Does it look legit??

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Posted By: Darin 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16307&item=1982200548

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1982634007&category=16309

These two look legit to me but how can I be sure?
Can you experts tell me where to go or something like that to distinguish between legit or not cards.
How can you tell on these two?

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Posted By: Elliot

Darin,
You might have noticed that this forum is titled "Vintage Baseball Cards" and it is described as primarily for the discussion of pre-war baseball cards.
As both of the cards you ask about are graded by KSA which is a reputable grading company for hockey cards, you can assume that the cards are legitimate.

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Posted By: Albie O'Hanian

I would guess KSA would be fine for modern cards. I might be wary of a high end vintage card. I have had little luck with KSA crossovers (and in my opinion find the cards usually overgraded) but on the positive side they have excellent customer service and will explain to you the reason why a card was given a certain grade.

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Posted By: leon

I am all for helping everyone but I agree we should try to keep it to Baseball cards...I am sure there are other sites for other cards.....and I am not trying to be mean to the original poster....best regards

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Posted By: Todd (nolemmings)

BMW has had some top end vintage Hockey for sale, and may have seen fakes. The Parkies I have or have seen were either certified as legit by a grading service (I have a '54 KSA Parkie common) or certainly have looked legit to me in terms of paper and printing-- in short, I have never seen a fake. As for Sawchuk, I would feel pretty comfortable. Anything after 1979 I would have no knowledge and very little interest, and you may be better served asking the question on the CU board. However, take a look at what items the other bidders have bought and/or are bidding on now. Although not foolproof, it is somewhat reassuring if a bidder with high feedback has bought a bunch of Sawchuk cards, cards from the same set and/or cards from the same grading company, particularly high dollar items.
Good Luck. Todd

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Posted By: Hankron

I've mentioned this before, but if you are worried about couterfeits you should get a variety of commons from the particular issue. If you ever see a 'shoebox' of commons from the year you collect at a cheap price, buy it. I would think you could get a pile of 1984-5 OPC commons for a dime a dozen. Direct comparison with a card and a variety of commons, will usually reveal a card to be counterfeit as the card will be significantly different, including qualities of gloss, card texture, color of the edge of the card. Realize, that there can be legitimate differences in an issue, such as grey versus white cardstock-- which means you have to be familiar with the issue and ask others when you have questions.

Also, get a blacklight. A blacklight is good both for identifying many modern cardstocks (when you are buying Pre-WWII card), but is also good for comparing cards. In many cases, a counterfeit will fluoresce (glow) differently under blacklight. To see how it works, everyone one on this board is encouraged to put under a blacklight a same year/same player OPC versus Topps. Fron the fronts the cards may appear very similar, with nearly the same image, but you will see what happens when you shine the black light on them. It's almost like a magic trick you will want to show your friends.

Learning how to look at cards is not an overnight project, so don't expect to become an expert overnight. However, like exercize, come next December you will be glad you started today and kept at it. The best thing any collector can do is to handle and look at cards a lot, learn as much as they can and ask lots of questions.

I was approached recently by a man who said he had been collecting 1933-5 Goudeys for 20 years, and, after hearing about counterfeits, was worried that there might be some counterfeits in his longtime collection that he didn't know about. I said, "If you've been collecting Goudeys for 20 years, you would know if you had a counterfeit."

In fact, you will find that most experienced collectors who accidentally buy a counterfeit in person buy a card that is out of their realm of experience. It's often the first of that type that they ever collected.

I've often heard the refrain (including from well known experts people in the hobby)
"I don't need to do that scienfitic stuff, I've handled probably a million T206s and would never be fooled by a counterfeit."
And I will say, "I don't doubt that. But what happens if you are buying card from an issue you've never seen before?"

Lastly, I always recommend that, for high priced items, you buy from people you have personally know and trust or someone who is recommended from elsewhere or has a strong reputation in general. It isn't just an issue that they are experts in the field, but that, if a problem arrises, you know that they will fix it. Everyone makes mistakes-- the people you want to deal with are the people who fix the mistakes.

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Posted By: nolemmings (Todd)

Please let the occasional non-baseball card questions go. If they start cluttering up the board, draw the line, but I must admit I enjoyed seeing some of the Indian Chiefs, a boxing card or two, and even a chess card (or am I just dreaming, Julie).

If the gripe is the rather modern cards, I agree there are several places for someone else collecting those to go. But I lament that even cards from the 50s and 60s are not the subject of many boards, and many (some?)of us collect those too. I promise not to abuse the board with questions about the 1961 Peters Meats Twins or the like, but I hope you keep allowing some leeway on "off-topics" like this.
Thanks you guys. Todd

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Posted By: Hankron

Elliot and Leon, you may be right, but you know me. Baseball, hockey, ballerina cards: if it gives me an opportunity to blab on, you know for a fact that I'll do it. I know that Elliot looks at a post and says, "God don't say that. Don't you know that Dave's going to see that and clog up the thread in about 5 minutes?" Likely, I contribute more mispellings than most people contribute words

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Posted By: MW

Darin,

The 1984 OPC YZERMAN is probably authentic. As Elliot has indicated, KSA has graded enough of these so that they probably know the difference between an authentic example and a reprinted one.

As for the 1951 Sawchuk, I would be far more worried with the low feedback rating of the seller and his ability to deliver the card than I would be with the item's authenticity.