More crap.....

[drc]

Also, if the seller is making them, this is forgery and against the law, plain and simple-- irrelevant to what weasel "I dunno I jus a lil kid" disclaimer used. You don't have to claim something is 100% authentic to go to prison for forgery-- you only have to make and sell a forgery and not make it crystal clear to the buyer that he is not purchasing an original. If you made a reprint, you have no legal option but to say as clear as day its a reprint at sale. Saying "it could be" or "or I think it might be" won't hack it, because you know it isn't.

[jcmtiger]

From ebay auction "I do not think the image is original and I believe it to be a reprint".

Seems clear to me that it is a reprint.

Joe

[drc]

If the seller made the items, the essential and telling question is "If you knew they were reprints, why did you not specifically tell this to the buyers?" The only honest answer is, because the seller was hoping the buyers would mistake them for originals and pay accordingly. As I said before, if you made the reprints you have no option but to specifically tell the buyers they are reprints. Saying "I think they likely are reprints but you judge for self before deciding home much to pay (fingers crossed)" isn't enough. Of course it's not as deceptive as saying "They are originals," but the law still considers it deception. And what is forgery? The making of a fake or reproduction with the intent or hope of fooling someone else into thinking it's genuine. So if you make a reprint with the hope that an eBayer mistakes it for genuine, you are a forger.

[ctownboy]

jcmtiger,

The problem isn't that the seller says he thinks the pictures are reprints, the problem is that the seller is probably MAKING these Franken cards himself!!

If that is the case, then he KNOWS these things are reprints, should be putting something on the picture which says reprint and should be making it CLEAR in the listing that these are reprints. That way, anybody who is shelling out money for these things will know what they are buying AND, more importantly, people in the future WONT be fooled thinking that these things are REAL and VALUABLE.

I know New Albany, Indiana. I have been antiquing there many times. It would be REAL EASY to buy a box of REAL cabinet cards (inexpensively), remove the REAL pictures from them and THEN surf the net, download pictures of REAL baseball cards (or Indians), resize the pictures so they will fit the dimensions of the cardboard cabinet backing and then glue the REPRODUCTION picture on.

Voila, A Newsboy actress card or a cabinet card of somebody's unknown relative becomes a "baseball player" or an "Indian". Then a $3 dollar cabinet card becomes a $30 dollar (or higher) "lotto" ticket that a buyer is hoping is real.

If the guy isn't getting these cabinet cards from antique stores on Market Street or Main Street in New Albany then Louisville, Kentucky is right across the bridge, so he can go over there and antique or go to Stewarts Flea Market.

As far as fraud goes, I REALLY hope somebody does go after him for that or gets him kicked off eBay for selling this junk.

[drc]

To Barry, visa vie emoticons, you can ignore typed emoticons if you wish. Believe me, your life isn't lacking if you can't read them. The animated ones are largely self explanatory, if similarly useless.

I'm an Oxford alum, and to me the funniest thing about Oxford University is they have written rules for emoticon use and the rules are taken seriously. I kid you not. If you want to know Oxford's official position on the smiley face, I can tell you.

[barrysloate]

Thanks David...and for the record it's vis-a-vis. You know how those spelling errors get to me.

[drc]

I spent times at two English institutions, and both times they tried to make me English. And they weren’t covert or subtle about it. The first time I thought it was interesting, the second time it bothered me. One thing I laugh about to this day is when I was told I had to write in English (as opposed to American).

The philosophy behind their rules is there were a lot of internationals involved at both places, and they wanted to have smooth communication between everyone. Like it or not, English English is the international standard, not the American version we speak. Oxford promotes the use of smiley faces, frown faces and such to prevent miscommunication between internationals, in particular when someone’s cracking a joke. So evidently, the smiley face is considered universal language.

[barrysloate]

David- I assume when you were in Oxford you went to Black's Bookstore?