PBS Message: T206 Cobb Reprint

[iggyman]

Another day, another gazillion reprints on eBay. Sorry grandpa, your Cobb is a reprint, but on the bright side the rest of the cards are good.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-Piedmont-350...-/290529935191

Lovely Day...

[novakjr]

Isn't that the game? List a fake card with a few authentic commons, claim that they were all originally obtained together, and then hope people bid based on the fake card.

[jrb97]

I saw those on ebay too. I am new to T206 but I figure if it's too good to be true, it probably is. How could you tell the Cobb was a reprint and the others were not? The pictures of the cards are so poor. For a novice, it is hard to tell anything from them. The seller has them listed as original so would Ebay/Paypal back the buyer if in fact they are reprints? I guess the old saying applies - buyer beware.

[steve B]

The biggest thing is that there's no factory designation on the Cobb.

Aside from the story, there are a couple other things that stand out.
One is that the wear on the cobb looks unnatural. The corners are too even, not that corners don;t wear evenly, but ones worn that bad usually show more difference.

A smaller thing is that if it's an original group of cards the diffeence in wear is more than I'd expect to see. I've sen a few original finds, and while there are diferences in wear they're usually similar. I'd have no problem believing the 4 commons were found together. Some back damage on one, a crease on another, but the overall look of the cards are the same.

Steve B

[novakjr]

I don't know if it's just me, or what? But the Cobb appeared to have kind of a neonish look to it. Plus, you could almost see the writing on the Cobb perfectly in the picture, while the others you could barely see at all. Overall the Cobb just seemed to illuminate and display a lot differently than the other cards in the photograph.

Plus, the points that Steve made all point to reprint.

[dstraate]

And there's that whole "never make a big purchase without a big scan" thing.