As an experiment and learning experience....T227 Cobb
 

One of my favorite Cobb cards is the T227 (*and associated cards with the same pose). I always look at T227 Cobbys as I think they are neat and wouldn't mind owning one again someday. So what are the tells on this one not being good? Most on the board will know but I am sure there are a lot who can learn....(me too, but probably not on this one)...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1912-t227-Ty...0AAOSw65FXsnxi

.

creases don't look natural...like they were made purposely. paper stock looks wrong

Any time I see those little dark colored cracks on the card back I run away. Never seen a real card with then.

"While we believe this card is an original we are listing it as unknown as it is ungraded. "

LOL, yes the description gives it away a lot of times. Anytime I see God Bless or any thing religious I automatically assume it is a scammer.

Is the tell that it's a nice looking Cobb that is (1) ungraded, (2) being sold by someone with limited feedback, (3) who doesn't take returns, (4) who lists it as of "unknown" authenticity, and (5) who, in addition to a very expensive baseball card, are selling nothing besides cologne?

methinks the cologne is to disguise the overwhelming stench of the Cobb listing.

.

As I say, you can identify 50% of eBay fakes by just reading the description. No need to even look at the picks.

The first thing I looked at was the crackling to the surfaces. The second thing I looked for, no one has said anything about yet.

Old school four-screw holder?

The buyer will only get screwed once!

Would the front side of the creases really bubble up like that

Is it, the creases on the back being lighter color than the rest of the card, like they were done after the artificial aging?

Not yet :) ....the 2nd thing I looked at was.........(no, not the women's olympic volleyball players)

as has been stated...I think fake cards are all in the description. 90% of the time just reading the description is all u need to do to determine if a card is real or fake.

The second thing I looked at was the centering....

the print/font on the reverse looks off. maybe just the scan but looks different than a real card.

Good point because most fakes have great centering. I usually overlook that because centering means very little to me.

Yeap, if there is a first yellow flag then I look at centering. If it is too good especially for the card and series, the card is almost never real.

Creases like that almost never appear on pre-war paper stock.

I believe they are caused by soaking the card in tea or a like substance to artificially age it and the fibers holding the dye at a different rate.

Here is mine as an example of a real one (all be it trimmed at the top).

Sorry I just wanted to show it off, like Leon this is one of my all time favorites.

By the way, this seller used the exact same language to sell a 1916 Babe Ruth rookie card for $100. He "believed" that one to be original as well. :rolleyes:

As an experiment and learning experience....T227 Cobb
 

I've never seen that set nor card before, but it just has that "off" look. I just can't explain it but it just looks off. The colors and creases look too modern and forced.

That was my biggest tell right there!

The first red flag I saw was the (8) feedback total - I NEVER, EVER deal with those!

Good to know the issues' issues though- my first uneducated guess about the card itself was the size, not realized the T227 was so large.

T227
 

I'm trying to put together the T227 set, and so far as I know, the only reprints are of the baseball players. I've only seen the scans of the fakes on eBay, but they are not the most obvious reprints out there. I think we could all see them as fakes "in hand", but it's difficult to tell from the scans. You guys are right that the language in the description tells a lot. Wasn't there an article about Lipset not wanting to collect baseball cards after he saw a really good Wagner fake? I don't understand why people are paying $100,000 for a Kareem Abdul Jabbar basketball in "mint" with the technology that is out there...Rob

Centering which was mentioned along with generic description i.e. My son's college project blah blah......but a homogeneous brown fake aging that looks the exactly the same around the borders of the card..... You can just tell

Ha! I've seen that "son's college project guy" a couple times. In what class and at what school would it make sense to practice the art of counterfeiting cards? Our future is in good hands...

Graphic Arts at San Quentin State!
 

I'm guessing graphic arts at San Quentin State.


Patrick

Although I try not to visit the memory too often, I once held a PSA 6 T227 Cobb, which for a while was the highest graded example around. It was by far the crown jewel of my collection at the time but is sadly gone consigned via Kevin Struss to Mastro 12 years ago, fetching about $5,000, as I recall.
This "example" is all wrong: faked creasing, washed out colors, and the clarity of a legitimate one's image; the faked is blurry - different pixels I would guess. I hope nobody bought it. Laser printers are adding a new level of sophistication to the villains counterfeiting tools as I found out the hard way when SGC rejected my Wolverine Cobb PC at the National. Just another cross to bear for those who have the huevos to acquire raw cards or PC's of top HOF'ers. I think I am out of that game, at least for a while.