Counterfeit Cracker Jack
 

I've only owned a couple of Cracker Jacks in my day and both were graded, so I could use a little help here. I have a fellow collector friend online that picked some up at an "estate sale".....(always makes me nervous....) Anyway, he sent this scan to me, and unfortunately the scan is rather small. I'm not sure how savvy he is with a scanner. Anyway, he is fearing they are fakes. I told him I thought they were fakes. The font seems far too dark at the bottom, but I am no expert by any means. The back scan is of another card.

Wow,

The card is heavily creased yet the edges and corners are decent.

As far as authentic or not, I vote fake.

I am not an expert but I always thought the white of the jersey should match the borders of the card since BOTH of them were cardboard which were not printed on. I.e., the printer left the area for a white jersey blank but printed all the other areas. Thus a white jersey would blend in with a white border.

On the Baker card, the jersey is white but not AS white as the borders of the card. So you can distinctly tell the difference between the jersey and the borders instead of one flowing into the other with little to no difference being seen.

David

Agreed - fake. The front doesn't look right, and I second the part about the extreme creasing but sharp corners and edges. No good.

I don't like the looks and I'll bet if you could feel the cardboard stock it would become completely apparent.

Theyre right. counterfeit

Thanks for your help. I hated to be the bad guy to let him know, but I'm glad he asked me before he tried to sell or waste money sending in to PSA or SGC. He doesn't collect prewar stuff.

Fake. Font is wrong. "Whites" on his uniform should be seamless with border. CJs did not use white ink; it was an absence of ink. And assuming he did not invert the reverse, it should be upside down.
JimB

absolutely 100% fake
 

No way not even close

Abosolutely a FAKE.

What it is, is a reprint.

I don't necessarily think someone's attempting to deceive anyone, it may well be that they just don't know what they have.

I bought a set of those Cracker Jack reprints years ago. I wanted them so that I could read what was on the back of each card. While the 'reprinter' accurately reprinted what was on the originals, some of that information was incorrect.

Those reprint cards are on cardstock that is thicker than the 1915 cards, and MUCH thicker than the 1914 cards. The captions on the fronts don't look quite right on the reprints. And the reprints fluoresce when illuminated with uv light (one great test). The originals aren't as smoothly finished... there are lots of differences. If you held a real card you could easily distinguish the real from the reprint.

To quote a great Hawaiian (Ward, not MacDonald):

"Another characteristic of all real Cracker Jack cards, is there is no white ink on the cards. The white or light parts of the uniform is the natural paper color. Most fakes have a white ink for the white parts of uniform, that doesnt match the white border of the card. Real cards will have the uniform blend perfectly into the white border where they meet."

I refer to this all the time. It's exactly what's wrong with the Baker reprint. Edited to add: the card is a late 70's Dover reprint, not a counterfeit (e.g., something some scammer manufactured with his printer).

Not Counterfeits, they are reprints.

The authentic card of Baker will have the uniform the same exact color as the border..... when you look at this card it obviously isnt even close.

When they designed these reprints they cropped the border, then added a new white border and a new caption. Also the back is not upside down.

edited to say, haha Thanks Bill, didnt see your post til now :)

Reprint for sure - paper gives it away every time.