ohiotarheelfan

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Posted By: james verrill

This Ebay seller has listed a million things in the last 2 weeks. Initially, I thought they were all reprints. Most of them are. All of the auctions are private (naturally). The biggest suspicion I had was related to the fact that EVERYTHING this guy listed was super rare or valuable (all the T206s were Cobbs, all the Old Judge cards were HOFers, Plow Buy cards, etc.). But, a few have appeared authentic.

What's the deal on this? Is this a legitimate person that has been consigned a group of cards and he is simply listing them, truly unaware whether each is real or not? That would explain why some look real, some don't.

However, I have yet to bid on anything, even though the Wagner Cracker Jack, the Shoeless Joe M101, etc. all tempted me. The scans - of course - don't help me in determining "absolutely", one way or another.

I suppose a big hint is that each description says he can't really guaranty authenticity. Perhaps, then, we have a shrewd seller that is selling a group of fakes, but has thrown in a few low-end cards that are authentic to bait bids on all of his auctions?

The reason I raise this publicly is simple: I have nobody to email and ask, given the auction is private (no way to know WHO the bidders are). All I know is, ALOT of people are bidding, and I am skeptical, at best. But, in fairness - I raise the question for the board. Have any of you bid on any of these cards? If so, please come forward. Don't be shy.

There are several cards that are just horrible reprints (some of the white border cards). But, others that appear true to form.

These cards are selling - and for alot. Let's talk about this. At first, I thought it would be a few listings. But - this person has now listed over 50 auctions, so it leads me to look more seriously at this.

Comments??

JV

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Posted By: dan mckee

Jim, these are bogus reprints, please send me a link of one that you think may be real, thanks dan.

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Posted By: Bill Cornell

It's the Ohio Blight back again. This person keeps returning under new ID's after getting NARU'ed (most recently as us9922) and always with the same photocopied junk. Apparently, burying "reprint" in a description gets him off the hook now.

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Posted By: Ben

The guy still has 100% positive feedback. Man, these buyers really are stupid...can't tell a fake from a scan, still can tell a fake even when its in their hands.

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Posted By: leon

This guy is a major scammer. I have, today, reported him to ebay safe harbor. Not sure if it will do any good though. His new auctions, which are clearly fakes, give no mention of it. That is clearly illegal....regards all

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Posted By: Bob Lemke

As pointed out in another thread, many of this buy's cards come out of the 1970s-1980s Dover reprint books. Two of them are checklisted by individual card in the 2003 Standard Catalog and a total of five Dover books' contents will be checklisted in the 2004 catalog.

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Posted By: jay behrens

M101 Jax is clearly a fake. The space between the black line and edge of the picture is too large.

Jay

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Posted By: Hankron

For the record, I emailed the seller about the Plow Boy and 'she' (I think it's a he, as I think I know who it is), guaranteed the authenticity of the card. Naturally, I have kept the email on file.

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Posted By: Bob

I got this response from the seller about the M116 Wagner:

"I do believe the card to be authentic however I'm not a card grader so i won't guarantee anything and I always sell cards as-is with no returns. If
the card were graded it would bring thousands of dollars for sure so it will sell for much less ungraded (unauthenticated) I'm sure. Thank you for
looking and good luck."

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Posted By: Jim Rivera

...If you read all the feedbacks this person is refered to as " a man of his word" (on the purchase of an engine)and in another refered to as a " super nice girl and understood my situation"-This was a sale but to far back to see what.Man /woman? Also the purchases are auto related or shipping supplies for cards.I don't see any buying of cards.
The private auctions just started and some of the user ids look legit but I don't recognize any of them.
Does anybody recognize any of the user ids in the feedback section? Maybe we could find out something this way?
I looked at all the white borders and did not see anything real. All reprint.
Jim Rivera

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Posted By: Robert

Hi guys, I must agree with you most look like reprints. But this one looks so good I just don't know. Rob http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewItem&item=2738004575&indexURL=1&photoDisplayType=2

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Posted By: jay behrens

The bleeding of the lettering at the top of the card looks very uncharacteristic of cards from that era.

Jay

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Posted By: botn

No doubt that it looks the most authentic of those listed by this seller but I believe that this card too is a reprint of some sort.

Here is one that I know to be authentic and the scan is not altered.

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Posted By: dan mckee

Is this Cobb for sale Greg?

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Posted By: runscott

the images are printed on paper, then glued to some sort of thicker backing paper. When they attempted to "age" the card, using some sort of liquid, the layers separated a little, causing the ripples on the surface (they aren't creases).

One of the best ways to understand what these creeps do, and to better identify their garbage, is to attempt to make your own "replicas" as Garth Feldman likes to call them. You will end up seeing the same odd flaws that these things possess: clipped corners, odd coffee stains not characteristic of real caramel, paper separation rather than honest creasing, etc.

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Posted By: Paul

This guy is a real treat. Do a search for his M-101-4/5 Sporting News Joe Jackson cards. He has two. One of them he is "selling as a reprint." (Whatever that means. It either is a reprint or it's not -- this one is.) The other is not identified as a reprint. Look at the photos. The two cards are THE SAME CARD. Both have been aged nicely in his oven or through the use of dyes, and have exactly the same staining. Can't he at least print out two different copies to keep up appearances?

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Posted By: Adam J. Baxter

I've looked at this guy's auctions, and the CJ's are about as fake as fake can be. The glare for the glossy white border's almost blinded me at first glance.

The others like the 1940 Play Ball Jackson and the T227 cobb all have the same interesting wrinkles across the front, like they've all been exposed to the same moist substance. I think Scott's take on how these were made is right on the money.

Of course as everyone always says on this board, If it's a private auction.......watch out!

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Posted By: julie

....

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Posted By: Bob

is that if you try to be a good samaritan because you care about people in the hobby and the hobby in general and email the bidders a copy of this thread or a letter of caution, you'll get turned in to ebay for bidder interference or whatever they call it.
Sad....

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Posted By: Nick

if all the cards are fake or just some of them is:

What the hell is an "Ohio Tarheel"?

I have heard of the Tarheels from Carolina and the Buckeyes from Ohio but I have never heard of the Tarheels from Ohio?

Maybe that is the solution to this riddle. The Ohio Tarheels and this guys morals don't exist!

Nick

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Posted By: dan mckee

If you get turned in for bidder interference, there is a good chance that the bidder you wrote isn't legit but the seller himself! Follow that up with a shill complaint. Most legit bidders that just do not know any better will retract w/o telling the seller who alerted them.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Dan, that's exactly what I do. I've gotten notices twice from eBay for auction interference and followed both with complaints of shill bidding. You would think eBay would have enough common sense to figure this one out, but once again, it's all about the fees. They don't care who wins an auction as long they collect their fees.

Jay

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Posted By: B Kaz

As of 1:32PDT this jacka$$ ohiotarheelfan will no longer be accepting Paypal as a means for payment!!! ummm....mabye because it then makes it a a helluva lot tougher to get your money back after you have been scammed. I know I am more of a lurker, than a poster, but this just sicken's me, and I had to respond.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I noticed he finally wised up, in a scammer sense, and got rid of PayPal. This is definately a red flag that this seller is up to no good.

Jay

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Posted By: Marc S.

The 1914 Cracker Jack Cobb which looks glowing white on the front is already at over $1,500 in bids. The seller has already figured out how to circumvent the Paypal protection program by saying "I will NOT be accepting paypal any longer do to problems with them. I will accept money orders or personal checks which will be held for clearig before shipment. Please withdraw your bid if this is a problem and I am sorry."

What an ass -- but, then again, I sometimes do not feel too sorry for people willing to spend thousands of dollars on cards without educating themselves.

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Posted By: leon

I reported him/her a second time to ebay safe harbor even saying that I thought, since it was so rediculous even a lay person could see they were fakes AND NO MENTION of it in the description, that ebay could be legally liable. No response from ebay, as usual....that's some serious "caveat emptor" going on ....regards all

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Posted By: MW

Individuals who recently posted positive feedback after puchasing reprinted cards:

rossmilkman( 545) Jun-27-03 05:04:40 PDT (private) S
Praise : GREAT CARD. SMOOTH TRANSACTION. AAAAA+++++++

vale1tim( 28) Jun-26-03 18:42:12 PDT (private) S
Praise : great card, prompt delivery, recommend sellerAAAA

drbernabo( 905) Jun-26-03 12:48:11 PDT (private) S
Praise : Card arrived. Danke!

ezzellent@aol.com( 36) Jun-26-03 05:47:34 PDT (private) S
Praise : Thanks

washingtonsportsmemorabilia( 859) Jun-24-03 07:06:34 PDT (private) S
Praise : Good transaction. Good ite,. Good communications. Good seller

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Posted By: TBob

bid in an awful lot of auctions and NEVER have seen any of these user ids before...

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Posted By: david

ebay has always been able to circumvent liability by claiming they are only the middleman and not authenticators. however, what if ebay were made aware of fakes and still let the auctions procede. are they liabile then. what if the head graders from sgc or psa, whom ebay has strategic partnerships with, were to say that the cards are obvious fakes, would ebay pull the auctions then like they did for the ruth and anson autos that psa/dna did not give their approval to. it seems with the close connections that many board members have with grades from both psa and sgc that we might be able to get them to look over a few auctions, deem them obivious fakes and then foward that email to ebay's safe harbor. then if ebay still refuses to end the auctions one might have a case for a law suit against ebay for negligence and fraud.

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Posted By: Hankron

My feelings about fakes on eBay should be apparent-- but eBay's actions are understandable to a degree. Realize that there are probably 1,000s of different niches on eBay (Pre-WWI baseball cards, Pre-1950 U of Indiana memorabilia, comic charector's matchbooks, etc). Exemplified by this board, there are small groups of expert collectors who daily follow and scrutinize the niche. It would be largely impossible for eBay to police and have experts in each area. This is coupled with that eBay may feel itself liable if it is constantly tampering with auctions-- saying, "This may be fake, we should shut it down." Realize, that while people are angry about fakes, many sellers will readily sue if eBay starts tampering with auctions on a regular basis. I'm quite sure that most of us on this board, including myself, would not be happy if eBay started scrutinizing the text of our individual auctions.

My feeling is that eBay should 1) limit the use of private auctions by sellers an 2) give basic information to new users on safe/smart buying (which I think eBay already does to a limited degree). A buyer's knowledge is his responsibility, and eBay should point this out to all new users.

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Posted By: Hankron

I'm sure that when each of use looks back at our beginning days of collecting/buying, we see how little we knew ("I hope no one finds out I actually paid $100 for that"). When I was a kid I bought at a local show a 1957 Topps Mickey Mantle and didn't even give it a second thought that there was a large cigarette hole through his groin, and I'm sure I could have been duped into spending my allowance (all of $5, probably) on a T206 Wagner reprint. There's nothing wrong or should be embarassing with knowing nothing about a collecting area. Like the rest of us, the current Curator at the Louvre and world reknown painting expert at Christie's was not born with knowledge about art or collectables. There is no doubt that through their formative years, they asked the same stupid questions that we all have asked.

The problem is, and as expemplified on eBay, is that many collectors are both ingorant and ingorant to their ignorance-- so dumb that they don't even realize that're dumb. Many newbies very wrongly feel that they know all the essentials and, in the process, make some incredibly bad assumptions (PSA is good, thus PRO is good). In a year or two, they will realize how ignorant they currently are ('I can't belive I was that stupid')-- but the problem is that they are bidding right now.

What I tell beginners in any area is that, as a beginner, they are ignorant (I don't mean that in a demeaning way), and ALL beginners make mistakes. It's like death and taxes, beginning mistakes can't be avoided. Mistakes usually means paying too much, but also includes ignorance to grading and how it effects value and buying fakes. Being aware of this, the smart beginner will be more careful in her choices, do her homework ('Do your homework.' How many times do you hear that in all walks of life), and be more thrifty in her beginning choices of what to buy. Accidentally buying a $5 reprint is a good learning experience, while buying a $1,000 PRO Mint Michael Jordan is a disaster.

When beginners start out by realizing their ignorance and having a place(s) to turn to for questions (such as this board), they will likey make much better choices than if they assume the know it all and have nowhere to turn.

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Posted By: david

ebay apparently has no problem ending auctions since when an opinion by psa is given with a respect to an autograph they end it no questions asked. there is no reason why this same type of service can not be applied to cards

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Posted By: Hankron

Largely, it's beside the point to worry/argue about what eBay should do-- because, as history has shown, they ain't going to do it.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

between taking a shot at something very cheap that might be real and spending big bucks on something that clearly is not. Heck, I've purchased cards from time to time that were of unverifiable authenticity because they were from sellers who knew nothing about cards and were so cheap that I was willing to gamble. I just dropped $100 on a card lot that looked (from the unclear scan and poor description) like it included a very rare e78. I got the card and yes, indeed, it is a decent e78, and I am very happy. A few times I've been happily surprised; a few times the cards have ended up in the garbage. That's a far cry from buying expensive fake cards posted on ebay by someone who knows enough to differentiate between sets, etc., and isn't labeling them as fakes.