Ashamed - Topps T206 Buy Back Fraud

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Unlike Tiffany's, Coach, Michael Kors etc... Topps doesn't seem to give a crap about protecting their properties on ebay. there are literally THOUSANDS of counterfeit Topps cards being sold as reprints at the very least, many being represented as the real deal. If Topps would make a stink about this like the aforementioned companies it would clean up a LOT of crap very quickly. Try and list a counterfeit handbag and see how fast you get shut down.

Topps didn't lose anything in the process. Someone purchased a Topps Buyback card for the frame, pulled out what was in it, and put in a T206.

Oddly enough the OP (and who knows how many others) may have actually expanded the market. There is no difference to his cards when compared to the original inserts.

[mighty bombjack]

Man, this thread brings back memories. I have mentioned it in this board a few times before but will repeat it here:

I was Baseball Editor at Topps in 2001/2 and was the editor of the first two Topps206 products. For the first series in 2002, I had the pleasure of opening a package from Kit Young that contained around 250 original t206 cards (and a couple of t205s). My immediate job was to alphabetize them, and because my desk was covered in slides and crap, I went into an empty area of the office, an open carpet space where a couple of cubicles had been removed, and laid these out to sort by first letter of last name on front. Coincidentally, that was one of the few days that Cy Berger was on our floor (he was pretty much retired then and wasn't around Whitehall Street very much, at least not in our floor). But he walked by and saw me - a 27-year-old sitting on the floor sorting old cards - and he smiled form ear and ear and said something like "now that really takes me back." It was a pretty cool moment. But I digress.

I have frustratingly little information beyond the anecdote. I was not (and am not) anything close to knowlegable in t206 cards beyond being able to identify them (and separate out the couple of t205s mentioned above - which I believe got mixed back in by somebody later down the line who didn't know or possibly didn't care about the difference). I did know then about what is still my passion, which is HOFers, and I can tell you that there were not many. Honestly, I think there were no more than five. I vividly recall a Walter Johnson that the little devil and angel on my shoulder argued about for a while (the angel won - the card went into the product and not my pocket). But easily 95%+ of the cards I funneled into the product were no-name players (edited to add: no-names to me, I should say; there could well have been rarities in there, and I never even looked at the backs, a fact that I imagine kills many of you with your amazing passions for this set).

Topps definitely did not track these or keep a spread sheet (that would have been my domain and I was never tasked with it). Whether these cards were 'vetted' for things like cleaning and trimming would be a question for Kit Young (i honestly don't know, either about his reputation for that or for Topps' requirements for same). I can verify what is already known: pretty much every name on the spreadsheet Leon showed early in the thread was NOT put into the set by Topps, at least not into series 1. I think, but am not certain, that this shipment was the totality of cards put into series 1, and while I set the checklist and chose photos for series 2, I did no such sorting of purchased cards for that series or the subsequent series 3. I believe original tobacco cards were put into all three series, but at a significantly lower rate in series 2 & 3 than in 1, as my unreliable memory is telling me that 'buybacks' fell every four boxes or so for series 1, but more like every 10-12 boxes for series 2. Honestly, many others here know more about that than I do, as I was living in Europe by the time the second series came out.

So, I offer little concrete information. I myself owned one of these that I pulled from the box Topps gave me at release, a no-namer, which I sold on eBay maybe 6-7 years ago. I think it sucks what this guy did to a cool item, but little in this hobby surprises me anymore.

Feel free to ask me any questions, but I doubt I'll have satisfactory or concrete answers.

[Pat R]

All it takes is a little research to find the answer to some of the questions asked and debunk some of the statements being made.

He would be using the cheap autograph cards because the game used
have holes where the bat chip and uniform swatch are.
img337.jpg

These are a couple of his recent purchases.
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...p2047675.l2564
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2002-Topps-2...p2047675.l2557

Originally Posted by egbeachley

Topps didn't lose anything in the process. Someone purchased a Topps Buyback card for the frame, pulled out what was in it, and put in a T206.

Oddly enough the OP (and who knows how many others) may have actually expanded the market. There is no difference to his cards when compared to the original inserts.

There is a big difference to me and I'm sure any of the people who purchased
them from him.

Here's a view of the side of one inserted by Topps and one Larry inserted.
A Engle.jpg
A Larry's card.jpg

and I'm sure Topps didn't do this to any of their cards.
Willis(Throwing).jpg

I imagine Topps wouldn't be very happy if they saw this feedback either.
Brown, G. (Wash) Feedback - Copy.jpg

[Peter_Spaeth]

My mistake in earlier identifying a cheap game used card rather than an autograph card as the source of the frames for the frankencards. I did not appreciate the difference.

[mighty bombjack]

I forgot that the GU cards had that little hole allowing you to touch the material. Yes, it would seem he used autograph cards. I assumed that he somehow destroyed the original plastic cover and replaced it, but it makes sense that he removed and replaced the original.

[mighty bombjack]

Im not sure that Topps would care about the "trimmed" feedback, as they made no promises about condition, only that original cards were used. Kit Young would know more about that.