Thank you all for your help with this. Special thanks go to Greg for his informative responses and quickly convincing me that my first guess of a fake was likely very wrong. Again it never even occurred to me that I could stumble on such a rare find in a simple eBay lot purchase. I can't believe a card like this that has been in circulation for 70 years was just sitting out there in a regular vintage auction. I did check eBay for other 1954 Bowman wrong backs and find about 6 other examples currently for sale. One of them even has the same yellow ink staining across the front that I see in my Larsen card. Wonder if they are from the same sheet?
Anyway, I will be sending the card to SGC next week for what I hope is confirmation that the card is authentic. In the condition it is in I can't imagine it will grade above a 2 at best, but just the validation it is real (or not) will be worth the price. Will keep this thread updated on the grading result when I get it back from SGC.
|