34 Goudey ???

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Posted By: Dan Paradis

I was looking through some cards for a friend of mine today. I found what I thought was a 7 or 8 Hank Greenberg RC. However, after looking it over I'm now thinking it might be a reprint. Can anyone tell me if the reprint set has the words "reprint" anywhere on the back? I compared it to some other 34 Goudey's we found and the edges look to white to me.

Here's a picture I took of the card (sorry for the poor quality I only had my camera with me, tomorrow I'll scan it).

Thanks.
Dan

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Dan, someone here certainly has an answer for you on whether or not the word 'reprint' is on the back; that being said, that card looks fake to me.

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Posted By: Matt

Someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a good differentiator between fake/real '34 Goudey's is to look on the bottom by where it says "Lou Says." If the white lettering is just the absence of ink, then it is real, however, if that white lettering is actually tiny dots then it's a reprint since they just reprinted the whole image onto the card face.

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Posted By: JimB

Looks too thin to me. Goudeys are on pretty thick cardboard - probably twice as thick as a Topps card. That could be one easy way to check.
JimB

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Posted By: Dan Paradis

Thanks for the quick reponses. I'll check out the card more thoroughly tomorrow. We did find so other stuff (CJ's including 1914 Matty & Mack), some real nice football and boxing stuff, some OJ's (including Mack) and so much stuff it will take me days to sift through it. We spent 7 hours today and only went through about 1/2 of his stuff.

Thanks again.

Dan

Here are some other pictures:

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Posted By: Matt

Great Stuff!!

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Posted By: cmoking

I agree with Jeff and Jim. The borders look really white and the card (although tough to tell from the pics) does look a bit thin. But the one thing that really strikes out at me is the large borders. From the scans alone, I wouldn't touch it.

Look at the back. If the back is as white as the borders on the front, then that's a dead giveaway IMO. Even if the card was bleached (to make the borders look so white), I think the back would still retain some of the cream-ish color. I'm no expert on fakes or alterations, just what seems to jump out at me after looking at a few Goudeys in the past.

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Posted By: dennis

easy to tell: hold the front of the card in front of a 60 watt light bulb , if it blocks the light it's real,if you can see thru the card and see the front, it's a rerint. by the pictures it looks like a reprint.

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Posted By: Jeremy W.

I remember reading somewhere that the little mugshot of Gehrig at the bottom should have blue ink between it & the border.

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Posted By: Dan Paradis

Thanks again everyone. I don't know how I am going to break it to him tomorrow! I did try to prepare him to the fact that the card might be fake, but because it didn't say reprint anywhere he didn't want to hear it.

Here's the card image from VCP. It does have the blue line under Gehrig. Oh well, hopefully we find some real cards tomorrow to make up for the loss.

Dan

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Posted By: dan mckee

Obvious reprint, how about a scan of the back?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Dan, get a black light. I think you'll see that 34 Greenberg fluoresce, it is not real.

That looks like a 33 Gehrig on that big shot of several cards on a table, the Gehrig card looks real.

Black light.

And what the others said about too thin, too white... I agree.

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Posted By: fkw

Havent read all the other posts yet so dont know whats all been said

Its a reprint.


On the 1934 cards..... The place I look is at the bottom border, its cropped. On the 1934 reprints they crop the photo area so the blue line below the small Gehrig portrait, and the bottom of the "y" in "Says" is cut off. On the authentic cards the blue line is thicker and the "y" is complete.





BTW the $$ is in the 1914 CJ Matty, nice find.

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Posted By: peter ullman

I don't get it...the greenberg is an obvious fake...shouldn't we be more excited about the cj matty?

pete in mn

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Posted By: dstudeba

Who cares about the Greenburg, what you need to check out is if the Cracker Jack Matty is good. There is a mix of reprints in there as a 1958 Hires Mickey Mantle doesn't exist.

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Posted By: Matt

I think, for many reasons, we've come to the conclusion that the Greenberg is a reprint. I'd like to see if we can establish a general set of guidelines for all '34 Goudeys:

The differentiator Frank suggested above, about the bottom of the blue area being cropped short, clearly is an indicator of a reproduction. Are there reproductions of '34 Goudeys where the blue extends the full length and therefore another "test" is needed?

What about the check for the absence of print on the bottom where it has"Lou Gehrig Says?" On Authentic cards that should be a lack of blue ink and be the same as the cardboard. On Authentics, is that printed in white on the cardboard?

Any other tips?

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Posted By: Bob Lemke

The Hires-looking Mantle card is a Baseball Cards Magazine "repli-card" created for insert into the October, 1988, issue.

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Posted By: Matt

bump to see if any of the '34 Goudey experts can add any other "rules" besides what Frank suggested above.

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Posted By: Dan Paradis

As I just mentioned in my other post, it was very obvious to tell the card was not real just holding it.

But these 3 things were definitely true:

1. White was way whiter than other 34 Goudey's
2. Blue line was missing under Gehrig's head
3. Card was way to thin

Thanks again everyone.

Dan

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Posted By: Matt

Many reprints have the blue line under Gehrig's head and a non-cropped 'Y.'

What else, when looking at front/back scans, can be used to determine if a '34 Goudey is authentic or a reprint?

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Posted By: Matt

3 of these 4 have cropped 'y's and little or no line under Gehrig's head...

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Posted By: Ken Wirt

Just noticed something. The little Lou Gehrig portrait apparently comes in two different versions. One is a bit more face on than the other. Wonder which is more common and why the difference?

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Posted By: Matt

Ken - you found the same card with two different versions of Gehrig's head?

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

Now if we can find the same card with the different Gehrig head variation? Then we have something here..

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Posted By: Ken W.

No. Sorry if that's what it sounded like. Different players. I only have two '34 Goudeys and both had the same Gehrig head. I had never noticed that there was another head before.