[nolemmings]

I own one of these, and am quite confident it is real.

Brian, I don’t doubt you heard what you state and that the man who told you that the cards were not real honestly believed it–I’m just convinced he was wrong. Sure he would have an incentive to investigate and would want to sell them for more if real, but that doesn’t mean he can;t be wrong. As others have said, unless he made them himself, instructed that they be made or witnessed their production, his is really little more than an opinion.

I can easily see a scenario where he did not know what he had, and consulted with known resources-- all the catalogues and his fellow dealers-- to come to his conclusion. Please remember that fake Henry Johnson’s and Kendigs were circulating during this time–cards that use the very same fronts as these Herpolsheimers/W-575s/E121s. It was even a bit of a hot button, BOLO type situation within the hobby-- I remember some bad HJs emanating from a Festberg auction and posting about it here if not the old Full Count board back around 2000-2001. I even called Lew Lipset at the time and he spoke of these cards being faked. It could very well be that the consensus of those dealers at the RM show was to conclude that these were not genuine basically because no one had seen them, they were not catalogued and other fakes with the same fronts were then circulating. Add to that any dealer with cock-suredness or bravado barking authoritatively to your guy that he “knew” these to be fake and there you have it. Fake it is.

I do not believe it would have been insulting to ask this man how he acquired these cards or if he knew anything about their history–anything to give you more information. These questions are asked all the time with no disrespect. Of course I do not fault you for not asking, but to place so much weight on such a terse statement is misplaced, IMO.