Ebay #1860440706 e121 Ruth

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Posted By: QHN

Can anyone confirm the picture is from Henry Yee's auction a few months back. I remember HY was selling a similar Ruth and he talked about the card being kept in a book and that's what caused the staining, and kept the card fairly sharp-cornered. This new seller has put up alot of stuff from an "estate" sale...but he supposedly lives 15 minutes away so I've asked to see the cards in person. I guess we'll find out soon if he's legit or not.

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

Don't know about the Ruth, but this same seller has no feedback and is selling 3 vintage cards (two of which, if they are real, are highly desirable), but the Mayo has a white back:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1860446487

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Posted By: B Hodes

The only white back Mayos I have ever seen are reprints (they are supposed to be black or should at least show signs that there was black paper lost).

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Posted By: leon

It does look sort of "skinned" to me....BUT, the guy has 0 feedback and ALL of his auctions are high end cards....warning, warning......I think making double sure with this seller ( with 0 feedback ) would be prudent.....yes, everyone has to start sometime but verifying never hurts....regards all

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Posted By: David

I'm would not accuse and am not anyone of counterfeiting on this quality alone, but the 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle has clipped corrners which are describes as 'evenly rounded.' Apparently the most difficult thing in making a counterfeited card or cabinet card is making rounded corners, as many computer print counterfeits have obviously clipped corners. There also appear to be inconsistant white touches to the edges of the back of the card, as if the 'dark grey card stock' was merely printed onto white stock ... Otherwise, the card looks quite vivid and realistic-- though the color tone on Mantle's face don't look quite right.

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Posted By: David

The Cobb bat on shoulder has clipped corners (and anotherwise goofy cut) as well. While genuine cards can (and CDVs often have) have clipped corners, I've never seen a 1951 Mantle with four nearly-neatly trimmed corners-- at on a card least without obvious tape or glue damage indicating it was once in an album.

To me the cards are suspect (talk about razor corners on a Mayo) and, at the least, I hear PSA downgrades cut off corners.

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Posted By: David

The Old Judge Burdock is a counterfeit. Looking at the auctions, each and every card has at least once one significant problem or otherwise iffy quality. It is my guess that all the cards are counterfeits made on someone's computer printer.

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Posted By: David

While the seller may have him/herself been had, if the seller protests too much, explain to him that, if they are computer prints, the cards can be traced to the computer that printed it. Even if no one's going to seriously look into it, it does makes counterfeiters think twice. I've looked at cases where the counterfeit and the receipt sent with the item were printed on both the same printer and the same paper (Doh!).

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Posted By: Dr.Koos

....Look at the bottom right hand corner in the portraiture. That erasure, half obliterating the tree, is where the vertically positioned word,"REPRINT" used to be.
I also see MANY inconsistancies on the other vintage cards that lead me to believe that they are all "artificially aged" (tea, coffee, nicotine, dirt, random filth, unspecified stains, urine, etc.) REPRINTS.
Several, I wasn't absolutely sure about, but the mere presence of the erasure on the Mantle, just at the perfect spot to obliterate the "reprint" designation (what a coincidence!) points to an overwhelming thumbs down on this seller.

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Posted By: Bob Lamb

Funny how all the cards have been abused enough to have rounded and clipped corners but not one in the bunch has the first crease.Hmmmm!! I wouldn't touch these auctions with a 39 1/2' pole (Dr. Seuss reference).

BOB

P.S. - I am new to this board and thought I would respond as not to be known as a lurker. I find the wealth of knowledge to be amazing. I am not really into Pre-War cards though I do have a few 1934-36 Batter-ups and a Jimmy Foxx Tattoo Orbit . Just enjoy reading about baseball card collecting in general.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

Look at who the current high bidder is on this no-feedback seller's T206 Red Portrait Cobb:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1859822814

This bidder is the same seller (vending-machine) who tried to pawn off a set of A&G reprints as the real thing a few weeks ago: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1857872294, which was brought up in a thread here. He issued a contrite reply after getting reprimanded and pulled that auction, but he's back. That's the thing about lazy frauds - they just can't resist going back to the well.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

....

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Posted By: David

As confirmation on my earlier opinion, I checked and the Old Judge Burdock and the T206 Cobb Bat Off are copied from the Library of Congress site.

One thing to point out is that the Burdock has white areas on the edge inconsistant with the genuine card. This effect will happen when reprinted fronts and backs on paper are pasted to cardstock (known as the Oreo cookie effect)or where a modern white stock reprint is artificially aged accidentally leaving unstained areas,usually on the edge (thickness) of the card. These are common signs of counterfeiting for the T206, 33 Goudey and many 1950s Topps and Bowman cards.

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Posted By: David

To not miss a detail, sometimes the Oreo cookie effect can also appear with reprints of dark or off white cardstock cards on white cardstock. This is technically different that pasting pieces of paper onto cardstock, but will have the same effect.

The point being that, for example, a 33 Goudey cardstock is off white, and if it is dinged or touched, the area of damage won't magically turn bright white. Same goes for a 51B Mantle, and, in fact, most Pre-War cards.

And while I'm at it, another common sign of a reprint is a moire pattern in a real photo card, like an Old Judge or Fatima, and a moire pattern in the background of a T206 or throughout an entire Allen & Ginter. The moire pattern sometimes (not always) happens when a 'dot pattern' card is scanned. Real photo cards have no dot pattern, the Allen & Ginters do not have a halftone (dot) pattern, and T206s only have a dot pattern in isolated parts of the player picture (usually the players face, body, uniform).

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Posted By: David

Okay, just one more thing, I promise. As home computer counterfeiters ordinarilly can't print on normal card stock, their creations often have a slight warping or waveryness where the normal card would not. This is most often noticeable by looking at the top and bottom edges of the cards. I've seen this incosistant warping on numerous online fakes, including an otherwise sharp looking Goudey Ruth who's bottom edge looked like a flag waving in a gentle breeze.

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Posted By: David

You thought I'd have to post one more detail, but I fooled you didn't I?

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Posted By: MW

David --

A slight correction. EVERY image is made of individual "dots" or picture elements (pixels). The difference between a reprint and an original is that the reprint has LARGER pixels than the original. Remember, just because you cannot resolve an image with your naked eye or with a certain magnification, doesn't mean that individual "dots" don't exist. They do -- every image has them. The process of reproducing an image, no matter how precise, always results in producing larger picture elements than the original.

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Posted By: David

Michael, I mean no disrespect when I say that you are wrong on both counts.

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Posted By: runscott

all it takes is fine-grain sand-paper and your thumb. I'm always amazed at the stupidy of the forgers who simply cut a curved line around the corners to simulate age.

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Posted By: runscott

Henry asked me to post this for him regarding this auction http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1860440706

I am 99.99% sure that the "image" is indeed the SAME as the card I sold two months ago (and I did not sell to this guy and I have confirmed with my buyer that he is not selling his card)

So most likely this seller "vintage_king101" is ripping off images from past auctions and everyone should be alerted. My partner has alerted eBay Safe Harbor and my powerseller rep.

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Posted By: QHN

Well it's been a couple days and I haven't heard back from the seller about my proposal so I guess that clears it up for me.

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Posted By: MW

David --

I think we've debated this subject once before.

Every printed image (e.g., those on baseball cards) is made up of individual dots. There is no such thing as a solid color. Images that are original or are at a higher resolution contain a greater number of dots per inch (pixels) than reproduced images or those at lower resolutions.

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Posted By: David

The halftone printing process, which is still used today to make baseball cards, translates an image (whether photograph, painting, drawing or other) into a pattern of tiny dots both on the printing plate and the resulting print. The process was not introduced commercially until the 1880s, and didn’t work well with lithography until about 1920. The majority of 19th century baseball cards were made with Pre-halftone technology.

As an example, the N167 Old Judges were woodcuts. Woodcut printing is an ancient form of printing, and the printing plates for these Old Judges were carved in essentially the same way as was done in ancient China (where the woodcut was probably invented). In the process, the craftsman uses handheld knives and gouges to carve out the design in a smooth surfaced block of wood. The printing ink is placed on the smooth areas left, and wood block and is pressed against the paper creating the print. The resulting print will have no dot pattern …. And any modern Larry Frisch or computer reprint will necessarily have a finer dot pattern.

Even a handful of 20th century cards were made without the half-tone process, and will not have a dot pattern.

In half-tone printing, the ‘dots per inch’ is consciously set by the printer. The printer can simply say, “I want 12 dots per inch today” or “I want 24 dots per inch today.” The dots per inch that physically appear in the print is the result of the screen that is used to project the image through. A finer screen will create more dots per inch, and visa versa. In fact, as time passed and technology advanced, printers were generally able to made prints with a finer dot patter (more dots per inch). As an example, the 2002 Topps 1971 Topps Hank Aaron reprint has a finer dot pattern, than his original 1971 Topps. There is no question that a reprint can’t have better resolution (clarity to the eye) than the original. However, a reprint can have lower resolution, yet have more dots per inch.

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Posted By: MW

According to the majority of sources, halftone printing was first introduced in 1871. To give an example (N167s) where woodcut printing was used shows an exception rather than the rule. EVERY current process used to produce images on baseball cards involves a method by which the image is created from individual dots. This is also true of some 19th century cards and 99% of all 20th century cards.

To say that, "Real photo cards have no dot pattern" is not completely accurate. For images produced prior to halftoning, the terminology would have been "lines per inch." It is also not completely accurate to say that T206s "only have a dot pattern in isolated parts of the player picture." Find a 100X magnification source and you'll see the folly of this argument. It would be analogous to saying that there is no interstitial space between adjacent molecules in a compound.

In halftone printing, masks are used to define the where on the paper and how much of each color ink will be deposited in each halftone dot. These masks take the form of clear films called separations that are covered in a pattern of halftone dots and are produced as one mask for each color. This is where you are slightly confused. In halftone printing, the printer DOES determine the size and position of each halftone dot; however, each halftone dot is comprised of a number of even smaller dots called the imagesetter pixels. THIS is what determines the resolution. To say that a reprint can have a lower resolution and have more halftone dots is correct; but to say that a reprint can have a lower resolution and have more pixels per halftone dot is totally inaccurate.

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Posted By: David

I aready wrote a lengthy book that covers the history (invention date and beginning of commercial use are usually distant from each other, and this incudes half-tone), usage and identification of printing and photography so will not rehash detais here .... No doubt, there are many areas which you know much more that I, but print and photography history is an area in which I am more than confident.