First Post...Estate Sale Haul Today

[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 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.