Fake or real?

[swarmee]

Why is it strange? That a seller was duped by a fake Mantle and sold all three to you? That seems like it would happen pretty often.

[ASF123]

Yeah, I guess maybe I'm just being too suspicious in thinking that if one is fake, the seller is unscrupulous and the others must be too. It's tough diving back in to the hobby waters after so long, with so many good-intentioned warnings that fakes and trimmed cards are everywhere.

[hcv123]

68 sounds 100% fake. Definitely would make me uneasy about the other 2 from the same seller. That said - I am with the consensus that from the scans and your description there is nothing obviously fake about the other 2. That said - someone who in a best-case is inexperienced enough to miss the 68 as a fake could miss a number of other potential alterations (trimming, coloring, bleaching, etc) would concern me. In a worst case they knew the 68 was fake and was tried to either pay it forward or intentionally deceive. In all cases the cards you are talking about are relatively common - why not just send them all back, find new ones and rest easy at night.

[JollyElm]

What does the '68 Mantle measure side to side??

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

What does the '68 Mantle measure side to side??

It's only juuuuuust short of 2.5 in. - about 1/32 in.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by ASF123

It's only juuuuuust short of 2.5 in. - about 1/32 in.

Q.E.D., in my book.

Everyone jumped on that Mantle pretty quickly, because it just didn't look right. The other cards certainly seem to pass the visual 'smell test' (yes, that makes no sense at all), so hopefully they are okay.

[ASF123]

Is there any known method of counterfeiting that would reproduce the dot patterns that make up the photos of cards from this era so well that it's virtually indistinguishable (to the admittedly untrained eye) from a real card?

When I load a hi-res photo of the 68T Mantle into the photo viewing software on my laptop and zoom in, the lack of a dot pattern is obvious, showing a different printing method. For the other two, I can't spot any readily noticeable differences. The only thing that occurs to me is that on the 64T Kubek and Terry, there are no dots, just a blank white space, for portions of the uniform that are close to the camera and in the sun (i.e. super ultra white). The Mantle has the dot pattern across his whole uniform, but so does Clete Boyer, who is also posed a little further away from the camera.

[stlcardsfan]

Just today I thought I had a deal on this ‘65 Mantle. $100 on Craigslist. The pictures on the site and those texted to me had me hopeful, but after a 30 minute drive I knew it was a reprint the second I saw it in person.

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by hcv123

68 sounds 100% fake. Definitely would make me uneasy about the other 2 from the same seller. That said - I am with the consensus that from the scans and your description there is nothing obviously fake about the other 2. That said - someone who in a best-case is inexperienced enough to miss the 68 as a fake could miss a number of other potential alterations (trimming, coloring, bleaching, etc) would concern me. In a worst case they knew the 68 was fake and was tried to either pay it forward or intentionally deceive. In all cases the cards you are talking about are relatively common - why not just send them all back, find new ones and rest easy at night.

Well, the short answer is that I got them for a very good price - which, yes, I know, another flag. I basically made the deal figuring there was a chance there would be an issue and I'd have to return them, which is why I examined them thoroughly upon receipt. But I'm hesitant to let the ones that look good go without any concrete evidence that they're not legit (and in spite of apparently all concrete evidence that they are).

If they are trimmed, they must have been too big to begin with, because they're right on par with cards I've had since I was a kid both horizontally and vertically. I don't know the specific signs of coloring or bleaching, but I don't see anything suspicious on the surfaces even under a loupe.