1984 Columbus Clippers Mattingly, PSA no longer grading?
 

I have a black and white Don Mattingly minor league card that I've had since I was a kid in the 80s. Donnie baseball was one of my favorite players and this was my favorite card of his. I thought it would be worth sending in with some other childhood cards for the 80s promotion PSA was running in July. Sadly I just was notified that they will not grade this card, and it seems they have stopped grading this card even though there are some already PSA graded out on the market.

Anyone know what happened for PSA to write off this card entirely? It's one of my all time favorite cards so I'm frankly pretty bummed to not be able to get this one into a slab. My dad was a pretty avid collector and we spent a lot of time at minor league games growing up, so I really have zero reason to think it's anything but authentic, but I guess I could always be wrong.

I don't think it is a legitimate issue.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=910747

Unfortunately, the Standard Catalogue's write-up isn't available in the link. Maybe DaClyde can provide it here.

Bummer, I saw a few had been graded before so I just assumed it was good to go. Guess I should have done more research before sending. I’ve had the card for well over 30 years so it’s still legitimate to me :-)

you could have mattingly sign it, and then have PSA grade it as a "trading card" with the auto grade on there. would end up a pretty cool item for a big mattingly fan.

Just noticed my scan of the SCD entry got lost at some point, so here is the write-up from the 2000 Standard Catalog of Minor League Baseball Cards:

Just an early custom, like the Ajax Dog Food cards.

Pretty sure that’s a different card or maybe a different custom variant, mines not blank on the back. I’ll get some photos or a link up when I get a chance. It’s just odd to me that PSA graded a couple dozen before calling it quits and there seems to be no info as to why on their database. Did they really mess up so badly as to label a custom as a TCMA card and then just pretend like it didn’t happen??

Thanks for the info btw!!

Here’s one up on eBay, this is the same as mine.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/26630489059...mis&media=COPY

Yep, that's the one SCD was describing, though their write up is a little off. Blank back or not, still not a legitimate issue. There is also a bogus 1980 Greensboro Hornets B&W minor league card and a bogus 1982 Nabisco Nashville Sounds card, probably produced by the same person.

So what exactly defines “legitimate” in this case? Licensed by the particular league or player’s association? Do we apply similar standards to modern cards like Panini? Just wondering what goes into the PSA decision to stop grading this one.

I have one too. I got mine in the late 1980s. I cannot remember if I knew mine was fake when I bought it but I think I did. I doubt I paid more than 5.00 for mine. I think they were made to deceive originally but I could be wrong about that.

Alan

Thanks Alan! I'd be interested if anyone knows that last part for sure. I guess I'd see a difference between 'made to deceive' and just a fan-made custom card release that may not have been authorized. Either way it's a special card to me, but this has piqued my interest! The other part I'm curious about is what exactly happened over at PSA. Is this card a fake variant of a legit card, or a card that was never legit to begin with, in which case why are there dozens of these sitting in PSA slabs out there?

Anyway, thanks gentleman, I realize this may not be as interesting to others but appreciate your replies :-)

Meaning it was produced years later and passed as "original". It was just a one-off, not part of any set intended to cash in on Mattingly's popularity, thrown out into the hobby amid a flood of other unlicensed sets produced by unknown entities with no licenses whatsoever. Panini has/had a players association license. They were legally authorized to produce the sets they issued. Some random guy printing cash grab cards in his home, or after hours at his print shot does not.

I think PSA just finally got called on grading fake cards, and chose to pass, rather than continue blindly grading customs and counterfeits. They didn't exactly have a great track record.

Makes sense, thanks Jason! The timing thing is the part I was missing. I’ve had this since mid to late 80s so it couldn’t have been that much later, but I can definitely see it may well have been a later cash grab.

I also can't help but wonder if this ironically makes the few PSA graded variants out there even more valuable even though it's a bogus card at heart, guaranteed to remain a low pop item in their directory if they refuse to grade any more.

Providing screenshot of auction for future context when the auction is no longer accessible.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9d1f4e5d0e.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...595d1d482e.jpg

This years Panini Donruss has no license, and is all retired players.

PSA grades them.

That's some nice inconsistency...

I don't have a problem with them grading unlicensed cards, but they should be properly described as what they are.

Panini has the NIL license for every player in their set. They lost the blanket license from the players association, which is why they can't have current players. But they have individual licenses to use the name, image, and likeness of every player they make a card of. That is significantly different than someone in a garage making cards without the license to use the NIL of the player and trying to pass it off as a years-old minor league set.