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Old 07-23-2013, 11:49 PM
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Daniel E.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Posts: 36
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I've never seen nor heard of this issue before in my own long history of researching Clay/Ali global cards. However, I contacted this card's listed eBay seller the same day it first appeared--asking both how they came up with "1964" or that it was connected with the "1964 Olympics" ... where this Mexican album card's art-image face was absolutely based on a fight action photo taken during the Nov. 11, 1965 bout between Floyd Patterson & Ali.

For confirmation, I told them to go to "Google Images" and put in "Patterson verses Ali"; the photo it was taken from shows up in the first couple of rows.

I also mentioned that being an 11/11/65 fight action photo, the earliest the card was likely issued probably had to be in 1966; and if in fact it was also "Olympics related" as purported, then that had to be the 1968 Olympics, not 1964; and as such, the card's year of issue may more likely be 1967 or early 1968 instead. I asked for an image of the card's full reverse in place of just the back's upper top that was shown. They promised to send me a full scan but never did.

Their explanation for labeling it "1964" was that its year had been "estimated" as '64 but they didn't know the its actual year, their estimation connected to something about a product-name on its back, never explaining what this product-name connection entailed.

A general word of caution is due here where I've been seeing more and more of this sort of thing of misinformation being offered--especially with Mexican Clay/Ali cards that weren't known to exist before by we in the United States: Foreign Ebay sellers have a recent history of putting very early 1960's dates on certain previously undocumented Clay/Ali global cards that had not been previously introduced into the U.S. collectibles hobby (to pump up interest and thus, maybe increase the final selling price?)

I told the seller the first day this card was offered that if he was "estimating" its year without actually knowing it, then that should be added into the item's title and description so collectors aren't misled. They ignored this request and didn't make any changes. One other problem sometimes happens when this type of thing goes on: Collectors who wind up with the improperly described card sometimes submit it to grading companies who themselves don't know anything about it either, then they slab it including whatever incorrect info the collector was lead to believe by the seller, and suddenly others in the hobby accept that misinformation as being written in stone. This happens regarding an issue's actual country of origin as well as year of production in other cases. Then other grading companies note the first grading company's error-description, take it as gospel because they don't know, and replicate it.
Suddenly collectors are debating one another over what's what because one or more grading company has something the same way, but still in error.
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