Bogus Bronko's on ebay
 

I like how the baseball community on here watches out for reprints, card doctoring, etc. in ebay auctions and notifies people. We should do the same here on the football forum as some of the vintage cards are very pricey!

These two current Bronko Chicles are reprints so avoid them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Nationa...item3cecb8c9c3

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Nationa...item3f41402fc8

I've left a "question" for the seller to let them know ... in case they don't already. I recommend others do the same. If these aren't taken down in the next 24 hours, I'm going to report them to ebay as fakes/reprints.

jeff

Jeff how do you spot a reprint versus the real thing? I do not see reprint on the back unless I overlooked it. Great thread. Thanks.

The only way to tell the difference between a real Chicle and the reprint set (with the naked eye anyway) is that real Chicles have blue lettering on the back. The reprint set has green lettering on the back. Real Chicles never have green lettering.

Of course there might be lots of other fakes / reprints out there so just because a Chicle has blue lettering doesn't mean it's legit!

jeff

Thanks Jeff. I posted on the PSA board :( - my only reasoning was there is just a lot more discussion of that kind of thing over there. I feel bad now - thanks for bringing it over here.http://forums.collectors.com/message...hreadid=931710

Thanks for linking this, John. I hadn't seen that as I don't participate in the Communist Universe (CU) board. Not into censorship.

jeff

Bogus Nags and more
 

Seller also had a 1957 Topps Bill Russell card that ended on November 12. He received positive feedback from "the buyer" but when you click on that transaction, eBay shows that the item had been listted at $600 and had been relisted. The photos that accompanied the initial listing showed close-ups of the four corners and the full back of the card. No front photos. The card was, in fact, relisted, for $675 with only front and back photos and is currently active. So many red flags here, not to mentiononly 11 feedbacks, the second of which declares him the best eBay seller ever.

eBay has become a snakepit for buying vintage cards. Between sellers like this selling reprints as originals and others manipulating final bid prices, I'm glad I only have four cards to go to complete my 1935 Chicle football set.

Unfortunately, this is our problem to deal with as eBay doesn't seem to care to do anything. I'm a teacher, and once we send a kid to administrators "too many times" we're told the kid is "your problem." Is that analogy on the mark?

Thumbs up guys. This stuffs informs me and other collectors, as i didnt know myself.

Yes. The reality is fleaBay doesn't seem to care about any of this. As long as they get their cut, they are happy.

What's needed is a new, fresh auction site with a more caring owner. The problem is that building such a thing and attract enough bidders to convince dealers / consigners to put their items on it is a very daunting and expensive task. I know there are plenty of small, new auction houses that have popped up and that is a great thing but I'm talking about something more like ebay here in which individual sellers can list their wares.

jeff

Yuck. VCP would do us all a service if they not only tracked the final price of items and the seller/buyer but also:

1. a list of all bidders on the item (and their bids)
2. what percentage of bids a buyer puts toward a particular seller's auctions

More and more I've had to look beyond the price to determine whether I believe the price is legitimate or has been "doctored". More and more things I see make me wonder whether the price was manipulated. Here is one scenario I've seen again and again.

1) Buyer lists very high BIN.
2) Friendly shiller "buys" item and gives a glowing review
3) Buyer waits a bit and relists item as BIN/Best Offer
4) Unsuspecting new buyer looks at VCP and makes a Best Offer lower than first BIN but much higher than what the market value is of the item. If asked, seller says buyer reneged.
5) Buyer accepts Best Offer and makes additional $$$.
6) Now there are two inflated purchases in VCP for this item.

jeff

LOL - yeah I had one deleted, but I can't for the life of me remember what I was questioning. It's a different kind of board, anything I put serious research into I post here. Over there posts are only on first page for a few hours.

I totally agree, but here is a problem - say someone perfectly legitimate really has a relative pass away (I know this is a common B.S. scammers use, but it does happen.) - they want to sell some cards, but don't know about our hobby - hopefully they do some research to get an idea of the value, but what's the first place to sell that will come to mind?

I don't like this one, but I can't put into words why - the back actually looks ok - what am I missing?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Nationa...item463d6c713c

P.S. Wan't looking for these - but it seems like my eBay searches are missing cards, so I ran a few manual searches and came across it.

It appears to be the same card from the original post on page one. ?.. or i've forgotten how to internet.. :-P

Not the same image. The original link is long gone so when you click on it, it dumps you into an ebay search for similar cards. The original card had a green back which made it an obvious reprint/fake.

I personally would stay away from the current card on ebay for a number of reasons:

1. I don't trust high dollar cards that aren't graded. There is such a premium for graded stars that I'm always skeptical when one isn't. Usually this means it was submitted and rejected or the seller knows its not legit.
2. The colors look off to me. I compared it with my Nags and the yellow on the front looks too dark on this card and so does the blue ink on the back. Obviously there are differences in print runs that can account for slight color differences on cards but this looks like to much to me.
3. I avoid cards with blurry scans and ones that don't show all the edges (like on the back of this one). Usually they are hiding something.
4. Chicle cards are notorious for slight registration problems due to printing the image color by color. I don't see any on this card at all which is a bit troubling too.

If it is fake, someone put some time into this one as its passable. What do others think?

jeff

Seems fake to me
 

My humble opinion is that this is probably not authentic.

The main red flag for me is the general blurriness and pixelation of the text on the back when using the zoom feature of the Ebay listing.

When comparing it to the back texts of the Chicles in my collection (I don't have a Nagurski) using a magnifying glass to try to replicate the same scale, the text on the ones I have are much crisper and cleaner.

The blurriness is probably just a shaky hand, and there's always the chance the pixelation is the result of a low resolution scan, but there is enough doubt and uncertainty on this one that I would never feel comfortable owning it, even if I got it at a very cheap price. I would be haunted by the question of whether it was authentic or not....

Sold for $1,250. Someone either got completely robbed or got a great deal.

jeff

Yeah, the last couple of beaters I saw sold for around 1500. In a PSA 3.5 or 4 holder..... who knows - 4500? One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the description. I never feel it's a good sign when a seller says: "I don't know anything about x" - not quite as common as this was my grandfather/uncle/etc.'s, but it's right up there.

Putting my Nags up for sale real soon.

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps74258f0e.jpg

There were lots of reasons to stay away from the last card linked, but notice how the corner wear reveals white card stock. Thats a dead giveaway. That and the colors are way off. The gray or off white border color is printed onto white stock.

I was looking at that too. Couldn't tell whether that was white card stock or just a really poor photo / flash from a camera.

While we're on the subject of the color white. Many sets printed on off-white card stock do not use ink for the white portions of the card image ... they just don't put any ink there and use the card stock for the white color. This means you should always compare the white in the image with the white on the borders. If they are different shades of white, that likely means the white on the image is ink and the card is a fake.

jeff

Visa vie the cropped back photo, a seller selling a genuine Chicle Bronco Nagurski would show the entire card.

I notice that 14 days later there is no feedback from this card
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Nationa...item463d6c713c

Mike - you called it - feedback is there now:

Sold counterfeit sports card. Never disputed problems with card.

1935 National Chicle Bronko Nagurski!! Chicago Bears (#301678227772) US $1,225.00

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...e&interval=365

Never disputed problems with card? Is the buyer saying he kept it?

jeff

My interpretation is that the Buyer is saying that the Seller never disputed problems with the card. Which to me sounds like the Buyer was implying that the Seller knowingly sold a fake card because the seller did not even put up a fight when called out on it.

Yep, that's the way I interpret it as well. I wish the penalty for doing that was stronger - unfortunately the seller's score is still over 90%.

I was searching "sold" listings for Chicles tonight and stumbled on these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1935-Nationa...p2047675.l2557

Reprints? - obviously a zero feedback seller and raw cards are red flags, but just looking at the cards themselves I'm not seeing issues - could they be counterfeits?

I was watching that one - I didn't see issues either and I had to keep telling my self "self, if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true."

I also thought the reprint issues was too cleverly skirted for the seller to be simply inexperienced -
Selling these 2 cards together.
1935 National Chicle cards if
Bronko Nagurski and Knute Rockne.
Cards are not professionally graded and are being sold as Reprints as to ebay rules.
Cards are sold as is, please see scans and ask any questions.

my bold text - what rule is that? if they are reprints you have to sell them as reprints?

Same thought process for me. Also the edges are just too "well rounded". You don't often see cards with completely rounded edges like that that don't have creases and other significant wear on the front/back. When the corners are really beaten up, usually the entire card is beaten up as well.

jeff

I have seen these weasel words in listings from several other sellers--or, more likely, the same seller under several eBay IDs. The seller knows the cards are fake, but he wants bidders to think that maybe they're not.

Yes, he knows what he's doing. Don't fall for it.

Thanks guys, I agree - nothing about this felt right.

Jeff, good catch - I have a few cards graded "3" that are really well preserved, but the corners.... each corner is different - usually one is worse than the others etc. Here we see 8 corners that all look about the same - artificial aging would seem a logical culprit. It still bothers me, the cards look as good as they do. The cynical part of me says someone may bid o these not because they thing they are real, but because they think they may get past a TPG. Hopefully, that wouldn't happen.

Buyer left positive feedback on the Bronco/Rockne auction - would love to be able to keep track if buyer submits for authentication and grade

Another Nags that looks bogus.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121859513645...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

jeff