Star Basketball sets to avoid master list
 

Hi, I tried looking around the internet for a master list of bad/later/fake star sets. So far I have

Avoid: (many include Levin COA’s and were shop at home fakes)
1984-1985 lite all stars white version
Blue border Olympic 1984-85
Crunch n' Munch 1986 and darker orange crunch n munch (Jordan dunk)
1986 Chicago Bulls arena set
UNC Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan ten card Olympic
1985 roy set white border red letters
84-85 all rookie team white border
Yellow border non 5x7 court Kings 1985
Gatorade set white
Any 5x7's printed as standard size cards
Black or white Jordan 101 XRC
Portland Trailblazer Jordan cards

Released later/ production date not know. Beckett will no longer grade these:
Best of the Best
Magic Johnson subset


Avoid unless graded by Beckett:
Best of the new 4 card set (type 2's were released or illegally stolen and sold) (Beckett has just stopped grading these)
Michael Jordan subset (Type 2's)
1985-86 main set numbers 95-172
These type 2’s are often times off register.

Note: It does not seem that full sealed sets have been reprinted that I can find thus far.

Raw Best of the New I would avoid...and do you mean the Olympic subset? Haven't heard anything wide spread on that one...

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In the interview with Steve Taft:

https://jordancards.com/blog/the-rea...rt-steve-taft/


He seems to say the 84-85 Olympic subset Is a shop at home product.

I think thats more crap with the different color borders...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...546567503d.jpg

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Ok yes, not to be confused with the red border Olympic set which is legit. There is also a McDonald’s all American star Jordan card on eBay that has bids now that isn’t any good. There just seems to be a lot of bad stuff out there masquerading as legit star.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-85-Sta...AAAOSwhjlfOG3X

The 86 Bulls arena set is bad. The 10 card Jordan subset does exist but not with this card so it is bad as well.

I'm curious if the COA with the best of the new set is ok.

If you look at sold eBay listings for Jordan star hsn cards the cards are selling for 40-100 dollars each with 10 bids plus. All raw. Am I crazy or dumb or missing something?

all bad

more

updated information in first post for those interested.

Another

Yikes this is on probstein and unless someone corrects me I do not think is legit at all

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-85-Sta...1&LH_Auction=1

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-85-Sta...t&LH_Auction=1


https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-85-Sta...ff4ds&LH_All=1

Complete garbage all of it

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Thank you for responding. I would think Probstein would know better. So much of this junk is selling and it’s too bad because it causes people to be soured on the really great legit star products.

Garbage
 

Are those common fakes? I have never seen them before.

This is why I am compiling a list of all known fakes. They all seem to fall into three categories:

1. Fantasy sets: Almost all of which were part of the 1997 shop at home scandal and bear Levin coa’s. I haven’t yet determined how many different of these sets were made and I add as I see them.

2. Reprints: mostly of Jordan’s and high end rcs. Often sold with the rp designation but also sometimes passed as unknown or real. It seems like one way to discern most of these is the lack of topcoat light gloss surface on the front. The photo is often not as clear as well. Often factory star cards had ink bleed on the sides and reprints or sheet cut will not.

As the prices rise more and more seem to come out. If anyone remembers the shop at home scandal I’d love to hear more but my guess is the print run on those sets is 10000 plus so yes they are prevalent.

Here is something else to be aware of with these star cards:

There are definitely uncut sheets out there. In fact many sets were sold as sheets at the time. This means many sheet cut cards exist out there. So far I have seen:

83-84 all star
lakers champs
1985-1986 featuring jordan set, best of new and much of the 86 set
1984-1985 set featuring Jordan 101 and olmypic
1983-84 Bullets and kings oddly with the Carl Yaz set
1986 Best of Best with Magic Johnson set (according to basketball gold these sets can only be submitted by Schonco to Beckett for grading although I do not know if that information is current). It is my understanding that many of the raw cards in these sets are in fact sheet cut.
1986 court kings
Portland 5x7
5x7 red dunk set with 5x7 pistons and 5x7 lakers and 5x7 rockets
5x7 sixers
last 11 ROY set, all rookie team, Dale Murphy baseball set, rod carew set, coaches set, Kareem set and Nolan ryan strikeout king card all on one sheet

It is very likely that certain raw cards are in fact sheet cut and won't grade, so look closely at edges. Also if cards are being sold as "prototypes" and seem larger than normal, it is likely they are just sheet cut with pieces of the sheet left on.

Does Beckett know what it is doing? I am not being snarky; if I decide to buy a Star card that is Beckett graded can I at least take for granted that I am not buying a fake, reprint or SAH fantasy card?

Adam, I am planning on doing a deep dive into graded Beckett soon to see if/what the graded issues are. Beckett does know enough to stay away from the shop at home Fantasy garbage and obvious fakes, so yes to that. The sheet cut stuff and potential second print run cards like the Jordan series, best of new and best of best I am not 100 percent on.

Another one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Michael-Jor...app-cvip-panel

Thank you, I added it to the list. what an interesting sheet.

I have gotten fairly heavily into Star in the last year and my go-to move is to buy bags from known sellers, and ask about the provenance every time. This will increase the price and difficulty of acquiring the key Jordan cards, but I'll have a pretty reasonable guarantee of authenticity.

The sealed bag, by its nature, tends to maintain the condition of the key cards pretty well, and as a value proposition I think sealed bags are the way to go.

I agree.

Did you cover this one? The 86 Crunch N Munch Jordan that was not made in 86?

Look at this on eBay
https://www.ebay.com/itm/333739880289

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It’s on my list. Pure shop at home trash. I have scoured YouTube looking for the original tv recording of the sale. No luck. Lots of shop at home don west videos out there but no star vids. If anyone has a lead on that it would be appreciated.

Here he is hawking some later star Jordan crap

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8IKOuM5TwzA

We have a ton of Star in our upcoming auction with many keys just graded by Beckett in the last month. They no longer grade ANY "Best of" sets.

Scott, Thank you for the information. Just curious, does that include the very rare best of the old yellow five card set? Those have not been subject to controversy or reprint and should still be good for grading in my opinion.


Looking forward to the auction.

Dennis.

What Beckett told me was that the company that bought Star's assets in bankruptcy reissued all of the Best cards. They didn't enumerate any exceptions to me, but maybe the person speaking to me didn't have all the information.

We will be selling Best of the old and Best of the new. This collection had nearly every Star Co. Card ever printed and they were collected by the son of a dealer as they came out so fairly impeccable provenance. Also if you're into esoteric basketball, supposedly there's no way to differentiate between 1976 and 1977 Fleer stickers, however again this collection was put together year by year at the time cards and stickers were issued, so while there's no way of "proving" it we have two separate sets of stickers actually labeled with the appropriate year. Just interesting, not incredibly valuable.

I agree with all of you in the thread, but I just don't like using the term "garbage". I prefer the terms "reprints" or "non-authentic" or "custom" etc,... I collect a lot of reprints of this type as I can't afford the authentic ones.

My calling them that is in reference to the purposeful deception sellers use as well as the original deception with shop at home. Outside of that I have no issues with the cards themselves and will refer to them as reprints, fakes or fantasy issues in The future to more accurately label the cards being discussed.

jordan set
 

Is this part of the Jordan subset to avoid raw?

Hi, yes it is. The card could very well be good, but just know that there were more of these produced and sold later and there are a significant amount of reprints. If the seller can guarantee it grades or offer refunds it might be worth taking a shot if the price is right, but it is a risk.

From what I have read the type II’s associated with this set tend to be off register. So if the card picture Is clear that is a good sign. I would also say if the seller is reliable it is likely good.

I don’t want to come off as an expert. I am learning more as I add information. I just really like the era and the cards.


My best advise is to read basketball gold top to bottom. Then look at as many auction results on the cards as possible. That is what I did.

I would also say to buy a handful of low priced singles raw to examine closely. They are distinct cards and once you know what to look for, if a seller has good scans it will add confidence to your buying.

I just wanted a thread where star collectors could help each other navigate these cards and enjoy them.

Well this has been a useful thread for me Dennis. Thanks for starting it.

Crunch and munch
 

basketballGold only lists 1 crunch and munch set:
1985 Star Crunch 'N' Munch All-Stars

What is the 1986 Crunch & munch ? is this different? sometime the Star years get interchanged (85 gets called 86 etc), so I want to confirm whether there are 2 different crunch and munch sets or not...

Yes there are two sets. One is original one is not. The original 1985 set uses the same Jordan photo as the lite All stars set. The fantasy “1986” set uses the same Jordan photo as the red 5x7 dunk set.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333739880289

Dennis,
FYI, this Crunch and Munch Jordan listed is the same picture as the '85 Lite All-Stars. Is it the "Star 86" in the upper right that makes it fake?

Nice catch, yes, so there are two bad crunch n munch sets or at least Jordans. The one featuring Jordan dunking and the right picture set that is marked 86 instead of 85.


Also there are reprint/fake 85 Jordan Crunchnmunch cards being sold. They are typically a darker shade of orange than the originals

Just an update, there seems to be more HSN shop at home star cards on ebay than ever, with major sellers. The bidding is pushing many of these counterfeit/fake cards well into the hundreds of dollars. As Michael Burry's character said in the big short, a hallmark of mania is the rise and complexity of fraud. At any rate this article states that when the FBI raided the 1997 Shop at Home operation, over 100,000 cards were confiscated. One can only imagine how many were released.

https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-x...022-story.html


more info here

https://www.poconorecord.com/article...News/302199996

If there are any lawyers on the forum who can research access to the court records for these licensing lawsuits or can share any documents legally it would be greatly appreciated.

Per the 2nd article:

"The Star basketball trading cards alleged to be counterfeit include the following sets: 1985 Miller All-Star Set, 1985 Chicago Bulls Arena Set, 1986 Chicago Bulls Arena Set, 1986 Crunch ‘n’ Munch Set and 1991 Michael Jordan Promotional Sets."

I agree; the last few searches I've run for Star cards have been overrun with all sorts of stuff that doesn't quite match with what I know of the issues. At this point I am limiting myself to graded examples unless the seller is known to me. Just too much material that does not match a legitimate description.

So, with much trepidation, I did this:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...k%20Jordan.jpg

I buy these SCD red label cards whenever they are available at a substantial discount to PSA or (in the case of Star cards) Beckett. The old version of SCD was very solid; when they sold off and the new company started with the blue labels is when it went to hell. Kind of like buying a GAI silver label [esp. first graded], which were all Mike Baker-graded.

Did I screw up?

While I cannot speak to grade accuracy, the early GAI and SCD cases I have seen are authentic cards.

This article lists 1985 Miller Lite All-Stars...Does that mean this needs to be added to the 'avoid' list? 86 is up there already, but not 85.

I think by 85 they meant 85-86 which is most often designated as 86, as opposed to 84-85 lite all stars which is normally designated as 85. I have not seen bad versions of the lite all stars set from 85 except for reprint jordans. The other possibility is that there is a second 85 Miller all stars set but I have not seen it as of yet.

100% authentic

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Thanks all. Now that I have it in hand it is most definitely genuine and I am very pleased with it. I sold off my 5 x 7 Slam Dunk Beckett 9 during the bubble. I still think that is maybe the nicest looking Star card of all but too damned big in that dinner plate-sized slab, so I was very pleased to replace it with this as my early Jordan card.

Here is the 1985 lite all stars set in question

https://sports.ha.com/itm/basketball.../47101-10208.s


Being white vs the authentic blue set it stands out like a sore thumb and in the listing is denoted as 84 although cards show as 85. I have changed the top post to reflect. Thanks.

Probstein selling more shop at home "stuff".

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-85-Sta...YAAOSwBLxff4jt


They can make the title as long as they want.

I ran across or maybe someone told me of a web site that went into the Star issues but I seem to have misplaced my notes. Anyone know what I am talking about?

Is this the one, Adam ?

https://www.basketballgold.com/

Yes! Thank you.