I'm going to answer your questions, but I have one question for everyone on the board:
Have you ever unknowingly bought a counterfeit card?
I haven't unknowingly bought a counterfeit card, but I have submitted 2 cards for grading that were deemed counterfeit. One was flat out incorrect. The other should have been a "do not grade." The frustrating one is a 1945 Mexican League card of Pedrozo (Pedroso). It is 100% not a counterfeit, but that set is very low pop and some of the cards are larger than others, so my guess is that it landed on the desk of someone without the experience to authenticate it. I'll try it again someday.
As a FB admin of a group of 55k members, counterfeits do seem fairly rare--and fakes of vintage are mostly really obvious to anyone with basic knowledge.
Curious if a lot of fakes come in for grading, and if so, if they are the usual suspects: Mantles, Rose rookie, Ryan rookie, etc.
I bought a 1941 Play Ball Lefty Gomez on eBay one time. You couldn't tell it was counterfeit from the photos, but once I had it in-hand, I knew. I could tell from looking at the print dots and with a black light test. But the most amusing thing was that the card still smelled like the tea that was used to age it.
I haven't unknowingly bought a counterfeit card, but I have submitted 2 cards for grading that were deemed counterfeit. One was flat out incorrect. The other should have been a "do not grade." The frustrating one is a 1945 Mexican League card of Pedrozo (Pedroso). It is 100% not a counterfeit, but that set is very low pop and some of the cards are larger than others, so my guess is that it landed on the desk of someone without the experience to authenticate it. I'll try it again someday.
As a FB admin of a group of 55k members, counterfeits do seem fairly rare--and fakes of vintage are mostly really obvious to anyone with basic knowledge.
Curious if a lot of fakes come in for grading, and if so, if they are the usual suspects: Mantles, Rose rookie, Ryan rookie, etc.
That is frustrating. When we have a mystery card that our research team cannot identify, we will send the card back with a note saying "Not enough information." We hope that encourages submitters to continue their own research and share with us at a later date.
As far as counterfeit cards go, we see them nearly every day. I have seen counterfeit cards on a near-daily basis for over 20 years. I don't think the average collector knows how big of a problem altered and counterfeit cards are in the hobby.
The majority of fakes we see are your best known fakes such as the Fleer and Star Jordan RCS, Gretzky OPC RC, 1952 Topps Mantle and Tom Brady RCs. But it isn't just big-ticket iconic cards that are being faked. From pre-war to 2025, no card is safe from being counterfeited. I have seen $10 book value cards that were fake.
Another issue is fantasy, or Cinderella cards. These are cards that actually never existed. One example that comes to mind is the tobacco-sized card featuring Babe Ruth and the back carries an ad for a bar in Brooklyn. The funny thing is, even if you didn't know that this was never an authentic card, the font on the front and back of the card wasn't created until 1952!
I have unknowingly purchased two fakes. One was a Nolan Ryan rookie card purchased through an auction lot for all Nolan Ryan cards. It wasn't evident it was fake from the photos. Thankfully, I was able to return that card to the auction house (they weren't aware either; it was a consignment). They made me whole on the purchase, so no harm, no foul.
The other was an obscure vintage card that I didn't know was fake until I submitted it to PSA and they returned it with the dreaded "Do Not Holder ? Authenticity" label. That was also an auction purchase from the estate sale of a card shop whose owner passed away. The auction company didn't know and it was several months before I discovered it was fake, so that was a total loss.
You live and learn, and the counterfeit card that I purchased was a lesson I won't forget! 🙂
