I don't know anything about serial numbers, etc, in terms of figuring out when something was graded - can you tell by the SN's?

J

http://cgi.ebay.com/Babe-RUTH-1928-Fro-joy-SGC-60_W0QQitemZ8743602710QQcategoryZ57993QQrdZ1QQcmdZ ViewItem

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Posted By: Paul Griggs

I believe Beckett (BVG) currently grades Fro Joy's, but SGC, PSA, & GAI does not at this time. I cant help you with the serial numbers, but I'm sure others here can.

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Posted By: Joann

I'm not really into going for Fro-Joy's myself, although to me a Babe Ruth card would be the all-time coup of acquiring vintage cards. I'm more wondering based on David's discussion a few posts back about the difficulty of being able to id fakes - that the best way is via direct comparison and that is very difficult because it's so hard to come by a real one to use as a base.

It seems to me that if by being graded this is more likely to be authentic, it would be a pretty reasonable opportunity for someone to pick up their comparison card. But I couldn't figure out if the grading companies had stopped because of the difficulty spotting fakes, or what reason. That's why I was kind of wondering about when it may have been graded, and if that even matters.

J

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Posted By: leon

Not too long ago a dealer friend of mine bought a 1930's album with some fake Fro-Joys in it. They were so good that I had to send them to David R. to see. I thought they were fake but wasn't positive and I have handled quite a few 1920's type caramel cards. David confirmed my suspicion and my friend dealer (who mainly deals in a little bit newer stuff) got back his fake Fro-Joys. These that were mentioned in this thread, that are/were (don't know if the auction ended) on ebay are identical to the fake ones. The lack of clarity (grainy look) to the pictures gives it away from the scans. I am 99.9% sure the ones on ebay are fake.....for that reason. When you hold the cards in your hand they feel a little rough compared to 80 year old paper, which is smooth to the touch. It wasn't easy to tell though and I can see how many experienced dealers can mistake them for real...such as this auction on ebay. regards

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I can tell you that said higher quality reprints had obviously handcut borders not unlike the set currently on eBay. Also, the rectangle surrounding the text on the back had a couple of breaks, while the lines on the originals are solid. These are qualities that would could be seen in an online picture.

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Posted By: Jeff

Well the ones he had up didn't sell as there was two bid retractions.

He also hit the buy-it-now on these FRO-JOY TCMA reprint (1989?) on the 26th.