Most counterfitted pre-war cards?

[Archive]

Posted By: davidcycleback

Most popular pre-war cards have been faked at some time or other, if just on a home computer printer. There are more professional reprints of the Goudeys and T206s, so they have the volume. As noted, the Cracker Jacks are popular targets as well. The professional reprints of the T206s look significantly different than the real ones, so aren't hard to id. Many have too wide borders and others have different front text font. The reprint Goudeys are better, so can fool more in an online auction. If you're a newbie it's recommended you buy a 1933 Goudey Ruth either graded or from a reputable seller, as that's a popular card to reprint or fake.

As many homemade computer prints were handcut, they have funky edges that give it away, or at least makes it suspicious. A good looking Goudey Ruth may have odd, uneven edges, for example (and the seller doesn't say anything about it being trimmed). An N172 computer reprint may have a funky cut (and the seller say no refunds and his hampster needs a double bipass).

In person, if you collect an issue most to all reprints and counterfeits will be identified easily as the look different than your real cards. I was contacted by a woman who just started collecting cards, and asked me about one of her T206s that looked different than the other ones. I looked at it in person and it was a reprint. Here was a woman who was a newbie to cards, didn't know what she had, but saw that this T206 looked different than the others she had. The key was she had other T206s to compare to.

Collectors, even experienced ones, will have their troubles with cards they've not seen before. This is why they have their black lights, microscopes, dog sniffers ("Fetch the real Fro Joy, boy. Fetch!") and such.