Buyer Beware these auctions

[t206trader]

Originally Posted by yankees23

Curious how you were able to track down the real Rose? There is no barcode database with pics is there? Would be nice if there was...although that might lead to even more fraud

I just Cardtarget.com'ed 1964 Topps Pete Rose in PSA 9. It seems this seller typically uses past Memory Lane auctions so that was the first one I clicked on and Voila, fake confirmed.

[iwantitiwinit]

This is not going to end well. Thanks for the info.

[yankees23]

Originally Posted by t206trader

I just Cardtarget.com'ed 1964 Topps Pete Rose in PSA 9. It seems this seller typically uses past Memory Lane auctions so that was the first one I clicked on and Voila, fake confirmed.

Ah, that's what I figured. Scary

[ooo-ribay]

I'm new here....what now? Contact eBay? Or, as I suspect, could they not care less about this kind of fraud (as long as they get their cut)?

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

I'm new here....what now? Contact eBay? Or, as I suspect, could they not care less about this kind of fraud (as long as they get their cut)?

I have, but I have tried a lot with previous sellers to no avail. I hope they would take this one seriously because this could cost them a lot more money than make them.

[CW]

Thanks for starting this thread, Ed, and others for contributing! Thanks also to Chris for pointing this out to me. I was this close to buying his SGC 60 '52 Topps Mantle, which I believe is one of his legit cards, but too many red flags for me to go through with it.

[MattyC]

A 52 Mick in SGC 5 for 18k or best offer is obviously a scam. 5s in this market will command 20-30k if not more with eye appeal.

With that kind of inventory the seller wouldn't be having a desperate fire sale.

There are some things in life where "bargain steal deals" are just not possible. Premium, elite items like T206 Wagners and 52 Topps Mantles, for example. A new Ferrari. Everyone would love to have one on the cheap, but it just ain't gonna happen. Good scammers prey on guys looking for the sweet deal. But if one wants the real Rolex, they buy it at the Rolex store, or the like, not off a fold out table on Canal Street in Chinatown.

A motivated seller is one thing but no way a 5 goes that cheap. Too good to be true, which means it isn't true.

[novakjr]

Mostly from looking at the '52 Topps Mantle photos. I curious as to why it's the lone card where the photos are cropped, with the black border added.. If you save and blowup the back of the card, it's quite obvious that the photo's been cropped from somewhere, as a not so black sharp corner extends slightly past the rounded corner of the slab.

Looking back at his past auctions, he recently received positive feedback for the Gretzky. So that might be a good sign. Or it might just be something funny's going on. Look at the bid history on that one, it's crazy. Almost like they were setting up a few false sales on BIG ticket items, so that they could lure people into a sense of security on this next wave of auctions..

However, looking at that one, and even the other cards currently listed, there doesn't appear to be any photoshop done with the scans. Why the 52 Mantle? Could it be that he only had an image that was already cropped, and needed the black border so that it would match that scans in his other auctions? The Gibson does not appear to have been cropped and photoshopped, so again, why the Mantle?

None of this is fact. And for all we know, it could be legit. But based on what I saw in a coupla minutes of looking, I wouldn't feel comfortable bidding on these... Aside from the fact that I'm a cheap a$$, and these are WAY out of my price range..

[CW]

Originally Posted by MattyC

A 52 Mick in SGC 5 for 18k or best offer is obviously a scam. 5s in this market will command 20-30k if not more with eye appeal.

I don't think the 18K price is too far off (if it was a great deal, someone would have already hit the BIN). SGC 60s don't command the same premium as PSA 5s. In researching past prices on this card, it just doesn't seem like SGC gets as much respect in the postwar market as PSA (prewar being a different story). Centering and surface flaws seem to play a huge role in variations of pricing within a specific grade.

If this SGC 60 Mantle were a legit card in a good slab, the scuff on the surface and the l/r centering make this a sub-18K card, imo (my offer to this seller was under 16.5K, and he accepted it claiming it was the highest offer he received).

I do agree, though, that altogether it was too good to be true.

As Chris mentioned, the card in the SGC 60 auction is the exact same PSA 4 sold by Heritage a few years back. I actually thought the card was simply crossed over to a higher grade SGC slab, but after seeing comments in this thread I'm thinking it might be a photoshop job.

One other thing that looked very strange in the Mantle images is the frosting on the edges doesn't match when comparing front and back scans. Notice on the comparison of the Cobb slab how the frosting on the back mirrors what is on the front (the Cobb is in a known legit holder)