Trinidad y Hno cards ......still fake???

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Posted By: fkw

I know this has been talked about last year....
But........I was wondering if any of you still think these cards are modern fakes? I have a few, and Im no print expert but how can these be reproduced from photos from a Cuban Winter League Yearbook like some (websites/old posts) have said?? I dont think they are even cut from the yearbook as the stock is a bit thicker and more of a card stock, and the back of the yearbook page would have had to have been blank to be able to make a fake from them.

I thought if a photo was reproduced there would be tiny dots in the white border area. These photos are extremely crisp and the print and photo quality is consistant with other similar cards of that era. How could they have been faked using the photos/caption from the yearbook and have such good quality??

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Whatsamattafayou? Didn't you watch HBO? Let PSA grade 'em.

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Posted By: fkw

Gilbert
Uh no....... I dont have or want HBO

These are newly discovered and uncataloged, so no one will obviously grade them, yet.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

The HBO stuff was intended as levity, but that didn't work. It seems that many of my jokes, only I get.

But regarding the cards, they are not real photos. Assuming this is correct, they are then either copied (printed) from real photos, or from an intermediate source.

From your statements, Frank, some contend that the primary source for these cards is a yearbook. Well the yearbook and your cards could have been printed from the same group of original photographs. I bet that someone expert in images could tell you whether the cards are a print from a photo, or a print from a print.

I guess that my thinking is that if the cards were printed from the yearbook, they could still be generated, however, if the cards were printed from original photos, they may not be available for reproduction, and therefore may be considered more legitimate.

But gee, if you can make passable duplications of money with a copy machine, what chance do post war cards have?

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Posted By: fkw

The question I mainly had was..... If you make a print (copy) of a printed photo (taken from the Cuban Winter League Yearbook like some have thought) then you will have dots in the white border area. Unless you just crop the photo area and then try to duplicate the original caption (like most T206 reprints do). But these cards are printed so crisp and clean I cant believe they are reproduced from a printed photo.

They just dont look like they are copies from a printed photo and Im sure are not copies complete with the original yearbook caption, as that would show dots under magnification in the white parts.

What Im saying is I think they are authentic (but what do I know)

Frank

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Well Frank, I guess that I know less than you do on this subject. Because I have no idea why you would get microscopic dots in the card's white areas upon reproduction. Visible dots or specks attributable to imperfections on the original, the duplication process inadequacies, etc. sure. But microscopic dots = I will listen and learn why.

Wait a minute. Checked some reprints. One that I looked at is not really a reprint. It is a 1977 Fritsch printing of a set called "One Year Winners" this set appears to be comprised of reproduced photos with a green border outside of a white border, then moving inward, the photo. There are multicolored microscopic dots all over the b/w photo section, the white border is pure white, the green border is pure green.

I have another Frisch set: '86 Negro League Baseball Stars. Also apparently reproduced photos, but with brown captions and lots of white areas. The white areas are solid white.

I do not know whether these borders and other areas are solid white because it is unprinted upon cardstock, or otherwise. But the front of the card has an even gloss.

Frank: if you can make sense out of this, please do so.

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Posted By: Rick (calleocho)

the seller is good ..but they could have been duped...who knows.

Cesar Lopez, one of the best cuban cards experts does not believe they are real...that to me is enough.

here is a 1926 real TyH courtesy of his website

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Posted By: edacra

my only concern with cuban cards is knowing cuban's still drive edsol's and use general electric refrigerators from the 50's. who's to say the plates for these things ever got destroyed in the first place?

i remember these coming up on ebay from a seller who has a lot of legit material (i believe) from the region. i'd think this stuff is too obscure in nature for anyone to bother reprinting.

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Posted By: fkw

There never were plates for these, they are a newly discovered issue (2005), and were said to be fake as soon as they were brought to light (the only reason given was because if no one has seen them in last 55 years then they have to be modern fakes). I have yet to see true evidence they are not authentic. Obviously they are rare, but if any of you collect Cuban cards you will know there has been a large group of them being sold one at a time for last couple months with no duplicates that I have seen, all by a very well known Cuban card seller.



Gilbert, Most reprints will not have the dots. Because when a reprint company or printer designs the reprint card (take a T206 reprint for example) they will use only the photo area then add a new (blank) white border and then have to match the original caption as close as they can get it. Thats why its easy to tell a reprint in most cases because the caption font is slightly different or the caption ink is a different color or the main photo has been cropped a bit (ie. missing the black line around the photo on the T206 reprints).

The only reprint that will have the dots is one where the printer reproduce the complete card with borders and all. From a distance these will be the best looking reprints because they are exact copies of the authentic card. But if you look close there will be dots where there shouldnt be dots, especially noticed in the white border area.

Pete Calderon has a great page that shows this and other great info on reprints
http://www.caramel-cards.com/e95reprint.html



My question about the Trinidad y Hno cards..... if they are reproduced from the photos (with captions) in the Cuban Yearbook, then how did they do this without getting the dots in border? I have yet to see the yearbook, but from what others have said the photos are exactly the same as the cards with the same exact caption (font and all).

Oh well, Im going to treat them as authentic until someone can explain how these were faked many years later using the exact same photos and caption as something printed 55 years ago.

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Posted By: edacra

I'm still not following how we know for sure that whatever printing method was used in Cuba isn't still available today. Unlike issues from the USA during the same period, it's very much within the relm of possibility that there is a printing press in Cuba using the original means to produce new product which would be of the same quality as the original - and for all intents and purposes, still original as a secondary printing. In that case, it wouldn't mean cutting or reprinting the yearbooks even if they are the original source of the cards. There are cases of this being done with enamel advertising signs - the printing is all original, just not vintage.

You're right though, the seller hasn't sold any duplicates, and appears to be breaking up one collection - which makes me think these are real. This could be a Rip Van Winkle situation.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Thats a good link, Frank. Thank you.

I have been to Pete's site many times, but I am always to busy to be smart enough to find the (not very) hidden gems.

So, what players do you have available from this group of cards?

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Posted By: Joann

OK. I will ask maybe a dumb question. I know that there are many American issues that we know nothing about - the various "anonymous" caramel issues for instance.

But is the fact that Cuba is closed to US part of the reason we don't know about some of these? I am also thinking about the "Cuban Polar Bear" brouhaha from several months ago, and the debate as to what they actually are.

Is the confusion natural because of Cuba's history and age of the cards, or do you think more would be known if people could travel more easily back and forth, and the entire country were more available?

Or does something like the Internet overcome the lack of physical contact with the people, the country, culture, etc.

Joann

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Posted By: Rick

Its not hard to go to Cuba ...you can just hop on a plane from canada, mexico and bam you are there.

Plus there are over half a million Cubans in the US ...

in the island they pretty much have access to the internet ( ebay sales ) etc.

There is a small but very passionatte amount of people who deal in baseball cards and memorabilia and are quite knowledgable about things like these.

that these cards were recently found and no one from that group knows how or where they came from its odd.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Frank: if I understand this correctly, your arguement is based on the assumption that the player's image and name was reproduced (printed) to generate the cards which you have. And that this assessment is based on the similarity of the fonts between the original (which you have never seen) and your cards.

It seems that based on the cited information, the images could have been reproduced with the text added later. If so, this approach would explain the absence of border dots.

Frank: it is not my intent to refute anything here. I simply find myself drawn into an investigation of the facts, in part because no one else was biting on your inquiry.

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Posted By: fkw

I kind of figured not many would post, because there is no real proof either way (yet).
(I know Im repeating myself here Oh well)
The first and only arguments I have heard/read on these cards not being legit was because they had never been seen before 2005, so some say they have to be modern fakes (a fantasy issue) made recently. At least 2 people have identified them as exact copies made from the photos in a early 1950's Cuban Winter League yearbook/program with the exact same caption font and all.

Your right, someone (recently) could have gone through the trouble of just cropping the photos and adding a new caption, then printing out dozens of different cards, then printing the "Trinidad y Hno" ad on the back, and then glueing them to an album page then removing them. But it would be tough to duplicate the exact font, exact placement of caption on every card etc. Why would someone do this, and have a bunch of noname $9 cards? If they were that good at it why not make Cabanas or Punch cards that are worth 10-100X more?? And why not print more than one of each player?? I have yet to see a duplicate..... I believe all the known cards are all from one "find", and all with similar album residue on the back.

To answer you earlier question, I only have 7, with the best one being Napoleon Reyes. I paid between $9-$25 ea.
Cant say they arent rare, so I like em anyhow, they sort of remind me of those 1921 Herpolsheimer cards, with the same sort of discovery and same "only one known of each player" thing.

The seller I have been buying these from, also had cards last year that had never been seen before, 1949/50 Ansco Film Habana players (19 uncataloged players, all newly discoved and each one a "one of a kind"), but no one doubted they were authentic. Ansco Film Habana cards

Trinidad y Hno did make premiums in the same era, so why not cards???

(1949/50)
cubanball.com Trinidad y Hno premium photo

(1948/49)
http://www.cubanball.com/Images/BBCards/MiscSets/TriniTeam/triniteam.html

Oh well..... I was thinking/hoping there would be more info on these cards by now. I know many have written off the Polar cards as fakes (because of the photo selection being American, and also because they had not been seen before)

Im not going to write on these anymore....... but if someone comes up with new info Id be happy to here about it.

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Posted By: Ryan Christoff

Frank,

I'll try to post further about these fakes if I have more time, but maybe this will help:



Left is from the yearbook/program.

Right is the fake card.

Notice the 2nd "A" in "COCAINA."

They did not type new text or need to find the correct font in order to reproduce these. They made them directly from the yearbook/programs. No doubt they used period paper and did a good job. But which image is clearer to you? Which text is darker? Which one looks original and which one looks copied, then dirtied up to look old?

Also, the premiums and booklets you mentioned are commonly seen and not new discoveries. Even the Ansco cards, which are NOT one-of-a-kind, were known about privately long before they became available publicly. If Trinidad y Hno had made cards like these, we'd already have seen them. They'd be common.

Isn't it also odd that they used images from nearly every yearbook? Clearly those images are great to make fake cards from, but you'd think a super-rare newly discovered issue would only have been issued in one year, but apparently it was made over several years, somehow distributed, and not really collected (with the exception of one tight-lipped hard-core collector who kept every example from every year and hung on to them as a collection) or even known about by any of the most advanced collectors in the hobby.

Oh, and while the seller is good and would probably not have been involved in the creation of these forgeries, I can tell you that he does get some of his material from someone involved in the perpetration of the "Polar" fraud.

I'm sure I'll get a ration of crap from the guys in Cuba again for pulling their covers, but fake garbage like this really drives me crazy.

I should probably be done posting about why certain Cuban cards are fake. Might as well let the wishful thinkers of the world collect fake cards if they want.

However, if someone ever contacts me privately and wants to know if I think a card or issue is real, I will still always respond with my opinion. Whatever that's worth.

-Ryan

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Posted By: fkw

Thanks Ryan thats what I was looking for.

That Garcia goes against my thought that if a card was reproduced from a picture it would have dots in the background. I am far from a print expert, thats why I was asking the questions in the first place. Thanks

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Posted By: Chad

My 2 cents: Be very wary of any new cards coming out of Cuba. At this point, the country has been scoured and as the supply dries up, it would appear the sellers there are looking to create a new supply. The funny thing is, the Polars and these "new" Trinidads are interesting to those of us who are junkies about Latin cards, but to a casual collector I don't see how they could hold much interest and so I don't think they would comand many dollars. Besides the Dandridge, there's a not an alluring card in the set. Even if the Trinidads or the Polars had been real, I still would be more interested in the sets like Victoria or Almanaque or Ansco or El Indio.

Also, I've bought from this seller and he's top notch, but he's not necessarily a baseball card expert. It always helps to be wary.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Over the weekend I was visiting with a boxing collector who asked me to look at a series of sets of cards he'd compiled. The set is known to have been reprinted at least twice. I was able to lay the cards down side by side and show him how the reprints can be distinguished from the genuine article. Sometimes that is what it takes. 1948 HOF exhibits, for example, are cards I will not buy on Ebay because the reprints are too good to be able to distinguish except in person. I also have a few of the scarce pose 1947-66 Exhibit reprints. Again, too good to distinguish except in person.