Fatimas on eBay

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Posted By: Mike Williams 

Folks,

These T200's just don't look right to me....I've never seen this type of border wear, not to mention the fraying on the corners. Anyone else think these look odd?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31719&item=2722547752

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

These T200's all have the same type of wear and corner rounding which might be okay for T206's, but this is not how legitimate T200's wind up. Where are the creases, chipping, etc. that other examples from this set have? There doesn't appear to be any gloss at all on the cards.

I would retreat from these as fast as I could.

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Posted By: MW

I agree with Bill. These look suspicious. I would not go so far as to apply the label "100% fake," but I WOULD offer the following two observations:

(1) The edge wear is not consistent with cards of this condition (too much "white" along each edge).

(2) The right and left sides of the team photographs do not appear to be consistent with other examples I own. In some cases I have up to five of some of these cards and with each comparison, the line or division at the edge of each image is different than those in this seller's auctions.

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Posted By: hench1

I collect Fatimas, saw this card and didn't think that it passed the "smell test".

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Posted By: Mike Williams

I also agree with Bill (oh yea, I wrote the original post), Fatimas DO NOT exhibit this type of border wear, end of story. They are 100% fake and are made of a cardboard material, not Fatima "stock".

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Posted By: dan mckee

These are all BAD! the seller told me they are cardboard which makes them fake! Also look at the new shiney junk he sells, nothing old. He retracted after I told him the originals were only photo paper and he said his were too. This is a punk kid out to rip people off.

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Posted By: Hankron

If one has never owned a Fatima, they are easy to authenticate in parson. As the they are real photo (actual photographs, as oppsed to a print like a Topps or Sporting News) there is no tiny dot pattern in the image, even under magnification. Also, I suspect most will have a silver/mirror effect. If you hold a Fatima at a nearing 180 degree angle to a light source (daylight, lamp, other) and carefeully change the angle back and forth, my guess is that a silver or mirror effect will appear in the dark parts of the image. Meaning, at a specific angle, the dark of a shadow or the border will suddenly turn to bright silver. This silvering is nearly unique to early gelatin-silver photographs, and is a quick and easy way to identify many early 1900s photographs. The absense of silvering does not mean the photograph is neccesarilly modern, but the appearence of silvering is a near sure sign that the photograph is old.

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Posted By: Hankron

And, in case you were wondering, silvering is a deterioration to the original photograhic chemicals that were placed on the paper (The chemicals were held to the paper by a coating of gelatin, thus the name 'gelatin-silver photograph.' Without the gelatin coating, the chemicals would simply slide off like sand). In later years, they changed the chemcial formula and the silvering no longer would appear.

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Posted By: Hankron

You now know what the 'gelatin' in 'gelatin-silver photograph' means. Before the invention of gelatin, most photographs were 'albumen photographs,' with 'albumen' being the binder that held the photograhic chemicals to the photograph paper. Old Judges and Four Base Hits and Gypsy Queens and Joseph Halls and all those sepia CDVs are 'albumen photographs,' and you hear 'albumen' all the time in MastroNet auctions.

Do you know what 'albumen' is? The only hint I'll give is that I bet everyone reading this board has eaten it this week.

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Posted By: leon

As a user of monosyllibic words I have eaten no eggs this week....regards

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Posted By: Hankron

Leon, if the baseball card market ever collapses, your Four Base Hits will be worth at least the cost of the Early Bird Special at Denny's (minus the value of the toast and orange juice).