For me the anthropologist is the highlight.

Merged
 

Done. Another monumental idea! Hope all is well, Barry.

All is well with me Leon, thanks for asking. But I don't think all is well with the Shotwell Ruth. I think it is going to end badly.

Badly for who? At the end of the video it shows he owns a few graded cards. So he has to know he could have this one graded. I'm not sure what his end game is, but I assume he knows the card is fake and likes the attention. No one is going to pay 6 or 7 figures for this card, and he probably bought it for a few bucks.

Badly for the owner. Let's watch how it all plays out.

I wouldn’t offer 2 figures.

I think he can get 5 bucks for it now....that would be a 250% profit. Not bad.

.

My point is how bad can it end for someone who probably paid 5 or 10 bucks for what I assume he knows is a reprint? He got his 15 minutes of fame, which I also assume is what he was after.

I think he said he paid 2, don't exaggerate.

I must have skipped past that part of the video. You'd think a comment from the the store owner who let this "$4 million" card go for 2 bucks would be part of the story. Or perhaps this journalist could ask why this lucky guy hasn't had the card graded yet.

Same hat, different ass.

The tears are him setting himself up for a GoFundMe page when this comes crashing down, so everyone feels for him.

Lol

The thing it has going for it is that it is not as fakey as most fake cards. I say $10 with included shipping.

Brian

It's a small world but I've been to that shop. The store owner sold me 3 E94s for about $100 or so. He's not the brightest bulb in the batch. The shop is in a really seedy part of town with lots of tweakers and vagrants. As for the card, the background is gray!

Not sure about the anthropologist, but Giorgio Tsoukalos is pretty sure it's the work of aliens

Thanks for the laugh. May or may not have spit out my coffee reading this.

Life is going to be hard when the whole family is no longer “set” due to this 4.5 million dollar windfall. Someone let us know when the auction starts so I can get my placeholder bid in. Want to be ready for spirited last hour bidding.

How much would this card potentially go for if it were real (which I know it’s not)? According to VCP, the PSA 1.5 sold for $6K plus. How on Earth would anyone arrive at a $4.5 million estimate???

I wonder if he could use the press this has gotten to take the card and his $4 million appraisal to a bank as collateral for a loan he had no intention of paying back. Someone who has seen the story but knows nothing about cards might just push it through.

There are a lot of those people. The reporters for instance.
I used to work for a newspaper. Their first duty of a reporter is to expose truth and tell the whole story. It’s sad because it’s obvious that these reporters did no due diligence in their effort. It would have been great for the reporter to have empowered themself to ask an intelligent question instead of allowing the guy with the card to run the story. They could have exposed him as a fraud and a fool instead of the headline “It’s real”. We depend on reporters to get it right - not to mail in a half assed job.

Well, "It's Fake!" doesn't generate ad-clicks or site subscriptions.

Ruth
 

I might bid:rolleyes:
You think he will accept large bills?

A buddy just sent me a link to this story today. How I am now just hearing about it, I dont know. LOL but the second I saw this I thought this dude is clearly acting to get famous or hoping some rich sucker sees the card and wants to buy it because the anthropologist says "its real" but has no experience with baseball cards. LMAO If this card were truly real, he would have sent it in to PSA or SGC by now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL5FjvH3AJc

here's the guy discussing his great buy!

this is the way reporters are today. NOBODY reports the true story anymore, it's too hard to gather the facts. The reporters that are left are complete boob idiots

They would rather be first than right. If you take the time to do the research, someone else might scoop you.

This just keeps going. After watching this video, there can't be any doubt in anyone's mind that this is fake. I guess his play is to hold onto it and convince his neighbors he's a big shot. He wouldn't dare send it to PSA or SGC, let alone to an auction house.

https://bakersfieldnow.com/news/loca...babe-ruth-card

Or perhaps.....
 

A potential insurance scam - gets all the "news" to "substantiate" the value - insures it then lost or stolen and collects on the insurance? If he doesn't do it for real, could make a decent movie!

Yikes. To this point, the collector in question doesn't seem to be breaking any laws, but if it does lead to an insurance scam, that's jumping to some serious stuff (guessing it must be a felony).
As for the movie, it could be fun, but I think we all know how this one will end!

I think they treat it as a 'human interest story.' The next day's story may have been about a retiree who runs a kitten charity.

There's so much eyerolling bullshit to this story it's difficult to know where to start. But, for a starter, do I believe a baseball card shop had this card in the display for $2? No, I do not.

The truth wouldn't be as good of a story with the headline-

Guy Buys $2 Babe Ruth Card for $2

.

1929 Babe Ruth rookie card? It's not from 1929, it wouldn't be his rookie, and where did he get the story that Shotwell made a single proof and that's it? Don't facts count any more?

Deleted

From the article:

He bought the card for on sale for 80% off, paying just $2. The store employee said he couldn't tell if it was worth anything because he couldn't identify the company name on the back of the card.

"We couldn't find it anywhere. Six, seven, eight days of searching the card, we were running into the same thing this old man was running into," Ball said.

So he dug even deeper and started googling the history of the Shotwell logo.

The more this guy talks about the card, the more holes appear in his story (I realize we all know it's a fake). So I just did a quick Google search of "shotwell babe ruth" and the first 2 hits told me all I need to know about the card. The first 2 links led me to the PSA CardFacts pages for the Ruth card and the Shotwell set.

"The 1921 Shotwell baseball set appears to be one of the scarcest in existence with only three cards known to exist - Babe Ruth, Babe Doll Jacobson and George Dauss."

It seems strange that both the card shop owner and the new owner spent 6, 7, practically 8 DAYS searching and couldn't find anything about the company name.

Also, if the card is indeed "one of a kind", how do you explain the PSA 1.5 that already exists?

I guess it's good entertainment.

€hu¢k W0£f

We know it's all BS, the owner knows it's all BS. The only one in the dark is the local television station.

Who can't even be bothered to do a basic google search

He called the shop I was working at (at the time) and said his grandmother left him the card. This was before the news outlets picked it up. So, yes, the man is full of a lot of it.

Just saw the recent Babe thread and thought I'd bump. Anyone have any updates on this goof? I haven't read anything about it in a few weeks, thought I'd check up, and found this:
https://abc30.com/society/visalia-co...ction/5300382/

Don't even get me started.

Also found this article https://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/it-...a4e293c64.html and took note of the graded cards in the picture:

The two PSA graded cards in his picture:
#23266801 Ruth Bulgaria Sport Photo - Three out of four PSA Auction Prices realized are PWCC. Sold TWICE in 2019 (3/12/19 and 5/8/19). Four sales overall since 2017.
#42799168 - W551 Walter Johnson - eBay sale 3/14/19

Interesting to say the least.

My letter to Mr. Wilcox,

David,


Well at least you acknowledged the fact that many of us in the hobby know the Ruth is a photographic reprint (counterfeit) of the known existing copy. You can see the crease in the lower left reproduced on the copy.

I hope the image used on the top of the article isn't his collection as it is chock full of counterfeits, like the T206 Wagner, and cheap examples of big names, like the Bulgaria Sport Ruth. Not exactly the epic cards one would expect from the collection he claims he has. That's without even addressing the autographs.

Oh, and did you ever wonder about 200 million cards? Do you know the kind of space that would occupy? If they were all ungraded and not in holders, packed the most efficient way possible they would weigh approximately 600 tons, and occupy 18,000 cubic feet, or a 2,250 square foot warehouse 8 feet high, with literally every inch fully packed, no aisles, not even shelves, just 5000 count boxes floor to ceiling every square inch.

There is a huge scandal in card collecting right now that has very little to do with this clown, but it's "journalism" like the articles and TV coverage that he's garnered with a counterfeit card that in part help create the atmosphere where the abuses we are seeing can occur.


Scott Russell

It is precisely this kind of journalistic garbage that gives sustenance to the "Fake News" movement. Shame on any publication that publishes it.

Absolute garbage. This hobby is starting to wear me down.

Amazingly Mr. Wilcox has reached out to me.

So what did he say? Drinks on him?

Said he wanted to do a follow up piece and would I be willing to talk on the record and did I know anyone else that he could talk to that I would recommend. I asked him where the line forms...

He is a maroon.

Chicago Maroon?:)

I watched 8 minutes of that truly shitty video he had linked to the article and I hate myself for watching that much. Just hearing him talk and act like he has ANY clue about cards is an absolute joke. I hope this guy gets stranded on an island somewhere and doesn't come back. A true idiot.

You know Wilcox?

Pottsville Maroon circa 1922