First Post...Estate Sale Haul Today

[RobDerhak]

New Here, hope this is in the right subforum...

Posted the same thing on Blowout, but I do need a little help identifying a couple of the oddball pennant/stickers...any help is appreciated, and I look forward to learning my way around here!

(sorry about the upside down photos...I rotated them all correclty, but Photobucket links didn't update apparently...tried to fix, but no luck)

This was a shaky hand Estate Sale. 4+ Hours later, I'm still shaky from adrenaline from finding the Estate Sale we all dream about after 30 or so years of looking (minus a 10 year hiatus I guess).

Let me set the scene...I tried to go to a different Estate sale at 9 am open today that listed "cards from the 60's"...well, either they wrote their address wrong, or I did, because the place doesn't exist. So....I hit stop #2 a little earlier than I thought I would...it was about 20 minutes away from where I had tried to go already, so I got there about 15 minutes after it opened at 9:00 and the place was PACKED, but nobody was looking at baseball cards!!!

This Estate Sale had promise to me because of two things. 1) There was no details on the cards listed...not even years, just "Baseball Cards", and 2) There was lots of unopened early 90s stuff pictured AND a ton of military items (some of you know where I am going with this already I'm sure)...so I was hopeful...but what I found was NOT what I expected at all...

So, I walk in & First cards I see are a stack of cases & screw downs in Ziplocks. Cards ranging from '33-'66, and mostly priced at full book or more with a few excptions. '66 Mantle @ $125 that looked like a solid 6-7 candidate was most tempting high $ card. But I did grab a couple low $ cards from this stack.



Nothing crazy, but some nice mid grade vintage stuff at a fair price, which is all I ever really hope to find from these things...

Stack #2.

Heart Rate jumps...mixed in with a bunch of 91 Upper Deck Frank Thomas' are these beauties...





OK, so there ARE Desert Shield cards here...just like I hoped to find...now...how many will I find?!

There was a little jewelry box filled with Topps Stamps & such for $12. I told him to start me a pile and reserved those, not really knowing what all would be in there...no idea there'd be a Mantle/Aaron/Spahn, etc...any info on the mini Reds Pennant & NASA/Senators stickers/iron ons is appreciated



























continued......

[RobDerhak]

So, I walk away from the main table to explore, he says that "I think all the good ones are up here, but there are cards everywhere at this auction, have fun!"

There is a large shoebox at an adjoining table with a sign "Cards $5 each unless marked". Well, OK...$5 seems steep for commons, but I'll flip through in case something slipped through the cracks...cards are loose, not in cases, but they are neatly organized by team. I start flipping through a bunch of commons, mostly '61-'75, a few 50's here & there.

I come across this in good shape, and think, hmm...Maybe there will be some nice semi stars in this box for $5



Then I keep flipping, and my heart rate keeps rising.

In the order I found them...keep in mind $5 per card




































continued......

[RobDerhak]

So, I've got a stack of 100 or so cards and I am amped up. I back away from the table, and realize there is another box on the floor. I ask him if these are priced as marked or what, and he says, nope, we're just doing the $5 each thing on them too...Allrighty then...the '57 Spahn may grade a 8 or 9...I mean it is NICE







These Hopalong Cassidy cards were in a snap case with some randoms (76 Brett, a stack of Cecil Fielder rookies (?) for $5...no idea on their value





At this time I decided to go back through the first box to see what I missed...there were a few...I'm sure I left more there that I should have bought...I could barely see my adrenaline was pumping so fast





Throughout the house there were cards...









Then I found the little plastic box I hoped for and bought it without opening it to see what was inside...





No big stars (minus Lasorda I guess), but still...

continued.....

[RobDerhak]

$7 a box...



$4



$5 box w/ '89 Upper Deck packs in it



And then, the lottery ticket....



No idea if they are Desert Shield or just plain ol' '91 Topps...2 of the boxes are sealed, two are not. If anybody knows how to tell the difference, please inform me. I looked at Houdinis break, and the box seemed to be identical to the regular '91 release...any help on these is greatly appreciated...

Anyway, thanks, hope I'm not breaking any rules with multiple photo posts to start, but I;m so damn excited about my find today I just have to share it!!!

[Bestdj777]

Welcome to the forum. Such awesome finds. It looks like you got some beautiful cards. If you don't mind me asking, what was the final damage?

I believe there was a fairly recent discussion in the modern card section--directly below this one--about how to distinguish between Desert Storm/Regular Topps cards. I may be mistaken, but I think the answer was that the only way to know is to open them. I hope for you that they aren't regular Topps. Either way, for that price, I'd say it is well worth the money just to be able to flip through them.

[RobDerhak]

Thanks for the reply...yea, I did a search for Desert Shield on this board and it seems to be the consensus that you need to open them...I did find a video on youtube that was a pack break, and it was a wax pack...the packs in the two open boxes of mine are cellophane, so that may be my answer...still probably wont bust open anything until I get a chance to do a little more research.

Total damage was a little over $800.

140 of the $5 cards + the unopened stuff, and a few other trinkets I haven't photoed yet...best of that lot is a 60's (i haven't researched it yet, I'm thinking '65ish) Stamped Auto Cardinals ball in plastic wrapper with the order sheet in the wrapper with it...it isn't sealed, but the ball can't be removed through the little hole in plastic...Facsimile autos of Gibson, Brock, Schoendienst, etc...I'll photo it later tonight I'm sure

Also a really old Little League Baseball (i'm thinking 50s?) that looks like it was never played with...things I couldn't live without, ya know

[ALR-bishop]

There is a member here, Zach Wheat, who thinks he has ways to identify Desert Shield from regular packs. It is discussed in some of the old Desert Shield threads. He can also help distinguish between real and fake desert Shield cards. If you do a member search under the Community tab above, you can pm him to discuss it. He is always very helpful about what he knows

Edit---or you can pm him from his post in the "set finished ...white whale found" thread on this page

In 1991 Topps inserted one each of every prior years cards in their packs There were redemption cards for the 52 to 56 cards and cards thenvalued at over $ 50, and they would be no good now, but there could be some older cards involved, although far from mint

You have some Fleer inserts in there among the Topps Stamps and Transfers

[7nohitter]

Rob....
Welcome...and thank you for sharing that find!! Wow, were you looking around, waiting to be caught like Red in The Shawshank Redemption???

AWESOME!

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by 7nohitter

Rob....
Welcome...and thank you for sharing that find!! Wow, were you looking around, waiting to be caught like Red in The Shawshank Redemption???

AWESOME!

Lemme tell you, I didn't set that stack of cards down! I didn't hand them over to be counted, I counted em up, said there are 140 cards out of the $5 bin, feel free to recount em if you don't trust me, and he trusted me...I'm sure I missed stuff since I was one handed after going through the big box, but I wasn't gonna risk them flipping through and realizing their error if I dropped them off at the counter...does that make me a bad person? I hope not!

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

...the packs in the two open boxes of mine are cellophane, so that may be my answer...

I imagine there are no card fronts visible through the cellophane packs, as this would (obviously, unless I am missing something) answer your question. Out of curiosity, what is showing on the tops and bottoms of the packs?

Great find, by the way. Those cards you purchased at $5 each are absolutely awesome!

Additionaly, welcome to the board. Enjoy. You have landed upon a great website. Plenty of knowledgable collectors willing to help.

Best regards,

Eric

[ls7plus]

Awesome find, and thanks for sharing!

Best,

Larry

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by Eric72

I imagine there are no card fronts visible through the cellophane packs, as this would (obviously, unless I am missing something) answer your question. Out of curiosity, what is showing on the tops and bottoms of the packs?

Great find, by the way. Those cards you purchased at $5 each are absolutely awesome!

Additionaly, welcome to the board. Enjoy. You have landed upon a great website. Plenty of knowledgable collectors willing to help.

Best regards,

Eric

Thanks for the welcome!

Yea, the back is showing on the front & the back of the pack, so no info to be found there...that was my first hope as well!

[JollyElm]

Welcome aboard!!!

If you're looking to do some trading, I could use the '61 Koufax, a '63 Mays and the '63 Fleer Spahn and/or Koufax. Check out my bucket to see a ton of stuff I have available for trade.

[skelly]

I always thought it would make an interesting reality type show to throw a bunch of fifties cards in boxes, put them out at a yard sale and tell people to pay what they think would be fair. Congrats on the find. The reality nowadays is that most of these estate sales price cards in vg shape at 50-80% of "book value" and the cards don't get much of a look. I'm always fascinated by the fact that whenever there are cards for sale at those general merchandise type auctions ( the one's with furniture, books, costume jewelry, box lots, etc... ) the cards always sell for way more than they should. Off grade 74 Nolan Ryan, 67 Bob Gibson... the kind of cards that would just sit in a five dollar box at a show will go for 12-15 dollars at these auctions.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

And then, the lottery ticket....



No idea if they are Desert Shield or just plain ol' '91 Topps...2 of the boxes are sealed, two are not. If anybody knows how to tell the difference, please inform me. I looked at Houdinis break, and the box seemed to be identical to the regular '91 release...any help on these is greatly appreciated...

Anyway, thanks, hope I'm not breaking any rules with multiple photo posts to start, but I'm so damn excited about my find today I just have to share it!!!

Thanks for the heads up on the thread guys. Rob, nice find. The DS boxes I have seen look like the regular 1991 Topps boxes. Are your boxes wrapped in cello? I have not seen DS boxes wrapped in cello - other than BBCE certified boxes (see below). DS boxes will look exactly the same as regular issues 1991 Topps boxes - even the 4 yellow bordered 1991 Topps cards printed on the bottom of the boxes do not have a DS logo on them.

One of the ways you can tell a DS pack is to use a strong blacklight and shine it on the back of the pack. The red trim on the reverse of DS cards should glow or fluoresce; if it doesn't it is likely not a DS pack. However, if every pack in the box glows or fluoresces, there is a high probability it is a DS box. Here is a pic of "sealed" Desert Shield boxes by BBCE (below).

Z

[stlcardsfan]

Congrats Rob, great stuff! Where was the sale located?

[campyfan39]

That's amazing congrats! The condition on those 62's is incredible. Glad you brought a pocket full of money

[Beatles Guy]

Nice haul!

[Zach Wheat]

Were those 1991 Topps boxes wrapped in Cello?

Z

[GasHouseGang]

Wow, nice score! We all dream of finding something like that.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Thanks for the heads up on the thread guys. Rob, nice find. The DS boxes I have seen look like the regular 1991 Topps boxes. Are your boxes wrapped in cello? I have not seen DS boxes wrapped in cello - other than BBCE certified boxes (see below). DS boxes will look exactly the same as regular issues 1991 Topps boxes - even the 4 yellow bordered 1991 Topps cards printed on the bottom of the boxes do not have a DS logo on them.

One of the ways you can tell a DS pack is to use a strong blacklight and shine it on the back of the pack. The red trim on the reverse of DS cards should glow or fluoresce; if it doesn't it is likely not a DS pack. However, if every pack in the box glows or fluoresces, there is a high probability it is a DS box. Here is a pic of "sealed" Desert Shield boxes by BBCE (below).

Z

Thanks for weighing in.

So I opened one of the unsealed boxes last night and it was a dud...just plain ol' '91 Topps & only 1 Chipper.

The sealed boxes are wrapped with the (here is the part where I start to sound like a moron) crinkly type of plastic...not the type of plastic that stretches when pulled...does that make sense? I saw (i assume it was your) post about the blacklight when I did a quick google at the estate sale yesterday...I may need to see if I still have my blacklight stuffed in a closet somewhere and check 'em tonight.

I went back to the same this AM...it looked like nobody had gone through the box since me. Found 42 more worth grabbing @ 25% off today, he took 'em all the way down to $3 each since I bought so much yesterday...nothing crazy...my biggest miss was a '63 ROokie Stars w/ Gaylord Perry & another '61 Leaders w/ Koufax, mid stars like Kubek, Oliva, Kaat, things like that...a couple of Variant Checklists that have a little premium on them...two more sealed '91 Topps boxes appeared as well, so I grabbed them (now for $4 each), as well as half a dozen or so 90 UD Hi # Boxes just to rip hoping to find Aaron auto (fat chance, but for $3 a box, why not?!)

I'll probably head back over there in the afternoon tomorrow to see what kind of deal they'll make on the scraps since they are mid-high grade...bulk of what is left is '63 commons, handful of adjoining years.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by stlcardsfan

Congrats Rob, great stuff! Where was the sale located?

Kansas City in a tiny little half of a duplex in an area of town close to the part of town that I don't go to at night.

[Zach Wheat]

Rob,

Well it seems like you got some great cards regardless.....thanks for posting. Curious to see what your final tally is - after your third trip back tomorrow.

Z

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

Kansas City in a tiny little half of a duplex in an area of town close to the part of town that I don't go to at night.

Lol, When I worked down there laying brick in the mid 90's that was most of Raytown. The job site had armed guards 24/7 and a friend got robbed at gun point leaving work.

[RobDerhak]

Rest of Day One Haul

Got these balls on day 1





Maybe '74 on the Cardinals ball? Still cool for $25, even though it is stamped obv

[RobDerhak]

Day #2

Can't pass up a non tattered <$10 Goudey (25% off today remember)...not sure how I missed the DS Mack on day 1



$3 each below















Can't believe I missed the Gaylord rookie on day 1...it has some color spotting on it though



These were in a snap case with 50 or so other '91 UD for $1.50...all KC guys in some way

[Exhibitman]

Nice haul. When I wholesale buy at a show from a table I price my purchase offers at $5-$10 per superstar, $1-$3 per star, and nothing for the commons, so judging from the # of Mantle, Koufax, Musial, Clemente, etc. and the condition shown you did really well. Essentially you made a wholesale buy and didn't have to eat the commons. The real question is how much will you keep? My weakness as a dealer is that I cant bring myself to sell the good stuff.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Nice haul. When I wholesale buy at a show from a table I price my purchase offers at $5-$10 per superstar, $1-$3 per star, and nothing for the commons, so judging from the # of Mantle, Koufax, Musial, Clemente, etc. and the condition shown you did really well. Essentially you made a wholesale buy and didn't have to eat the commons. The real question is how much will you keep? My weakness as a dealer is that I cant bring myself to sell the good stuff.

I'm a total HOARDER! I may sell some of the dupes...may try to make some trades to complete my set needs (55, 58 & 59 for now), and I think I just started a '63 set since I grabbed a chunk of the stars on the cheap

[begsu1013]

welcome and SCORE!

there is no discrepancies between desert shield boxes and regular topps boxes, there is only one way to find out...open and rip a pack.

a good indication though might be if the house had any military mementos/memorabilia as well.

however, even steve from bbce has to pick out a random pack out of a box that is submitted as a "desert shield" box to find out. I believe he reseals this pack, in the same exact fashion as it was opened and is the only instance of this ever happening of such a reseal.

I do not know this from personal knowledge, but the guy that told me this is extremely reliable on unopened and I would not regurgitate this if I didn't think it was legit. but call bbce, in a week or so (as it's the national) and ask....it would solve your mystery really quickly.

as for feeling guilty, do not. you paid the price that was asked. it's not your position to price someones' items. the guilty feeling is because you stumbled upon one hellavu find and congrats!

and I will take that 63 berra please.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by begsu1013

welcome and SCORE!

there is no discrepancies between desert shield boxes and regular topps boxes, there is only one way to find out...open and rip a pack.

a good indication though might be if the house had any military mementos/memorabilia as well.

however, even steve from bbce has to pick out a random pack out of a box that is submitted as a "desert shield" box to find out. I believe he reseals this pack, in the same exact fashion as it was opened and is the only instance of this ever happening of such a reseal.

I do not know this from personal knowledge, but the guy that told me this is extremely reliable on unopened and I would not regurgitate this if I didn't think it was legit. but call bbce, in a week or so (as it's the national) and ask....it would solve your mystery really quickly.

as for feeling guilty, do not. you paid the price that was asked. it's not your position to price someones' items. the guilty feeling is because you stumbled upon one hellavu find and congrats!

and I will take that 63 berra please.

Yep, a guy on Blowout told me about Steve and I called him yesterday. Very nice guy that said, well, basically the same thing you said...just cross your fingers & rip! Nothing discernible between regular & Shield versions (I didn't ask him about, and haven't tried the blacklight trick Zach mentioned prior)

I've opened the two boxes that weren't sealed, both were just plain ol' '91 Topps. There was a LOT of military regalia in the house, and obviously there were some Desert Shield singles around too...and about 50 boxes of those Desert Storm cards, so there were a lot of things from that era that gave/give me some hope.

[Bestdj777]

Worst case, you've got a lot of great gum for a very reasonable price

Those are some really awesome cards and a great score. Thank you for sharing! The Mantles--my only real area of expertise--are in beautiful shape and, alone, could potentially get you back what you have into the lot.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by Bestdj777

Worst case, you've got a lot of great gum for a very reasonable price

Those are some really awesome cards and a great score. Thank you for sharing! The Mantles--my only real area of expertise--are in beautiful shape and, alone, could potentially get you back what you have into the lot.

Yea, when I got to the Yankees section I could hardly breathe!

I've got him all ready to go to PSA...I've only done BGS grading before, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I'm cautiously optimistic...any predictions?

[stlcardsfan]

The 62 regular issue looks like a ExMt+, maybe NM. I'll go 6.5

Both 62 all stars look like 8s. Centering a little off on both so I'll go 7s.

63 looks like a 6 to me, although can't see bottom right corner.

Good luck!

[hangman62]

Just a great find / pick up

All Im waiting for now is one of the morons/D-heads in this club to start in with..."something seems fishy" ..and Im not sure I believe this " he said on Monday it was xx cards..and then he posted on Tue at 7.45 am..saying its xy cards

Ral G

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by hangman62

Just a great find / pick up

All Im waiting for now is one of the morons/D-heads in this club to start in with..."something seems fishy" ..and Im not sure I believe this " he said on Monday it was xx cards..and then he posted on Tue at 7.45 am..saying its xy cards

Ral G

Geez, I was hoping this site catered to an audience mature enough that may make it Troll free. Oh well, if they show up, I'll ignore them, just like I do the Trolls on other sites.

[Bestdj777]

I bet this story is made up. There is no way someone you just found that 90s wax like that at an estate sale . All kidding aside, it's an awesome find. I love hearing stories like this and it makes me want to keep searching this stuff out.

As for the grades on your Mantles, I have no idea. I collect low grade and have only submitted twice for some really obscure issues. If I had these, I'd definitely wait for a monthly special and send the better cards/players off for grading though as I think you'd get much better returns with these in holders.

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by Bestdj777

I bet this story is made up. There is no way someone you just found that 90s wax like that at an estate sale . All kidding aside, it's an awesome find. I love hearing stories like this and it makes me want to keep searching this stuff out.

As for the grades on your Mantles, I have no idea. I collect low grade and have only submitted twice for some really obscure issues. If I had these, I'd definitely wait for a monthly special and send the better cards/players off for grading though as I think you'd get much better returns with these in holders.

I know right? I went back day 3 & actually got 12 boxes of '92 upper deck for $20 (no Williams Auto though), must be in a fantasy world right?

RE: Grading, as luck would have it, I had paid the $199 to join PSA about 6 weeks ago. I had planned on a MUCH lower value use of my 15 freebies, but now 13 of these cards are going in the mail tomorrow with 2 of the ones I had planned originally still making the cut

[whiteymet]

Nice pick up. Just be aware the Red Heart cards you showed are reprints, in case you did not know.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Great vintage pickups! Good luck with the submissions, let us know how they turn out

In regards to the 91 DS cards, it may just be the lack of quality images used to display the pickups, but the typical definition of a legit DS card's logo does not appear on the DS cards pictured here. In addition, the logos appear much shinier on the cards pictured versus legit copies I have handled. Again, it could just be the images used here. Post some pics of the backs of these DS cards also.

[RobDerhak]

Overall, the more bold back (i.e. Junior Ortiz) is on about 10-15% of the cards...most of them are muted

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by whiteymet

Nice pick up. Just be aware the Red Heart cards you showed are reprints, in case you did not know.

Yep, the REPRINT at the bottom on the back was a dead giveaway (not to mention the high gloss, which would have blown people minds in '54)

There were about 15 of those sealed little packs, all w/ Mantle on top I just grabbed one of 'em for the hell of it.

[RobDerhak]

duplicate post

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

Overall, the more bold back (i.e. Junior Ortiz) is on about 10-15% of the cards...most of them are muted

My understanding is that the backs with the bold "40th" are not legit....after going through 1000s of DS cards, I have never seen a legit DS card with the bold 40th on the back.

In looking at the 6 cards pictured in the scans, the Ortiz and Larkin cards appear to not be legit, while the other 4 cards appear legit (tough to tell for sure w/o card in hand). The Ortiz should not have the bold back and on both the Ortiz and the Larkin cards the words "Operation Desert Shield" appear bloated as compared to the more refined legit copies.

Below are a few articles that discuss distinguishing the legit copies from the fake copies:


http://www.cardboardconnection.com/1...baseball-cards

https://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com...-shield-cards/

http://www.psacard.com/Articles/Arti...-pre-war-cards

[RobDerhak]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

My understanding is that the backs with the bold "40th" are not legit....after going through 1000s of DS cards, I have never seen a legit DS card with the bold 40th on the back.

In looking at the 6 cards pictured in the scans, the Ortiz and Larkin cards appear to not be legit, while the other 4 cards appear legit (tough to tell for sure w/o card in hand). The Ortiz should not have the bold back and on both the Ortiz and the Larkin cards the words "Operation Desert Shield" appear bloated as compared to the more refined legit copies.

Below are a few articles that discuss distinguishing the legit copies from the fake copies:


http://www.cardboardconnection.com/1...baseball-cards

https://sportscardinfo.wordpress.com...-shield-cards/

http://www.psacard.com/Articles/Arti...-pre-war-cards

I've read all those articles prior, none mention muted backs...so I decided to poke around

There are several listed on COMC that have bold backs...they all are all or nothing...i.e. all 9 Brent Knackerts that are on COMC are bold (from 6 different sellers) while all 11 Jose DeLeons (from 7 different sellers) are muted.

All Junior Ortiz on COMC are bold (there are only 2 at the moment), and the other players that I bought that have bold backs (Schofield, Guthrie, Gallego, Mack, Pagliarulo, Schiraldi, Scioscia) are all 100% bold backs on COMC.

All points to some really smart forgeries of some relatively low value cards, or all legit...

There are also PSA slabbed cards on COMC w/ bold backs (Lee Smith, Hershiser, Lilliquist for example), so that pretty much seals it for me that the backs are not a judge of authenticity

Thanks for looking out, but I'm pretty confident that between the military regalia at the sale, the relative low value of the players I bought, and the above research that they are legit.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

Overall, the more bold back (i.e. Junior Ortiz) is on about 10-15% of the cards...most of them are muted

DS cards printed on Sheet A* and B* should have a Bold 40th Anniversary logo on the back. You can see the sheet designation on the reverse of the card near the copyright logo at the bottom. So of the 6 sheets, approx. 33% of the cards will have a bold 40th Anniversary logo in bold red ink, assuming random distribution. Regarding the foil shield on the front, legit shields have come in both foil types ie gold and a more silverish foil. A number of the fake logos have wider shields or really fuzzy logos. However, the main tell on the best fake logos is the lowest palm leaf is shifted to the right or most often to the left.

On legit logos the palm leaf will come down between the letters R and A in the word "O P E R A T I O N".

Z

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

My understanding is that the backs with the bold "40th" are not legit....

This is a misperception. Cards printed on Sheet A* and B* will have a bold 40th Anniversary logo. Approx. 1 out of 3 DS cards will look like this.

When Topps switched to making DS cards some time during their 1991 print run, they switched to using a red ink that includes a brightener. This ink will flouresce under UV light and is a method for eliminating non-DS cards. Both cards printed with the bold red logo and the watermarked version (ie faint version on sheets C-F) will have flourescing logos. It has been discussed in previous posts that a significant majority (99.6%+) of DS cards were printed in this manner - so it is a good way to eliminate non-DS cards. To summarize, shine a black light on the reverse of the card. If the 40th Anniversary logo (bold or otherwise) doesn't flouresce - it is likely not a DS card.

I don't want to hijack the original thread. If anyone wants more info with pics and specific examples PM me and I can start a new thread with all the info., including other things I have learned since the original discussion.

Z

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

This is a misperception. Cards printed on Sheet A* and B* will have a bold 40th Anniversary logo. Approx. 1 out of 3 DS cards will look like this.

When Topps switched to making DS cards some time during their 1991 print run, they switched to using a red ink that includes a brightener. This ink will flouresce under UV light and is a method for eliminating non-DS cards. Both cards printed with the bold red logo and the watermarked version (ie faint version on sheets C-F) will have flourescing logos. It has been discussed in previous posts that a significant majority (99.6%+) of DS cards were printed in this manner - so it is a good way to eliminate non-DS cards. To summarize, shine a black light on the reverse of the card. If the 40th Anniversary logo (bold or otherwise) doesn't flouresce - it is likely not a DS card.

I don't want to hijack the original thread. If anyone wants more info with pics and specific examples PM me and I can start a new thread with all the info., including other things I have learned since the original discussion.

Z

That was indeed my misunderstanding stemming from that previous thread.

In looking through my part set of DS cards, my copies of cards originating on the A, B sheets, none appear to be legit(place holders for now), thus my mistaken interpretation of that previous thread. As I have not added any cards to my set since before that thread, my method for determining legitimacy has simply involved reviewing the logo on the card front and looking for the obvious characteristics of either a legit or non-legit card.

In years past I had purchased multiple lots/part sets of DS cards on ebay as the cards pictured in the scans all appeared to be legit. However, once I had the cards in hand, I found that typically between a third and 2/5ths of each lot contained non-legit cards. In most cases, it still worked out cheaper to buy the cards like this versus as singles based on the price I paid for the entire lot. However, receiving this high of a percent of fakes became frustrating and over the past few years I have only relied on buying cards in hand.

In regards to the Ortiz and Larkin cards pictured in the scan, the scan makes these two cards appear different from the other four cards depicted in regards to the "shininess" and the font of the logo's text. The Ortiz and Larkin both appear shinier and appear to have a more bloated font, both characteristics of non-legit DS cards.

As the DS cards from this thread were part of an estate sale, these cards complete 24 year history is unknown. It is possible that the previous owner attempted to supplement his/her original collection of legit cards by buying non-legit lots/groups or singles on ebay encountering the same percent of legit and fake cards I had in the past experienced.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by RobDerhak

Overall, the more bold back (i.e. Junior Ortiz) is on about 10-15% of the cards...most of them are muted

I don't know if these are legit or not but I do know the DS logo is different on the above pictured cards than the DS logo I have on my DS Wade Boggs card I got from a very reputable DS collector.

[RobDerhak]

I love how a thread centered on finding things like vintage Mantles, Koufax, Clemente, Aaron, et all for $5 EACH has turned into a discussion about 35 or so common DS cards that everyone is judging based on some med-res (at best) scans

Just to add to the furor, here is a blacklight shot.

[ALR-bishop]

"No idea if they are Desert Shield or just plain ol' '91 Topps...2 of the boxes are sealed, two are not. If anybody knows how to tell the difference, please inform me. I looked at Houdinis break, and the box seemed to be identical to the regular '91 release...any help on these is greatly appreciated"

Maybe this is what caused what you now consider a high jack