[keyser soze]

I foresee QR codes being on all baseball cards in the next 3 or 4 years. If Topps and other card companies utilize this technology intelligently, it will be a great way to fight fakes and forgeries. Topps should place them, at minimum, on all patch cards. When you scan the QR code through a smartphone app, it should bring up a picture of that exact card so you can prove what it looked like when it was packed out. If you run across a patch without a QR code on the back? You know it's a forgery. That would almost immediately shut down all of these fake patches that are showing up, as it's gotten to the point that I suspect ANY cool patch as being fake and won't buy it. It will be costly and time consuming for Topps, but is a must if they are serious about fighting on the side of collectors against forgeries.

Thoughts? Any other ideas as to how technology could be utilized in the future?

[Patrick_cpg]

I am all for this idea. Our society is built around technology, so there should be no reason this can and should be implemented in our hobby!

[uvaspina]

I think QR codes could be useful for many purposes, but I'm not sure it would prevent fraud. It seems that a baseball card forger would be able to replicate the QR code of the card he is forging.

If QR codes could help prevent forgery though, it would be another reason to add them to cards.

[keyser soze]

He could replicate it, but when scanned by the app, the original card's photo would appear and you'd know it was fake when the scan of the original card no longer matched what was in your hand

[rossmaute]

I think QR codes could be useful for many purposes, but I'm not sure it would prevent fraud. It seems that a baseball card forger would be able to replicate the QR code of the card he is forging.

If QR codes could help prevent forgery though, it would be another reason to add them to cards.

The idea is the QR code would show you an image of what the card looked like before it was packed up. That way, you can see if the card you have looks the same. If it looks different, that means the card has been monkeyed with.

[djohn]

Interesting thought, but I think that using QR codes wouldn't be worth it to card companies. They would have to store individual pictures of every card made and then create new QR codes for each and every card, not to mention printing the different QR codes on each card. It would be easier and essentially the same thing to just serial number the card and then have a database for customers to look up the card via serial number to see a picture. Even that though would be a huge undertaking for a card company to store all those pictures essentially forever (since if they only stored the images for a year or two, then after that time fakes could be made). Think about how many cards each company puts out every year and you will quickly realize the size of the database needed would be massive and the time to take pictures of every card could delay releases.
It seems like your concern is for cards where a forger takes the single color jersey out and puts in a nice multi-color patch. There are easier methods to prevent this, such as totally embedding the material (however then you wouldn't be able to physically touch it).

[uvaspina]

Would make sense, especially for unique patch cards (but likely not for other cards). Another thing to consider is that most of the materials for patch cards is readily available. Thus, if you were looking to forge a patch card that showed the edge of the MLB logo (or whatever) you'd just clip out the same portion of the MLB logo for your forged card. In any event, I think QR codes present a lot of possibilities to traders.

[jacobystealshome]

it would increase the cost of making the cards quite a bit. that would be passed on to the consumer

[iujapander]

Leaf provided pictures of the Ichiro patches before pack out. That would solve all of the problems without QR codes.

Topps would have to do this on a much larger scale, but wouldn't add as much cost as what you are suggesting and would be an excellent marketing piece. Imagine seeing all the patch cards possible, wouldn't that make you want to buy more boxes?

[0mattinglyalexander0]

Our society is built around technology,

Too bad it's not built around morality.