08-04-2019, 11:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-04-2019, 11:53 PM by KingCash335i.)
Question about counterfeits and grading
Question about counterfeits and grading
I apologize if I posted this in the wrong area of the forums.
Does anybody know if there is a place you can look to find information on every card, set, and the years as to how they were made, what to inspect, and better protect/educate yourself before purchasing? Such as years where a black light would work, tops of inks used, size and thickness of the cards.
I know they say get a feel for the cards using old commons. But is there anywhere where that info is listed? If the small amount of cards I purchased were counterfeit I want to learn from my mistakes and prevent it from happening again.
I purchased some cards on eBay in 2012. I then got busy with law school and they sat in my safe. I never took them out of the cases they came. My thought process was that I didn't want to damage them because they were older vintage cards. I finally took them out to put them in new penny sleeves and top holders. I've been debating on getting them graded. I also checked the serial numbers on some graded cards I had and they didn't show up in the system. The older cards also felt pretty thin. So I started to worry. If I plan on selling them down the road, I want to make sure that I know they're 100% real.
After taking them out of the cases I decided to google counterfeit search stuff to find out how to tell if cards are counterfeit. That led me down a 3 hour rabbit hole of reading articles and pages of random forum horror stories discussing counterfeits, compromised graded cards, etc. After that I decided to put my new knowledge to the test. Specifically searching the 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card. I spotted what I though was at least 3 counterfeits for sale on eBay that had people bidding on them. Another group of the Jordan's I saw seemed questionable with the scans randomly being blurry to prevent you from being able to tell from the pictures if it was a counterfeit. I'm not an expert on spotting fake Jordans. I only read an article that listed the common things you can spot on the fakes. So that is what I was using.
It's still super scary to think that there's so many counterfeits or scam artists out there.
Thanks for your help
Does anybody know if there is a place you can look to find information on every card, set, and the years as to how they were made, what to inspect, and better protect/educate yourself before purchasing? Such as years where a black light would work, tops of inks used, size and thickness of the cards.
I know they say get a feel for the cards using old commons. But is there anywhere where that info is listed? If the small amount of cards I purchased were counterfeit I want to learn from my mistakes and prevent it from happening again.
I purchased some cards on eBay in 2012. I then got busy with law school and they sat in my safe. I never took them out of the cases they came. My thought process was that I didn't want to damage them because they were older vintage cards. I finally took them out to put them in new penny sleeves and top holders. I've been debating on getting them graded. I also checked the serial numbers on some graded cards I had and they didn't show up in the system. The older cards also felt pretty thin. So I started to worry. If I plan on selling them down the road, I want to make sure that I know they're 100% real.
After taking them out of the cases I decided to google counterfeit search stuff to find out how to tell if cards are counterfeit. That led me down a 3 hour rabbit hole of reading articles and pages of random forum horror stories discussing counterfeits, compromised graded cards, etc. After that I decided to put my new knowledge to the test. Specifically searching the 1986-87 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie card. I spotted what I though was at least 3 counterfeits for sale on eBay that had people bidding on them. Another group of the Jordan's I saw seemed questionable with the scans randomly being blurry to prevent you from being able to tell from the pictures if it was a counterfeit. I'm not an expert on spotting fake Jordans. I only read an article that listed the common things you can spot on the fakes. So that is what I was using.
It's still super scary to think that there's so many counterfeits or scam artists out there.
Thanks for your help
